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Marrakech’ souk:

Same level of noise and activity in Marrakech but there is no donkey, no sand and different dust. Small shops have replaced the merchants on the ground in the villages. Kindness is relatively absent here. Merchants are trying to sell articles at the same price (or even higher) than at the airport! If you take a picture, merchants will yell at you, claim you are on their way; in the very narrow streets, cycles and motorbikes are running like crazy in all directions with no attention to pedestrians, especially the tourists! If you are looking for some directions, kids will show up ready to help but will then ask for “money for their kindness”… if you refuse, they will give you extra and contradictory directions to get you lost in the souk maze! Thanks to the women merchants who cannot leave their shops and are generally nice!

   

 

The pastry shop “Patisserie des princes”:

In Marrakech, near Jemaa-El-Fna square, is a famous pastry shop. Delicious Moroccan pastries are made and sold: not the usual buttery and dripping with honey sold in France, but delicate biscuits with nuts, dates, chestnuts, pistachios, orange etc… On the side of the shop, if you can escape the bees gathering honey on the French pastries, is the window behind which are the delicate pastries. If you are lucky, a waitress will come and serve you: you can chose whatever you want, you can taste whatever you want but you are reminded not to forget the waitress’ tip!

Storks:

Good fortune birds in Morocco, they nest on top of towers built for them. Nests are huge; noise is loud; they wait until human beings disappear before leaving their nests; they make tapping noises with their beak when one comes back with food, slowly folding their large winds and straightening their foot for a soft landing on a 50 square centimeter spot. They regurgitate the food to feed their fledglings. Amazing!

 

   

Portraits:

     

     

Some views:

    

   

   

This was some of my memories from Moroccan “Haut Atlas”. A wild and magnificent landscape, a hard life and kids everywhere!

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