Day 4 - Taroudant

Today was a free day, which meant a chance to explore the tiny town of Taroudant. Breakfast consisted of the usual Moroccan “continental” cheese, jam, bread, fruit but also pancakes, tasty according to Jon and Lily. We set out to scale the walls and have a quick look around the market. The map we have been given is pretty good and has lots of shops and restaurants marked out, very useful as although the roads are named they are all in Arabic. No good for us! We went past the fresh fruit and veg stalls and were stopped by a man who told us we were “going the wrong way for the market”. We insisted that no really it was fine we would go to the market later as we were off somewhere else first. He was trying to tell us how this market was special and wasn't on for very long and we thanked him and went on our way, thinking oh ok maybe it will be quite an interesting market after all. It took us a while to figure out where the stairs were to climb the walls and when we finally did find them, the views were quite pleasant, but typical of Moroccan towns it seems, mostly you end up seeing lots of roof tops. Taroudant is surrounded by distant mountains so you can see those as well.

Another Moroccan man came up to us and started talking about this market and we realised he was going to keep walking with us and telling us various bits of information about random things in the straight so said we were going to the hotel. He said he could wait for us but we said its ok and thought we had shaken him off. Unfortunately this didn't appear to be the case as he kept appearing at intervals along our route. Finally he came to say that we were going to end up at the bus station and the market was this way and we ended up going with him under protest. He took us through the souk and we kept hoping he would disappear but then took us to his family's shop (surprise, surprise!!). We made excuses again as Lily was grumbling and we did really want to get back and let her have a nap. It wasn't too bad as he did just show us to the square and make an exit without asking for money. It's very tricky to shake these Moroccans as they don't seem to offer to take you somewhere they just invite themselves along and make small chat without giving you an opportunity to tell them to leave you alone. It's hard to tell if they really do just want to practise their English or are just attempting to get some money out of you!

It was really nice to let Lily have a proper nap at the guesthouse and we set out after that to try chez Nada. Not overly impressed with the food and we didn't really want 3 courses but it was a fixed menu and we weren't too sure where else to go. Moroccan food hasn't been what I expected at all it's been fairly bland compared with moroccan food I've tried back home. The food at the guesthouse is very nice though. After lunch we just came back as it was about 3pm and we chilled out until the caleche ride at 4pm. It was quite a pleasant way to spend the late afternoon and we got to really take in the whole of Taroudant without any hassle and without having to push around the buggy etc. Managed to take quite a few nice photos and we even met some crazy polish hippies who hitchhiked on the back of the caleche for a few minutes and had a chat with us. It was quite funny one minute we were going past them in the street and the next these voices from behind us said hello! Lily gave them a look as if to say “what are you doing on MY caleche”. Lily had a doze that set her up nicely for dinner where we met the antithesis of the mum and son couple from the first night, an older couple from Swansea who seem to really hate everything about Morocco, and from everything they said, we aren't entirely sure why they decided to come here in the first place! Needless to say they found the only alcohol serving bar in Taroudant! We also briefly met a very nice posh older couple from near Malvern who have been to Morocco before and seem to be really into their travelling. Dinner was soup, tagine and baked apple. Lily absolutely adored the baked apple. As per usual that was us done for the day! We stuck Lily in bed and moved on to watching the second half of True Blood season two.