Ramon + Bob

An old college friend, Ramon Vinluan, decided to tack a visit to Marrakech onto his trip to a business school function in Italy. This is the second time our relative proximity to Italy has brought guests to our doorstep, so I don’t care how crooked their soccer league is, Viva Italia!

Ramon and his partner, Bob, arrived at the airport to be met by Hamoud, and whisked to our house. Unfortunately, we weren’t there, as our day had been consumed with helping someone from the film shoot in Tangier do a day of haggling in Marrakech’s souks. When we get the call that our guests are waiting patiently for their rude hosts to arrive, we scramble across town and enjoy a late afternoon beer in the fading light of the courtyard. The call to prayer from our neighbor the mosque provides local color, and we head off to cross the medina and for dinner at a restaurant on the Place. We’re eager for stories from the States, and Bob and Ramon are most obliging. They also came bearing gifts from the States: books from family (we’ve already bemoaned the difficulty of finding books here) and one eagerly anticipated container of maple syrup.

Sunday we get to make a whirlwind tour of Marrakech, spending most of our time in the souks. It’s fun shopping for leather bags and wooden boxes, and exerting a little local price control on the tourist prices that were first offered up to Ramon and Bob. We also get to share some nice food with a pair of foodies, who enjoy lunch at Patisserie des Prince and dinner at Café Arabe. The in-flight magazine had given them tips on the culinary specialties associated with Ramadan. As most of the time we’re busy ignoring Ramadan, it was fun to go hunting for the special foods, most of which turned out to be honey drenched sweets. Of course, we all were a bit amused that the month of fasting comes with a set of decadent treats to indulge in each night. We’ve heard rumors that the nightly feasting after sundown causes many Moroccans to actually gain weight during the Holiday, but then we’re not the types of people to pass on such idle speculation, are we.



After dinner we continue to wander the souks and Ramon finds the dates he’s been craving. The dates have only recently been harvested, and he’s faced with a wide variety before choosing the premium “Royal Date,” which is priced accordingly.

Before six o’clock the next morning, Hamoud is buzzing at the door to shuttle them off to the airport, and in a cloud of exuberant energy and new leather luggage, they’re gone.