Later that same day....

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Half way through the train trip the person across from us introduced himself and his friend beside him and we spoke for the rest of the ride. He had a cousin from Toronto that he spoke of and a few stops later, his cousin joined us for the rest of the trip. It was actually a really good and informative chat and we made plans to get together later for dinner, We got settled and showered in the Riad (Guest house) and then went out to meet them. We went to a farmers house for tea overlooking the Medina and a trip to see how the tiles were made. Aziz the farmer lived in a farmhouse with an amazing view and grew an amazing number of foods on two hectares of land. He was really nice to talk to. Then the conversation started turning moving into conversations about buying stuff: Ceramics and tile, rugs and brass, cooking classes with this amazing chef that they knew. It dawned on us that we had been taken into a classic scam in Morocco, where everywhere you are taken by the guide, you are promised the best price, but the guide gets a share of everything and the goal is to get you into as many stores as possible.

In a city where a day's wage is the equivalent of $1.25. Selling a tourist a plate for $20 that was made for $3 is a respectable and lucrative business. The situation sort of reminded me of one of those opportunities to learn about timeshares over a “free” lunch. Fortunately, we were able to claim exhaustion (Barb hadn't slept for 30 hours at this point and I was so tired my head was weaving while when I spoke) and went back to the Riad. As I went to sleep, I realized that elements of the story we'd been told about who did what didn't add up. At any rate, we had some great conversations, saw the old walled city from a beautiful vantage point and have a few plates to remember it by....