McSquirrell: Exploring Marrakesh 2

It's a bit cooler today and with a breeze although still very hot. The Square was busy as always, and spot of the day was definitely the tooth man, there ready and waiting to make you a set of falsies from the collection of loose gnashers he had on his table. This must be where the tooth fairy gets rid of her stash. The hot sun had bleached them nicely too, and there was not a tea or tobacco stain on any of them.

First stop of the day is the museum of photography, which is a bit of a first as neither of us are museum fans. However this one is a bit different in that its a collection of pictures of Morocco, collected from all over the world and brought back here. The pics span 1870 - 1950 and are mostly of people or street scenes and without the poncy arty farty descriptions that often accompany photographs - about the photographer being in this phase or that mood and thinking about this or that.

No sycophantic waffle, just images which capture people doing their thing in their time. Many of the pictures were taken by Europeans on the Grand Tour, although only part of Morocco was covered because of the tribal fighting. However, Tangier is well documented, thanks to its then status as an international city.

On the way to the photo museum, a young boy made a grab for my camera. It was only a half hearted childlike attempt, but his mother gave him a real clout round the head. Whether it was a clout because his attempt was feeble and made her show out , or whether it was a genuine whack to stop his thieving ways is debatable, but it just goes to show how easy it is to lose stuff. And it saved me the job. I have a wrist strap on mine anyway and a lanyard on my phone, which is clipped to my belt.

We ate a light lunch on the terrace on top of the photo museum , with good views of the distant Atlas mountains before going to the Ben Yousef medersa, once a rival and very similar to Bou Inania in Fes.

It's been renovated several times but still lost it's importance to Fes. We even nipped onto another museum next door - two museums on one day, let alone one trip; unheard of - but it wasn't very interesting. So we wandered back through the Medina to the main square, ignoring the small boys and other would be guides, had an orange juice, and just people watched.