{"id":352,"date":"2016-05-12T12:34:00","date_gmt":"2016-05-12T12:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/2016\/05\/12\/morocco-2\/"},"modified":"2016-05-12T12:34:00","modified_gmt":"2016-05-12T12:34:00","slug":"morocco-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/2016\/05\/morocco-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Morocco"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/a><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nThe Bazaar<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n\u201cAbandon hope all
\nye who enter here.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
\n       Dante
\nAlighieri<\/div>\n
\n The Divine
\nComedy \u2013 The Inferno<\/div>\n
\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\nWe just ended a
\nperfectly wonderful vacation in Morocco. The weather was pleasantly
\nwarm and the people were fabulous hosts. If you have not traveled
\nthere, I would urge you to plan a trip soon. We stayed in riads
\n(guest houses, usually with 4-10 rooms with baths,food service and
\nmost western mod-coms,even wifi. English is no problem,nor,of course
\nis French or Arabic.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Riad in Marrakesh<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\nThe riads are
\nlocated in the \u201cold city\u201d part of town, called the Medina. The
\nMedina of each city is a miniature city in itself, walled from
\ninvaders or perhaps to keep the citizenry inside, the walls are
\nreminiscent of castle walls. Within the Medina there are shops for
\neverything necessary for daily life, as the inhabitants both live and
\nwork within these walls.  <\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n<\/a><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n<\/a><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nThe streets are not really streets, but a
\nseries of winding alleyways, often without names. They are often
\ntoo narrow for cars and transportation is walking, motorbikes and
\ncarts (pulled by donkeys or
\npeople).<\/span><\/div>\n
\n
<\/span><\/div>\n
\n<\/a><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/span><\/div>\n
\n
<\/span><\/div>\n
\n Of course it it very easy to get lost, especially at night,
\nwith no street lights and everything looking the same. But there are
\ntwo types of \u201clost\u201d in the Medina. The second is the area of the
\nbazaar, the market , the souks.<\/span><\/div>\n
\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\nEvery tourist guide
\nbook will have pages about the market sellers. Some areas are shops
\nwhere the bargaining is civil (and somewhat limited, although one
\nshould always try for the best price). Other areas are stalls where
\nthe seller sits outside and tries to entice you to buy. The amount
\nof merchandise is staggering. Hundreds of thousands of key chains,
\nscarfs, tee shirts, jewelry. <\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/a><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/a><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n Early in the day one can see throngs of
\ntourists energetically pushing their way through large numbers of
\nother tourists (just in case there would be some shortage of goods to
\nbuy).
\nThey are sheep going to slaughter. They are accosted
\nimmediately by the sellers.<\/div>\n
\nThe words \u201cjust
\nlooking, not right now, I’ll be back\u201d or just plain \u201cNO\u201d are
\nignored. Having read their guide books, tourists know about the
\nbargain process. Believe me, they know nothing of what is to come.
\nBy midday the energetic shoppers have slowed their pace, their eyes
\nhave a glazed look. The crowds, the noise, the heat are taking their
\ntoll. By early afternoon they are \u201clost\u201d. They wander along loaded
\nwith large plastic bags filled with their treasures. It is not until
\nthey pack their bags for home that they realize exactly what has
\nhappened.<\/div>\n
\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\nDo you avoid this
\nexperience? Never!!! It is part of a lifestyle different from our
\nusual trip to the mall.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nThis is the stuff
\nthat makes the tales of our trips interesting. But remember this is
\nthe livelihood of the vendors. This is how they feed their families.
\n No matter how strongly they push, be polite. Just walk away if you
\nare not interested. Also be aware that using a credit card for small
\npurchases decreases the money available to the vendor. In fact, many
\nsmall merchants hesitate to accept plastic at all.<\/div>\n
\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\nIn the coming weeks
\nI will share my other experiences, including the master of all
\nsellers: The Carpet Seller.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Bazaar \u201cAbandon hope all ye who enter here.\u201d        Dante Alighieri The Divine Comedy \u2013 The Inferno We just ended a perfectly wonderful vacation in Morocco. The weather was pleasantly warm and the people were fabulous hosts. If you have not traveled there, I would urge you to plan a trip soon….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}