The train from Casa Voyagems to Marrakech was already full when we got on. We had to hug our packs and the wall of the hall of the train. Every stop, herds of people were denied aboard. A dusty roughness greeted us in Marrakech. A nice contrast though were the orange trees that line all the major streets. It is quite different spending Christmas in a place where you wake up to the call to prayer rather than a tannenbaum, none the less a bright 80F day made us joyously eager to see how Marrakech could take our money. It didn’t take long at Djemaa El Fna (the historic square) for a snake charmer to see this was true… He took our $15 for a lousy photo, not even of the sweet cobra dancing to da musicman. Naive hardly describes our first journey into the enormous labyrinth that are the souqs (markets, above left) of Marrakech. It is quite smart to take a first passage without a camera, wallet, or anything of value, all of which we had our strong clutches on. The horse carriage ride back to Djemaa El Fna was the highlight of Christmas. The hassle free journey through innavigable alleys brought us direct to a dinner above the roaring square. It had a great view of the sunset behind the minaret(above right).