24 April Marrakesh

It is such a shock, coming back to Marrakesh. It is hot, noisy and dirty. There are so many other beautiful places in Morocco, I can't imagine a holiday where you would come here for a week. I suppose you could use it as a base and do day trips out. If we had planned it differently we could have taken the car back later and gone straight to the airport. Still we have another 24 hours here so make the most of it. We went out and strolled round the souks for an hour or so. I got my arm hennaed and we had something to eat at Djemma El Fna, then came back to the Road.
There were so many more beggars in Marrakesh than there were a month ago. So many women with children and babies, it was really distressing. I actually wasn't very hungry and I filled a roll with my kebabs and gave it to a women sitting in the street with a sad looking young child. She seemed pleased and said thank you. John emptied his pockets of small change. There were snake charmers, I don't know how to assess the state of happiness of a snake, and some Barbary apes on tight chains with choke collars. They seemed sad and listless, not very happy, not my sort of thing at all. Maybe I am just ready to go home.