Reading Time: 10 minutes

We pick up this journal entry on Monday this week.  Today started with our journey out to the Musee de la palmeraie, which is a modern art museum of Moroccan artists about four miles east of the center of Marrakesh.  It is referenced as palmeraie because it is located in the palmeraie, which is an area with abundant palm trees.  The journey was not as easy as it should have been because we had a hard time finding anybody who spoke English and bus 261 is what Googlemaps and also what the bus company’s website indicated we needed to take.  Two bus 261 drivers would not take our money and I was pretty sure the driver of the second one told us we needed bus 17.  He was right and we took that one out to the museum.  We never figured out the problem, but I think it may have been related to 261 being used more as a school bus because the passengers were mostly school-aged.  By the way, of all the buses we have been on, I have not seen a single person other than us who I would guess is not local.

This museum was eerily quiet at first – other than the guy who took our money to visit and a couple of workers at the property, we were the only people.  Quickly, the eerie quiet turned to luxurious quiet.  It was so nice having it to ourselves.  Three other visitors did arrive while we were there.  The first part of the museum was observing quite a few interesting paintings and then we went out into the courtyard and enjoyed the gardens.  Among Sandy’s least-favorite animals is the frog because she is afraid they will jump on her and there were plenty of them in the gardens.  She may be coming around – she has started to enjoy hearing them chat with each other and sun themselves on lily pads and on the walls by the garden pools.  And none of them jumped on her.

There is also a beautiful cactus garden at this museum. This place seemed like a hidden treasure to me and I guess it is because it is not conveniently located in the center of town – excellent couple of hours for us.

No problem getting the bus back into town and we found lunch at Queen Atlantic.  This was perfect because we weren’t sure what we wanted to eat and they had a very nice buffet available.  The theme of the restaurant was based on a cruise ship based in New York and we’d happily go back for lunch or dinner again.  Nice buffet, friendly service, and a fun atmosphere.  From lunch, we stopped at the grocery store on the way home to grab some sliced chicken and sliced cheese – we wanted a simple dinner and so we had chicken and cheese sandwiches.  We’d usually do sliced turkey but we could only find smoked turkey so the sliced chicken was fine.

Tuesday was an excursion day for us.  We had a 9:15am pickup time scheduled and I wanted to watch the Lightning game from last night before we left so I was up at 5am.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t very rewarding as the Lightning were eliminated from this year’s playoffs.  Our driver was right on time and we spent the next hour riding around Marrakesh to pick up others on our tour and around 10:15, we headed out of town toward Setti Fatma, which means seven falls.  It’s a series of seven waterfalls in the mountains just south of Marrakesh.  On the way to the falls, the tour made two stops – one at a pottery maker and one at an argan oil center.  They were both interesting.  They are what you would expect in terms of tourist-type trips where they want you to buy products but there is no pressure.  The demonstrations at each were fine.  Of note, argan oil is from this part of Morocco (and also from the Essaouira area) so we have found that everywhere we have been so far.

Upon arrival at Setti Fatma, we met our guide, Hajim.  We were a group of six and he led us at a nice pace up the paths toward the lower falls.  Lots of shops and restaurants along the way and we arrived at the lower falls about 25 minutes after we started up the path.  We saw the natural refrigerators that the locals made by running hoses capturing the mountain snow runoff.  The piping system reminded us of maple syrup farms in Vermont. It was also a very busy walk – tomorrow is Labor Day in Morocco and many citizens from around the country come to this area as they have time off from work this week.  We enjoyed seeing these lower falls and Hajim then took us another five minutes up so that we could see the second falls.  We had beautiful views across the valley from this extended walk and then we headed down.  You can go another hour or so up, but he said the higher falls are not quite as impressive.  Sandy is not a fan of heights at all and in the past, these kinds of trails can paralyze her.  She did amazing today.  At one point, Hajim went back to help her but I don’t think she even needed that.  She was conquering her fears step by step.

My favorite part of the village of Setti Fatma is the cafes that line the river.  There are a lot of them and they are all almost identical in terms of their position along the river and their menu.  Hajim took us to one of them and we enjoyed vegetable soup, veggie couscous, mixed skewers (different types of meat that we don’t know but they taste like chicken, beef, and some kind of sausage – everything tastes great), and chocolate mousse for dessert.  We were treated to a couple of Barbary apes across the river from our table – they were fun to watch as they seemed like they were strategizing how to get some food from the tables on their side of the river but they were not successful.

After lunch, we were back to the van with our driver, Jamal and our two-hour ride back to the apartment after delivering our touring partners.  I finished the book, The Sheltering Sky yesterday so we started the movie this evening.  The second half of the book was quite different from the first.  Very interesting read.  One of the statements from the book was when a main character expresses the difference between a tourist and a traveler.  A tourist is thinking about returning home almost the moment they arrive in a place and a traveler isn’t.  I like that because it felt accurate.  I think we have loved the opportunity to be tourists in so many places since we came together and now that we don’t have a home to return to, it certainly feels different when you arrive in a new place.

Wednesday was basically an at-home day.  The first of the month always has all kinds of tactical things to do related to tracking our budget and prepping for the next month’s expenses, general bill paying; we usually get our pictures and laptops backed up at this time – it’s just all the same kinds of things we need to do whether we are living as travelers or living in Sarasota. 

