In my very rushed research on what to do in Marrakech, visiting the souks came up in every guide. The souks are crazy markets packed with so many vendors and goods that you can actually get lost inside of them. But the souks don’t sell everything and are just a part of the network of tiny stores and vendors in the city. In a city where work is scarce, entrepreneurs are everywhere. Everything (even directions) is a commodity and every nook in the city is an opportunity for capitalism. My favorite walk in the city was derieve where we ended up walking down a narrow street crowded with locals and lined by every sort of store imaginable.
Here are some of my favorite stores I saw in Marrakech:
The one chair barbershop, open at midnight.
The shop with three payphones and nothing else, no people, no cash register
A “store” consisting of an open cupboard attached to the outside wall of a building on the street.
Tiny general stores packed floor to ceiling which either sell everything or sell only one thing.
A donkey-drawn cart selling watermelons late at night. These carts were everywhere and it was fun to watch them navigate main streets with the motorcycles, cars, and busses.
A Berber in J’maa al Fna square selling pictures with him. This square is always packed with performers and food stalls and really comes alive at night. In fact right after getting off the bus from the airport, I was assaulted by a monkey in this same square. A too-friendly Morocan shook my hand, but instead of letting go, he held on as his monkey climbed across and onto my head. I got away by claiming that I had no camera and thus no pictures to pay him for – a lie that was made harder though by Zack snapping pictures the whole time.
A juice vendor selling juice from a shop just barely big enough for him to stand in.
And my favorite, a tiny store that instead of having goods had several men lounging on pillows on the floor at 11 at night. We saw several similar “stores,” but I have no idea what they were selling or what their purpose was.
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