Day 3 - More Marrakech

Jonathan and I came up with a nice little plan for this day that worked out pretty well, although we ended up having to cut a couple of things out in order to make our train to Fes that evening.

1) We took a taxi to the Medersa Ben Youssef which is in the old part of town which is pedestrian only. So, our taxi driver dropped us off, and was like, "Go straight, then turn left. You can't miss it." Right. So, some dude started talking to us and told us he would take us to the medersa, so we followed him a bit. His route seemed circuitous, though, so Jon pulled out a map, and the guy got kind of offended that we didn't trust him. He did eventually lead us to the right place, and Jonathan tipped him with a baseball cap. Best. Idea. Ever.

The medersa is a school for studying the Quran. Kind of like a seminary, I guess. It's really just made up of one big central courtyard with some rooms surrounding, and then there's a dormitory area for the students. They advertised that there was a museum there, so we wandered around until we saw two rooms set up as though students were living there. One of the rooms was the "Rural Student's Room" and the other one was the "Urban Student's Room." They both had little desks on the floor and some teapots and stuff. The main difference was that they had different teapots. And that was the whole museum. As Ali would say, "Pretty underwhelming." But, the building was still beautiful, and we had a lot of fun waving at each other from the courtyard windows.

2) Next we went to some other museum with this giant copper lamp. It was just a few buildings down from the medersa. It had some art and ceramics and stuff, and it was included in the ticket price of the medersa.

3) From there, we went to this domed building that is one of the few remaining examples of Almoravid architecture. The Almoravids were one of the ruling dynasties in the 11th-12th centuries in Morocco. When we went down into the building, we discovered that it is actually an ancient latrine. Very nice!

4) To get home, we wandered back to the Djemaa el Fna through the souqs. The souqs are like a giant marketplace where vendors sell anything and everything. The best thing about them, though, is they are covered! Precious shade!

5) After lunch back at our riad, we went out to the Saadian tombs. These are tombs from the 16th century of one of the ruling families in Marrakech. When the sultan died, his successor had the tombs covered over, and they weren't discovered again until 1917. So, they are in fabulous condition since they were undisturbed for so long. They're very small, but very beautiful.

6) Finally, we went to the Bahia Palace which is an 18-19th century palace. I loved this place. It was humongous and gorgeous and there were orange trees and fountains everywhere. I could totally live there. The story goes that the guy who built it was such a jerk that the minute he died, his family swooped in and cleaned the place out. So, there's no furniture left or anything, but it's still lovely.

Our second day in Marrakech was much better than the first! We ended it by eating KFC in the train station before taking the 7 hour train ride to Fes. Ali bought this hat from an old man on the street and Tasneem was mortified by it. I think it's hilarious.