Taliouine Souq
We are in luck once again – just a mile from the campsite is this week’s local Souq, so we’re off early for another Moroccan shopping adventure. This one is the most vibrant and diverse Souq we have come across so far, with many stalls of local vegetables and a great variety of produce. Frank finds more Bergamots than he can dream of and we sample a lovely fried fish sandwich for our breakfast. A local medicine man is advertising a magic muscle and joint rub. He’s an old man but he jumps up and down, bending in half and contorting himself to show just how effective this rub has been to his health. He sees me and seizes on my arm, the one where, in fact, I have a bad shoulder. He slides up my pullover and vigorously anoints my whole arm, instantly hitting on some quite sore points. After about 30 seconds of quite a violent but somehow oddly satisfying massage, he turns to the public and demonstrates just how soft my arm has become through his magic treatment, by flailing it about wildly. However, when he moves to bend it up behind my back, I call a halt. The whole thing is so quick, I’m a bit baffled by it all, though I have to say as I walk away, that my shoulder and arm feel quite good after the assault.
This Souq has everything, from people sitting behind a little pair of scales selling saffron from a bag, all the way to a low-loader full of large tractors!
On our way back to Emma, we pass by the shaman once again and with our last few Dirhams buy a little pot of the magic green ointment.
Outside Emma, we meet Brahim and Ezzora, a couple who’ve been shopping for trees for their garden. We get talking and they invite us back to their home for lunch. It’s going to be a simple lunch, he says, just some lentils.
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For more photos of the souqs around Taliouine, click here
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