This morning was our last day on the bus – moving from Essaouira to our final destination: Marrakesh. We stopped on the edge of the city at Saaid’s apartment, his wife & baby came down to greet us and gave us some freshly baked chocolate muffins! She was sorry she couldn’t invite us in for tea but tomorrow is Ramadan so she and her friends were busy baking for the upcoming month. During Ramadan observant Muslims don’t eat or drink from basically sunrise to sunset so many families try to do as much shopping and preparation in advance.

We checked into our hotel, then back in the bus to the Medina for lunch and to meet our local guide. He was very nice but very monotone so combined with the 87° heat, we all had a hard time paying attention. He took us by a 12th C. mosque turned mausoleum, thru the Jewish Quarter, into the Bahia Palace, then delved into the Souk.

The Souk was chaotic – motorbikes, oblivious tourists, frustrated locals, construction works, eager shopkeepers, touts and potential pickpockets.

We insisted on an ice cream pick-me-up (delicious) before he took us to the spice store he wanted us to see. Unlike the Medina in Fés, which was organized by product, all the spices in one section, copperware in another, this was a mishmash of everything being sold beside anything, no order at all. And mostly tourist souvenirs too. We saw few locals shopping. Anyway, the spice store was all by itself, wedged between a shoe shop and a kitchen spoon store – we all refused to sit thru a 30 minute presentation (we were 3 hours into the tour at this point) so we just waited while Karen ran in to buy her one spice and then the guide brought us back out into the square.

The main square of the Medina, Djemaa el Fna Square, is one huge open air restaurant with various booths selling freshly cooked food to order, fresh juices, alongside snake charmers, Berber storytellers, and knickknack vendors. Saaid took a few of us to a rooftop bar to enjoy the sunset, before leading us safely out of the square and into taxis for our ride ‘home’.