A first-person YouTube vlog by Nate and Kara Buchanan documenting their last day in Marrakech. They explore local alley restaurants (noting inexpensive dishes and distinctive breads), shop in the souks for Christmas gifts (bargaining and buying scarves, hammam items, jewelry boxes), and return to Jemaa el-Fna for evening food stalls. The transcript records upbeat discovery moments, vendor hassles while shopping, and a final security scare when someone attempts to unzip Kara's pocket.
Questions this video answers
Nate Buchanan
December 7, 2016
Chapters
I can't hurt. I think it's bleeding. I'm scared to look at it. You tell me it's bleeding.
We haven't even gotten out the door yet, and Kara's already hurt herself.
Well, it's not bleeding, but you did take some good skin off.
Today is unexpected, unexpectedly, our last day in Marrakech.
So it's kind of complicated, but basically, we have a flight out of Madrid on Sunday. It's currently Friday. I hoped to find a flight on Saturday.
Now I don't know. We're leaving Marrakech tomorrow instead of the next day like we had originally planned.
So we're going to make the most of today, starting with lunch. Our Airbnb host told us about this restaurant, and he tried to tell us how to get there. It's like you go to the straight road, and then you make a left down the alley, and then on the right, there's some kind of bronze things. We really have no idea, but we're gonna try to find it. I think we found the bronze things.
I think we found the restaurant.
What did you say it's called?
The name. What is it? Chicken. Chicken Chick.
Lovely.
So when I ordered this, I expected to get chicken and noodles. So far, I've been given two pieces of bread and something that smells like the most delicious hummus.
And it was all only $2.
Michael told us this is a super local thing to do also.
I cannot believe we found this place. It's down this little bitty side alley.
This is going to be it. Seriously Looks so good.
Ch.
There's so much flavor in those noodles. This is so good. I'm so happy right now. I'm gonna try the hummus and stuff.
It's good, too.
Is it hummus?
No, it's like.
Well, it could be.
I really don't know. It's so good, though. It's warm, so it's like hummusy, but maybe it's still chickpeas.
So we show a lot of food on the vlog, so I felt like we really needed to, like, hammer home how good this is and how much of a gym this place is. He gave us this red chili sauce, and the chicken is, like, all on the bone, soft and all mixed together. It's just so good. It's been a great break from Tajim, which is, like, literally all we've had since we've been here in Marrakech and.
All of Morocco and couscous.
Almost like.
I love a good local restaurant. That just made my day. I could go Home now. But instead, we're going to go to the square and get some juice.
We want one orange juice and one of the.
Since it's our last day in Marrakesh and Christmas is right around the corner, we're gonna do some shopping in the souks today, which is the crazy maze of shops back here that you can get lost in for hours and hours. But I'm not really sure how we're gonna shoot a vlog and not give away all of our Christmas presents. So if you're a family member, close. Your.
First purchase was a success. I chalked him down to less than half of the original price after I accidentally offered him $50 when he only wanted twice. I got my conversion. A little confused. I got a little jewelry box for my little friend Callie. There's four inside.
Shouldn't say who it's.
Oh, sorry. Hope you're not watching, Callie.
Making a vlog of shopping in the Sooks is proving harder than I thought it would be. Nobody wants you to take a picture or video inside of their shop, so I'm trying to just, like, shoot from the hip and get some sneaky shots. How do you think it's going?
I'm overwhelmed with decisions. There's just so much stuff I don't know what to get.
I really like all your shoes.
We're bringing home the local Hummum experience for Christmas.
Are you gonna scrub everybody?
Yeah. Give them a massage, lay down in the bathtub, wash their hair.
This is the most fun gift yet. Checking out the marfs.
Can't decide. I've never rocked a scarf before. Can't decide if it's Tom.
I can't either. It's just wore by hand. This is best quality. This is best quality. You make cheap price for that one.
Thank you very much.
Welcome.
Thank you.
Shukran.
Shukran's going up.
It is. Welcome. Welcome. Marhaba. Marhaba, I am so proud of you.
Love it.
Nate's first scarf.
No, no, no.
Than.
I think we have a problem. At least this is a healthy addiction.
We got a lot of shopping done, and now we are heading back to our Riad to watch the sunset, get a jacket, and then come back to the square, because that's when all the food will be found.
We're back in the square. It's gotten way louder. There's like 10 times as many people as there were here earlier today. The plan was to go to the food stalls, all the smoke that you see behind me, and eat. But we were talking to Simone, our Friend at our Airbnb who's a local. He said he never eats there, and people get sick when they eat there a lot. He did give us one soup stall that we should go to and then recommended a restaurant. So we're gonna go take look, but we're probably going to end up going with his recommendations.
Thank you.
There are lots of options.
Excuse. This one is a romantic.
They are relentless.
I couldn't breathe every two steps. They were throwing many of my spins. They were so close to me. The spit. Their spit was on my face every two steps. Come to my restaurant. Come to my restaurant. Come to my restaurant. That was exhausting. I'm leaving. Maybe I'm just hanging.
That was very, very negative.
They were very rude.
They were.
We've been hassled a lot this year. I thought you'd be more used to it.
It was just like, one. Like, I would still be talking to one and telling them, no, thank you. And another one would be trying to get me to come to the restaurant and acting like they remembered me before, but I've never been in that area before. That's just, like, frustrating. They. We found the soup stand that Simone recommended to us. All of the local people are sitting all around the soup pot over there, and they've sat us over here at the tourist table, which is fine because we're tourists. And I feel like I should apologize for getting a little bit angry earlier. I just wasn't expecting all of this craziness so quickly, and I didn't enjoy getting touched and talked to so close so much in a short time. And it just really caught me off guard. I know they were just doing their job. I'm over it now. Obviously, I'm eating here now. There it is.
Whoa. I love this spoon.
It's good. Worth the 30 cents we paid for it. So we've had this same soup pretty much. Pretty much every day. At some point, it's just like Moroccan soup. And they drink it during Ramadan, but it's always a little bit different, which is fun. This one's just vegetables. It's kind of tomatoey. It has chickpeas, little mini noodles.
Now we're gonna go try to find the bread that we're obsessed with. The non chapati baby bread. I haven't seen it yet, though, so I'm a little worried.
We had to wander down a side street. We couldn't find any in the middle of the square, but we found. Found it and some other thing that's stuffed with veggies. So we thought we'd try that too.
I'm so excited.
There's just a bike right behind you.
Thank you very much.
So the guy that sold us these recommended, in addition, honey, which turns them into dessert. She now loves.
Butter with honey.
Orange juice. It's only 40.
I didn't know this stuck out so far.
Stupid door.
There's a goat wearing a soccer jersey.
What just happened?
A guy unzipped my pocket and then I kicked him. He was trying to steal my phone and then I kicked him.
Scared. That is the first time all year that someone's done that.
Really freaks me out. I'm also really surprised this hasn't happened yet. Let's go home.
