Today was our first real day in Marrakesh and we were eager to get out an explore!

First though, we were treat to breakfast at out riad which was amazing. All set out for us by the pool was a three course " moroccen" breaky!

It was actually really nice, because of the French influence in Morocco, it was basically a whole lot of really nice pastries, tea and coffee, pancakes and fresh fruit salad. I guess we had something great to expect every morning then!

We went out to start exploring, starting with organising to do a tour of the atlas mountains!

This was a lot easier than first thought as we walked though our front doors and down the street and there was about four different places to organise a tour!

We were in and out and had a tour booked for the next day with 20 mins! Easy!

However we were then introduced to a man who wanted to show us the city. We, of course, had not been warned of people who are kind enough to do this and followed along happily! He took us to a spice shop which was ages away, and then I told Tim I think something is a little fishy, so we told him we wanted to do our own thing! Lucky we did because a little later we realize all these people want is to "show" you around and then ask you for a tip!

The spice shop very cool to be honest. We saw spices of many different colours and was introduce to a square like block that looked like soap, but, was actually 'Musk' in its real form! You could put it on clothes or in cupboard or anything!

We ended up finding our way to a very famous market/square called the Jal me fil Square. Things were going off here! The first things we stumble accross was a whole love of snake charmers who had cobra's and snakes EVERYWHERE! It was very scary but cool at the same time! Tim got to hold one and I took a whole lot of photos. We also saw a lot of people with monkeys who wanted to be patted! It had never held a monkey in my life but did so there!

We saw fruit markets, and orange juice places, people playing music and women with 'henna' wanting to draw it on our hands which was VERY annoying because this one money grabbed my hand and started drawing on me when I didn't want it! We ended up having to pay her and then I had a stupid thing on my had for two weeks!

We could have spent hours walking through that square, and I am sure we did in the end, but after a quick stop at an internet cafe to check how to get home, we walked further into what they call the Suoks, which are markets selling mostly jewelry, bowls, shoes and scarves. Again we spent hours walking through the colourful markets that are a maze, once your in I swear you can't find your way back out! They also strech for about 2 kms so they were HUGE! After being lost for about an hour and asking several people who all asked for a tip in return, we finally found our way back just in time for the afternoon prayer! Man we had lost track of time! So we had a quick lunch and were so tired headed back to the hotel for a little while for a snooze.

When we woke it was late and we decided to go to the 'new town' for dinner. It was place we hadn't explored before. So we found a taxi and it was only a $3 trip to get there which was great!

The new city was so different from the Medina that I almost thought we were in a different country. When we arrived at the Plaza, I swear it could have been Sydney. There was a very modern fountain in the middle of this huge shopping mall, filled with well know brands like ZARA, and ESPRIT. The houses around here are the same that LJ hooker is selling in Canberra all very modern, We found a very nice little place on the corner that served steaks and pasta and stuff and I had the best steak I have EVERY had in my life!

We walked around the plaza for a little ofter dinner, but headed home early! It had been a pretty busy day!