Day 49 - Would you like to buy a ....... ??

We headed out for a few hours to wander the medina, which is essentially a massive market where people also live. We were told to keep to the main alleys so as not to get lost. The lack of hassle or pushy selling was a surprise, as was how safe we felt. We had thought it would be more like Egypt and India where there is such huge pressure that you feel like everyone is trying to rip you off. Here there were just a few polite suggestions now and then and no pressure at all.

We passed large tourist groups clogging up the alleys, it must be so frustrating for the locals trying to manage their day. We had arranged through our riad for a guide to take us through the medina at 2pm and we were looking forward to learning some history and culture. However the tour was not quite what we had in mind, he started out pointing out the obvious: you have churches, we have mosques, this is a women's dress, these are grapes. He also only spoke to M, this was going to be a long two hours. Things started to pick up when he pointed out a camel's head on a stick (luckily it's eyes were closed) and a shark's head. It then went downhill again when he took us from one shop to another where we had to endure each shop owner's spiel and then the attempted hard sell ... no we didn't want to buy a lantern. 

By the time we sat through the "rug sell" (which was interesting in that they buy merino wool from Australia and New Zealand) it turned to comical, as the pile of rugs being brought out grew higher and higher ... we felt sorry for the poor workers who had to put them all back and then go through the same thing for the next set of prospective buyers. We showed no interest in the embroidery, cedar carvings, weaving, the hammam (bath/massage) or the lotions and potions. 

We were keen to see the tanneries that we had heard so much about. From up high we looked down on masses of round troughs lined with mosaics and filled with different coloured dyes. The smell was unpleasant so they gave us a handful of mint to hold up to our noses. The workers were in the troughs with the skins and no protection, doing what looked like back breaking work. Once we had seen the interesting stuff we had to endure another round of selling, visiting the rooms filled with leather jackets, shoes, bags, belts etc.

We were at the point of being disappointed that we weren't hearing anything about Moroccan history or culture, but we realised that Medina is really just a giant shopping centre, so what else would we expect in a tour?