The Souk...sooo little time...

This is the Medina in the day time.  You can hear the horns of the cobra charmers from under the green umbrellas, smell raw sewage and feel the sickening hot dry desert heat pounding your head.  Your only relief is to find the winding street canals of the souk, the Moroccan market place.

 As you enter the souk you are overwhelmed by the mass quantity of the merchandise for sale.  There are certain areas that are specific to what you may be looking for, but not as segregated as I thought.  For instance where we found our rug merchant wasn't surrounded by rug shops.  It was somewhat hidden among other vendors.

A jewelry vendor...I was buying some silver and all of a sudden Cassey had him test the silver to make sure it was real. It was all good.

Seen from the cab on our way to the Souk...a 700 year old temple.

We had so little time.  When we entered the rug vendor we literally had 30 minutes.  Cassey found this guide to help find this place.  It turned out to be magical.  

Check out the amazing ceiling...hand painted designs.  Rugs stacked, ready to be unfurled in front of you.

My Favorite and My Best blog posted a great photo spread of this type of rug.  You can click of the underlined name of the blog and it should take you there.  This was the ONLY one this rug market had!  The sales man kept saying how rare and antique it was.  And it looked it...so I fell in love...but Cassey warned me not to show any interest in it at first...so then we found this small red rug which is so traditional Moroccon...right?  So perfect for my kitchen!

So I did it...I bought 2 rugs and got an amazing deal...it was such a whirlwind and I could only have done it with my Moroccan girl Cassey...and my ability to make quick design descisions when I know what I really want!  And this Ourain was something I knew and had seen enough of to know how amazing it will look in front of my fire place, one of my favorite places in the world!  And despite all this Cassey learned that this rug is made by the tribe her family originates from!

We ended our 2 hour craziness with our guide taking us on a 5 minute walk to find this "laboratory" for Argan...some magical oil made from almonds and only found in Morocco.  We were led to this room, surrounded by a few others just like it with western clients in them.  After you picked out what you wanted then you went back downstairs to check out your merchandise.

 These women grind the almonds to make the argan oil...some is to cook with and the other is for hair and skin.

You could also buy any kind of spice here as well...after this we were done and had to race back to the hotel for check out...good thing we saved a few dahrim for the cab ride back and a tip for our sweet guide.