Marrakech is a beautiful city full of culture, sights, sounds, smells (good, bad, and I don’t even want to know), along with its fair share of craziness. While the hotels, restaurants, Mosques, palaces, and gardens can appear to be peaceful, it is a total opposite when you come to the market places and public squares.
Hopefully this guide can help you survive some of the craziness associated with a visit to the market places. The souk near Medina is the big daddy of all souks there and features the good, the bad, and the crazy.
I ended up visiting the souk 4 times in my 5 day stay. Twice alone with some knowledge of Arabic, 2nd trip with a mate, and the final trip featured 3 of us with one of our guys fluent in French.
Now the first thing you need to know about any souk, this is not a hustle free zone and every action taken by you in a souk will generate a reaction by the locals. The sights are good but there will be crowds and people trying to hustle you for money or to buy something.
Survival tips or How to Hustle the Hustle:
1A. Shopping: You will need good bargaining skills, whatever they offer as a price drop it down by 50% and then negotiate. You might agree on something that works out to be a 20-40% discount. Be prepared to walk away if negotiations are slow. Have an idea and plan of what you need before going into the souk as this is not a place to browse and make up your mind.
1B. Quality of Shopping Products: Back to the whole purpose of shopping in the first place. What is good in Marrakech souks are cashmere Scarfs, leather bags, Decorative Pieces (Lanterns, teapots etc.), Tagines (Great to cook in but heavy as hell so only if you can be bothered), Ottoman hats are great souvenir gifts, and Spices. So do yourself a favor and check the prices online first before going out there. Good information helps for better negotiations. For example a good cashmere scarf will be sold at 1200 Dirhams as the seller introductory price, make an offer of 100 Dirhams and work your way up by 50 to a maximum of 200 Dirhams in your 3rd offer. The price will reduce after each offer.
2. Navigation: This place is a maze and therefore download the map to your iphone or android device. Enable GPS so you know your location on this map. Set an insertion and extraction point if going in separate groups. Never pull a paper map out as that is setting you up as a target for hustlers. (worst case scenario: if lost, tired, frustrated, battery low, map on phone has failed to load, and want to find your way out, find a bazaar staff member and negotiate a price with him, usually 50-100 dirham for a guided path to the taxi stand or main square.)
3. Food: The food market looks great and smells great, the slow cooked lamb dish is a must :) The orange juice for 4 dirham is great as well. Skip the salad and focus on cooked food.
4. Chill Zones from the insanity: There are many roof top bars that can provide an escape from the chaos. (Le Salama is one of the great restaurants I can recommend in the Medina )
5. Attitude: Being polite here works with some people so first approach is be polite. Words like (La_Shukran, Non merci) should do the trick. Next level is the tough look into the eyes and say (Bas/khalas, assez, s'en aller), followed by Ma Salam ,au revoir). The above in Arabic and French should save you. Words are (No thanks, enough/finished/go away, goodbye). All goes south then just switch on your “Samuel Jackson mode”, especially if someone pops a snake around your neck.
6. Warnings: If you fear snakes then once you hear the snake songs with flutes etc. You are in the snake zone. This is usually in the main square where the food stalls are. Monkeys are here as well. The trick they use here is a snake around the neck and then ask for money to take it off and you might get a photo with it or selfie if you are comfortable around it. Some snakes have the mouths glued together rather than have the venom removed. So say NO if uncertain at any times.
7. Theft: Not an issue as the Marrakech people police theft themselves. We saw a crowd going all crazy on a man who allegedly grabbed a ladies bag. The screaming lady attracted a mob of 40-70 who chased him down, retrieved the handbag, and unleashed a few shirt grabs, slaps and all kinds of curse words in a hectic few minutes. The police got to rescue him quite quick before the mob went all justice league on him further.
Conclusion: :Is it worth the trip into the souk? , yes if you can handle the hustlers and hustle them yourself to find good deals. If the above scenarios scare you then stay in the main square instead of heading into the deep with the narrow streets etc. A guide may be useful if you want to go deep into the maze. For the food and atmosphere alone the main square delivers the experience, going deeper into the streets is fun but stay focused and unleash the inner hustler within.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please feel free to ask any further questions :)