We did venture over to Café Zedd (five-minute walk) for dinner.  Sandy had an omelet and I had eggs benedict.  Both excellent meals – if we had been here earlier on our time in Marrakesh, I am pretty sure I’d have had more eggs benedict.  We finished Sheltering Sky tonight.

Thursday was another excursion – this time to Ouzoud Falls.  At around 400-feet, these are the second highest falls in Africa behind Victoria Falls.  We were picked up at 7:45am and did the ride around Marrakesh to get the rest of our group, leaving the city around 8:30am.  Our group this time was around 20 people.  We passed lots of shepherds at the side of the road herding their sheep.  We had one 20-minute stop on the way to Ouzoud Falls and upon arrival around 11:30am, we met our guide, Samir.  He was fluent in Berber, Arabic, French, Spanish, and English and he could switch from one to the other and talk at a very fast pace in all of them.  I was impressed.  He was a lot of fun.

We walked for about 30-minutes down to the place where you see the falls and they are absolutely stunning.  The pools where they empty offer the chance to take a short boat ride right up to the falls and yes, you get a little wet but it’s fine.

Lunch was on the terrace of one of the many cafes that overlook the falls.  This time, Sandy had veggie tajine and I had chicken skewers.  We had small salads, bread, mint tea, sliced oranges – it was all great – priced higher than we find in the city but the view more than makes up for it.

After lunch, we started the walk back up toward the top.  On the way, we stopped close to the falls and had a good view of the rainbow created by the falls and also a nice view looking out over the area. 

We then stopped by the area where the Barbary apes hang out and enjoy all of the people feeding them.  You can have them hop up on your shoulder.  Some in our group did that – we did not.  I don’t know if that was a missed opportunity or not. They were fun to watch.

After the walk back to the top, we hopped back in the van and we were back at our apartment around 7:30pm.  We grabbed spaghetti for dinner at the café downstairs called Delices Foutkous and wrapped up for the day.

Friday was relatively quiet.  We went back to Fitlife for our workouts.  They have a stairmaster that is identical to the machine I used to use at my home gym, so I did that for cardio.  That’s the hardest workout I do and it kicked my butt.  Sandy did her usual extensive weights workout and a little cardio before we finished up.  We’ll miss this friendly gym.

We had salad in the apartment for lunch and then spent the afternoon doing some research on one of the activities we want to do before we leave the central part of Morocco.  That will hopefully be a trek in the desert with camels.  More to come once we get that figured out.  Sandy had a lovely chat catching up with a dear friend.  Dinner was chicken biryani at an Indian restaurant we’ve been saying we wanted to eat at pretty much since our first night here.  It was great.  The traffic circle near our apartment provides us with free entertainment.  Friday nights are one of the best times to spectate.  We watched a woman, who was stopped by a policeman on foot.  She had gone through the red light and he waved her to the side of the street.  It seemed like he was giving her a lesson on driving, as well as giving her a ticket.   

And now we arrive at today.  Food was a big highlight today and our return to Jardin Majorelle, which is located near the Musee Yves Saint Laurent that we visited last weekend.  We started the day with a complete breakfast at La Marlette.  We had a huge variety of breakfast items that, including tip, went for the equivalent of $8 each.  Sandy is demonstrating our happiness.

We then walked to the gardens and got in line at 10:45am.  Our tickets were for 11am entry and we entered the gardens at 11:15am.  They were definitely worth returning to and taking in slowly.  These gardens were in deteriorating condition and about to be demolished when Yves Saint Laurent and his partner, Pierre Berge, bought them and had them restored and opened to the public.  They also moved into the home that is on site and had an area of the gardens that was their private oasis.  Today, the oasis is opened certain days of the week and between it and the rest of the gardens, it is a lovely way to spend a couple of hours.  There is also a small, but well done, Berber museum in the gardens.  One of our favorite places.  Sandy said that if she were a bird, this is where she would choose to live in Marrakesh.

After the Jardin Majorelle, we walked over to the CyberPark.  This is a park we went past our first day in town and wanted to come back to see.  It was ok.  Lots of tree species from all over Africa, but not a lot of benches to sit in the shade and enjoy the park.  There is a section of the park that includes a telecommunications museum and offers wifi sponsored by Telefon Maroc and I guess that is where the name CyberPark comes in.  There were several students studying so it was good to see the park providing value.

On our walk back to the apartment, we came across a serious domestic dispute in a gas station parking lot.  A woman was yelling as loud as she could and hitting a man as hard as she could.  We could not figure out what was happening and a crowd was gathering.  Of course it was all in Arabic.  We thought maybe he had stolen something from her.  Eventually the police came and Sandy learned from one of the bystanders that they are husband and wife and this happens regularly.  We think he means it happens regularly with these two individuals since we have not seen anything at all like this on our four weeks in Morocco. Once things settled down, we continued our walk home.

For dinner, Sandy found MyKechmara.  This is a rooftop restaurant about 20 minutes walking from the apartment.  We both had beer on our mind and they had our go-to, which is Flag Speciale.  We both ordered burgers and they were awesome.  The server dropped mine as he was serving it and felt terrible but they quickly had another one out and it was just a perfect meal.  Two perfect meals and a wonderful visit to the gardens.  Not a bad Saturday.  We wrapped up the day watching a little more American Idol.  We’re still way behind.