A Little Blonde Fish in a Sea of Humans

Then you blow your nose and your snot is black its a good sign the air quality is sub-par. After nearly dying trying to run around the walls of the Medina, I found myself coughing violently between hits of my inhaler in a near panic attack just trying to breathe. All I can think about is that is it time to go. 

I have one last task for my time in Marrakech. This is to see the city by night because apparently it “comes alive”. Well, that is one way of putting it. The entire Medina was worse than the London Underground during rush hour, ON the train. There I was smashed between people moving at a crawl while the man next to me weirdly rubbed his hand on my thigh. Picture my impressed face. Desperate to escape the man I found myself behind a woman with someone actually pressed up against my back. I didn’t even want to know, so I didn’t look to see if it was a man or woman, I desperately searched the sea of humans for any gap of space. To my dismay there wasn’t one to be found. It took nearly 30 minutes to go the 500 metres to the square (thanks to google maps I new how much further I would have to just be a little blonde fish in a sea of fabric and men. 

The square was something else. During the day there is a whole area of red ground with power spots built into the ground but nothing other then some ladies doing henna, by night there are restaurants. Set up sometime in the early evening transforming the square into a smoke filled yet enchanting scene. 

With piles of fresh produce and seafood near the chef, a man greets you first in French, then English then Spanish, his job is to convince you to eat at his stand. “Special deal just for you my beautiful blonde friend because I like you very much” “You look too skinny you need to eat here ma’am, always sporting you are, slow down have some food” “Please ma’am why do you not want eat here” - the last one was a pizza place so I responded with, because I’m deathly allergic to gluten, but thank you for the offer sir. Now normally I’m such a foodie I would be all over that, but the lack of running water, general hygiene & alcohol (which I like to think would kill the bad bugs in my tummy) screamed no at me. I see tourists “washing” their hands in these buckets of stagnant water, there is no soap, then proceeding to eat with their hands. Just the thought of it made my stomach roll. There is no way my precious Canadian stomach would survive that. The bathroom facilities at my hostel were not nice enough to chance being sick. If I had a private bathroom I may have considered it.

After two hours in the Medina by night my screaming headache from the pollution forced me to return to my hostel, it’s not like one is going to tie one on drinking mint tea…