
We got out of the taxi on a wide city street then were guided by our riad manager into the center of the historic district with its maze of streets and passages. Down a few small alleyways we came to a beautiful wooden door that opened to our riad. These are the Morroccan version of hotels. Big lavish homes turned into accommodation. They tend to be more full service compared to hotels having a few rooms but giving a more quaint experience. Ours was multi-story, with a small pool in the center open to the elements. We were lucky enough to get a room with a balcony of sorts overlooking the pool. In Morocco, the 2 main languages are Arabic and French, neither of which we knew. Our riad owner happened to be the later, which made communication a little easier than if it’d been in Arabic.

After dropping our luggage and enjoying our first of many Moroccan mint teas, we headed out to the streets to explore. Quickly we noticed something strange was going on. It seemed around every corner was an old mattress frame on fire. Around it were young men tending the fire and roasting sheep heads. Yes, you read that right. Hopefully the picture makes more sense now because we ran into a guy on his way to the local fire and stopped him for the picture.
From what we could gather we were in the midst of a religious festival called The Day of Sacrifice. Evidently one of the traditions is cooking and eating the brain of the sheep. The heads were burnt on the fire and then the flesh and hair was scraped off. What happens next we aren’t sure? In addition to the fires, we saw a few big piles of sheepskins and even a pink cat that had found a nice dinner somewhere…hence being covered in blood. Interesting to say the least. The link above is worth a read for more background on the reasons for the festival because I’ll agree it is a little odd and that gives it some justification.
We did some other touring including some old palaces and saadian tombs which were interesting. Finally to wrap up the day we had a traditional tagine dinner with a belly dancing show and we were beat!
I vote to keep the 'stache! :)
ReplyDeleteYou are on my dream trip (well, it ties with Taveuni, Fiji). Enjoy every minute and report back on the high points...and low points, but no more talk of sheeps heads - blechh! Look forward to your comfortable rooms on nights 12&17. Will be anxious to see what you get the other 18 nights! Travel safe! Love you both!
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