Marrakech. The capital of organised chaos!

April 22nd we arrive in Marrakech, Morocco.
We managed to bypass the numerous men trying to talk us into getting into their taxi and caught the bus to the Medina in the old part of town. Now I had expected it to be busy with people trying to spruik their goods (ie. tissues, cigarettes, toys), but what I don't think I fully expected was for the assault on all my senses. I wasn't quite sure where to look, whether the smells drifting across the square were good or bad or indifferent.
We walked around and around looking for our riad (hotel), but with the world so reliant on the internet and us having none it proved to be quite the challenge until a teenage boy offered to show us the way.
He walked us round and round and round all the time saying "four minutes yeah? four minutes". When we did finally arrive he asked for 50 duriham to which Ned gave him 20 and told him to be on his way!
As we were later to find out, we'd been standing at the top of the street of our riad which was all of about 40 meters from the hotel when we first arrived!!
We put on our game face and headed for the good stalls of the square where quotes such as "117 takes you to heaven, 114 has no door" (none of them did!), but the winner by far was the dude who in an cockney English accent wooed us in with this one line pearler "it's f$&king good"! That was good enough for us!!
For the next three days where we meandered through the alleyways, shop after shop trying to sell you anything and everything you did and didn't need, all of course at a "good" price. We politely declined and managed to not buy a thing.
Quote of the day went to a teenage dude with "excuse me, you have very nice girl!" That's right Ned you DO have very nice girl!!
The square was also a perfect spot to grab a freshly squeezed OJ and people watch. We witnessed a man trying to dress a monkey and when the monkey objected the man punched it in the face. Easy decision to NOT give them any money. We watched as they scouted for any white person walking in their direction and then bounced by putting the monkeys on their shoulder for a photo and then the two parties fought over how much each thought the experience was worth. Generally the tourist thought nothing and the monkey men a lot! Generally the monkey people prevailed!
The other amusing thing to watch was groups of Moroccan men with cobras, what we think were rattle snakes and some other kind of snake trying to put them around people's neck. Apparently, if they touch your head with the snakes it's good luck! I was not going anywhere near them. One because I didn't want to give them money and two because God knows what the snakes were.
Watching petrified tourist screaming as these men hunted them with their snakes was pretty funny. One lady even started crying ;(
At night the monkey and snake men packed and were replaced with story tellers, food stalls and an even more ridiculous number of mopeds, taxis, pedestrians and horse and carts all jostling for a piece of the road, this was an organised chaos to be admired. It's crazy how it just seems to work.