We arrived at the bus depot to get the bus to asni but we had missed it. Well, that's what we got told but I had dne my research and one was supposed to go every half an hour. So I have my sneaky suspicion that the men at the bus depot are all in cahoots and will try to get tourists Into taxis as its more expensive. Fair enough I suppose. I don't like the wool being pulled over my eyes and I told a couple of guys I didn't believe what they were telling me, there was a police station there too but as the police are so corrupt we decided to do what we always do in these kind of situations....decide on how much we are willing to pay and go with it. Therefore, we got a taxi to the kasbah instead. The worrying thing in Marrakech is getting into an unmarked taxi, where you are going, driving through the mountains, all the men seemingly in cahoots etc and then being charged more....you know the kind of thing. Well, a few mins later we were getting into a random car driven by a man known as 'the boss' who was explaining that we would pick up the grand taxi a few mins later on the edge of town, sounds dodgy I know but I suppose you have to get to a point where you gota trust a situation. A few mins later our luggage was being transferred into a grand taxi and the cost was asked for upfront but I said no and that we would be paying on arrival to the kasbah. The taxi driver was nice, polite, considerate driver through the crazy high roads of the atlas where those winding roads would make most people feel a bit queasy. About an hour later we arrived at imlil, a little village at the bottom of the toubkal mountains and began our ascent to the kasbah with our luggage being taken by a mule. We liked the taxi driver and decided that the hassle of getting a bus in such a remote area, albeit it would save us some pennies, we organised the taxi driver to pick us up from the kasbah at 1pm on Boxing Day for the same cost as the journey here.
The kasbah was just as beautiful as we remembered, only this time the mountains were more snow capped. It was lovely and sunny and warm. On arrival we were upgraded to a deluxe room as we were returning customers and the room was free that night, other than that they were fully booked for Christmas.
We got unpacked, well phill did whilst I read through some literature on the bed. We then went out to the hammam for a scrub and sauna which was lovely. Nobody does it for you, you get the key and lock yourselves in and have free reign of the hammam and plunge pool, for a good half hour at least. You get given stuff to massage each other and some olive wrap stuff, like a face mask really for your body.
We got back to our room and cracked open a beer And some medallion Sauvignon blanc Moroccan wine, that we brought from the supermarket earlier. We watched the last half of Bridget jones, we began watching it the night before but fell asleep!!its official, we are both old and light weights now when it comes to staying up late!
We tucked into some snacks that we had picked up from the supermarket and got into bed. Blimey, this is turning into the laziest couple of days away ever, we don't normally laze around. The tiredness of the wedding is catching up with me I think and I have been exhausted for a few months so maybe that's it.
We got ready and headed down for dinner
which was buffet style of rabbit, fish and lamb tagines with cous cous and vegetables, vegetable soup, creme caramel and lots of biscuits, chocolate cakes and coffee. After dinner the men at the kasbah performed a series of traditional drumming songs which were impressive. It was trance like and they sounded really good together.
After the 'entertainment' phill and I headed upto the observatory lounge and lit the large wood burning fire that was suspended from the ceiling in the middle of the room. We took a bottle of champagne up and chatted until we looked up and the room was full of smoke! The fire was a little vigorous as the man who came upto light it did such a good job! Phill nipped down to reception to double check that the flue was working ok so that we didn't smoke ourselves out and a few mins later he came back up the stairs with two men in tow, Raul and Philipp who were in the dining room that evening. Philipp was a Dutch sailor and Raul an artist and sculptor. They both sat with us and chatted for a couple of hours, they got out their spliffs and we continued with our champagne...only! A few hours later we had discussed religion, travelling, art, jobs, sailing, teaching etc etc and then they headed off to the other side of the hill to their accommodation. They were traveling around for a bit as Phillipp hadn't got another sailing job for a while.
Phill and I got back to our room and
zzzzzzzzzzz.
Location:Marrakech
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