a few days in marrakesh

well im currently in kyrghyzstan and it appears that you cant upload photos to the net from anywhere here so i think the blog will have to be boring and textual for a while.
as far as this blog is concerned im only about to get to marrakesh, which seems like ages ago to me now. so i better hurry up and tell my travel tales much quicker and hopefully they might be a little less dull.
so marrakesh well for starters its a totally fantastic place. our hotel was located in amongst the warren of alleys in the southern part of the medina, just a short walk from the djemma-el-fna. the djemma is a huge square (well really its a strange unsymmetrical shape) which acts as the centre of marrakesh. its one of the most continually vibrant, exciting places ive been too, in the day there are many small stalls of people offering to do henna tattoos, playing music, snake charming or dragging around monkeys on a chain for stupid tourists to take photos of. the snakes and monkeys are pretty horrible sights, the monkeys are just obviously treated badly but with the snakes its a little more subtle. apparently the snakes have their mouths sown up so they cant bite anyone, unfortunately this means they also cant eat and thus the charmers have to get a new snake every couple of days.
all day and night orange juice sellers in little carts line the east and west sides of the square selling freshly squeezed juice for only 50c a glass. considering how damn hot it is in marrakesh theyre juice goes down bloody well. they also use real glasses and wash them, so theres no waste, which is a bit of a rarity for morocco (and just about everywhere ive been).
during the day its pretty busy but at night the square gets really cranking. firstly the nightly restaurant stalls setup in the middle of the square they sell cheap and yummy food, it was great for us cause they sold a heap of different types of salads so we got to have a bit of a change from just cous cous and tajine. outside the restaurants touts try all sorts of concievable tricks to get you to come to their restaurant, strangely all the different stalls seem to have exactly the same menu and exactly the same prices so it really doesnt matter where you go. there are a few different stalls though along one side there are stalls selling fried mussels and snails. in amongst all the normal restaurants is the odd one selling nothing but boiled goats (or was it sheeps) heads. not the most appetizing of things in my opinion but by the time the heads come out of the water the head and brains and all look like they have the same colour and texture as normal meat. these stands were one of teh only spots in marrakesh where you wouldnt see many tourists-marrakesh is FULL of tourists.
in front of all the restaurants are these crazy tea stalls. they only sell one type of tea and its very strange but very very good. its a spicy conncotion sort of like super strong chai with no milk or sugar and with lots of ginseng. it was a really great thing to have in the evening cause it gives you a wake up kick and warms your insides (the evenings when we were there got pretty chilly). they serve it with a scoop of a super rich gingery pudding cake thing which is real good too. apparently the combo of the two is real good for digestion and so is meant to be eaten after dinner.
the real highlight though is the buskers, each night there are seven or eight gtoups of musos surrounded by a circle of people listening. most of the groups were very good and a couple were fantastic. mostly they were berber groups, whose music normally contains several drummers, and some combinations of a ryad (i think thats what its called its basically a strange but cool sounding violin), a berber mandolinesque stringed instrument and a banjo played in the style of an arab oud. generally all the musos sing sometimes the leader does the call and the rest the response. the songs are pretty energetic and surprisingly catchy.
theyre was also two interesting more arab styled groups (not sure if ive mentioned the ethnic divisions in morocco, theyre very murky. basically the berbers were the people who lived in morocco before the arabs arrived in the eighth century. the conquest by the arabs forced them into the more mountainous and arid areas. today, not surprisingly considering the time spent living together many, maybe most, people have mixed heritage. despite this the cultures are still distinct, to the point of having different languages (actually the berbers have three languages) although all berbers speak arabic as well. the arabs live mainly in the cities, the berbers in the villages. estimates of the berber population range form 40-60%. well thats my possibly inaccurate estimation of the situation now back to the music), one of the groups was darabukkas and a guy playing oud through a tiny amp giving it a distorted, electric sound. another was a coke sniffing drummer and a crazy violionist/singer who stood on a round metal tin and tap danced from time to time for percussive effect.
the way the busking worked was interesting normally the group would play two songs and then start a third then suddenly stop. then a faux argument would break out, i couldnt understand the language but im pretty sure i understood the gist of it. basically one person would stop and the others would complain and then the first one would say were not getting enough money im not gonna play until we have more money. then a spiel would eventuate either on their poverty, or their musical skills or both i dont know. then they would ask for money from the crowd and  walk round collecting cash, each donation would be commented upon and thrown into the centre. then the cash would be counted and the total commented upon if its enough theyd play, but more likely another round of 
persuading the crowd to cough up would be necessary.  if you were genrous in your dontations (generally about a dollar would suffice) theyd find a little seat for you and seat you on the inner edge of the circle where the sound was best. i managed to make many sneaky recordings of these buskers that turned out really well.its a bit naughty recording people without their permission    but bringing out an expensive piece of audio equipment in a huge crowd of jostling strangers wasnt a good option either. i decided that seeing as the recordings 
were just for me as long as i was generous in my dontaions it was good for all.
so thats how i spent my evenings in marrakesh, eating yummy food, drinking crazy spice teas and then listening to amazing musos, pretty perfect in my opinion.
in the daytime we did a little sight seeing (ancient mosques, forts etc), tried desperately but untimately unsuccessfully to organise a eurolines bus ticket for europe and went shopping. ok so thats another whole story but im not sure if i can really explain it, every moroccan town or city  has a souq basically a permanent market. Generally theyre a warren of alleys lined with shops, which is pretty much what the marrakesh one is just on a grand scale. it begins on the north edge of the djemma el fna and stretches for miles in all directions. there a couple of 'main streets'  which are like huge crowded indoor boulevades and then off these snake smaller alleyways. inside the souq are smaller specialist sections like the hat souq, slipper souq, blacksmith souq and the rather disturbing apothecary souq which 
featured all sorts of animals used in potions up to and including a poor huge eagle in a tiny cage.
the souq is pretty fun just to wander in, although it gets a little tiring after a while, bit of stimulas overload i think.
yeah so thats what we did in marrakesh, its a crazy vibrant place and despite the touristy nature of it i'd definitely recommend it for a visit.