April 29 and 30th Exploring Fez, Morocco

We arrived at our Riad Andalib in the old Medina (Fés el-Bali and Fés el-Jdid) at 1 PM, and proprietor Reibal Idrissi sat down with us and gave us almost an hour briefing about what to do and how to avoid problems, be successful bargainers, etc. We were served the traditional mint tea and a common pastry called kaab el-ghzal ("gazelle's horns"), which is filled with almond paste and topped with sugar. The other treat he served us was Fekkas (fik-kas) which is a dry, hard, crunchy, slightly sweet cookie with a licorice-like flavor which reminded us of biscotti. We have a junior suite on the third floor ($130/night) and with no elevator we were thankful to have some strong young men carry our bags up to the room.

Covered courtyard of our riad

 Armed with a marked map he gave us, we took a cab to the top gate of the medina quarter and entered at the Blue Gate, (Bab Bou Jeloud) and started walking down the main route, Talaa al-Kebir stopping for lunch at a British-owned riad/restaurant called “Clock Cross-Cultural Café”. The camel burgers were quite good! 

Blue Gate at top of the bazaar

Fez (or Fes) is one of the world's most spectacular city-museums and an exotic medieval labyrinth—mysterious, mesmerizing and sometimes overwhelming. This UNESCO world heritage site is a step back in time. This medina is the oldest and largest in Africa, dating from around 800 AD when the Arabs came and started settling and trading.

Some alleys only a yard or two wide

The medina spreads over two hills and into the valley between them so we started walking downhill, as after a 4 hour stroll we should end up in the valley area where our hotel is located. If we continue up the other side of the hill we would be in the Fés el-Jdid area, a residential area which Reibal said there was not much of interest.

We enjoyed maneuvering our way through crowded passages sometimes illuminated by shafts of sunlight streaming through thatched roofs and other times just being out in the sun, the cries of "Balek!" ("Watch out!") from drivers pushing overloaded mules, horses or just big push carts were definitely to be heeded. These animals were moving through at such a pace it was hard to get a picture.

Mules and donkeys plus carts for transport

There is a riot of color everywhere from the items displayed for sale including the ladies’ jellabas and the zellig mosaic decorations on the various fountains, medresa’ and mosque entrances. The sounds of locals bartering, coppersmiths hammering, and citywide call to prayer make it a sensory overload, plus you have to keep an eye out for where you are walking as the cobble stones can be uneven. The smell from the damascene rose petals where the shops are selling spices and rose water is one of my favorite experiences.

Rose petals for sale

This medina is not only a souk but you have all the craftsman working here in the various souks.

Spices for sale

We missed a couple of the sites we had marked on our map but will go back and try to find them tomorrow afternoon.

Chicken Pastille in foreground

We had dinner in our Riad and tried some of the local specialties; chicken pastille.  Reibal wanted to be sure we would like the combination of sweet and salty flavors. Traditionally the pie is filled with pigeon, but it is often prepared with shredded chicken which is how we enjoyed it. The chicken is slow-cooked with spices and then wrapped in a crisp, thin layers of a phyllo like dough like a present; the mixture includes cinnamon and ground almonds. Pastilla is usually served only at special occasions due to the complexity of its preparation but in Fez it can be found more readily available.

We enjoyed a bottle of local  wine like pale rose' (called gris here) from the area. This riad has a liquor license which it took Reibal one year to finally get.

The next day, Wednesday April 29^th, we hired a car and driver for $30 to drive us to some of the sights around Fez for about 3 hours. We went to the Bourg Nord, Merenid Tombs and the old Kasbah des Cherarda for views over Fez. 

Old Fez behind Leslie

We enjoyed the Dar Batha Museum which is in a Hispano-Moorish palace from over 100 years ago. The exhibits of clothing, jewelry and woodcarving were of interest as well as the building itself. We also drove through the old Mellah (Jewish) quarter outer walls. We did not see a good parking spot so we continued on our way. We went to an Andalusian style park with interesting old trees, and visited a place where they were making local ceramics and tiles.

Fez market from the opposite direction

 Here they showed us the process, from first firing, glazing, cutting mosaic chips in different shapes, and adding tin metal to finished pieces to have a metal-over glaze look.

Chipping pieces to make mosaic shapes

 The ceramic and tile work is beautiful but it is not cheap! A small fountain in tile cost $5,000, but they told us this was OK because it included shipping! We checked the prices of various items, but none of them seemed to be a bargain.

Local women also paint ceramics

Painting ceramic after first firing

In the afternoon, we returned to the bazaar and visited the places that we had missed on our first visit down the long maze of alleys, including a couple of madrassas and the leather tanning area. The madrassas are hundreds of years old and extremely ornately decorated.

We found the leather dying area which was smelly, so we were given a sprig of mint to put to our nose to reduce that annoyance. It was explained that the skins of cows, camels, goats and sheep were cured there in big vats of pigeon poop, lime and water. The pigeon poop helps to soften the skins . The skins were then colored in the vats of natural or synthetic dyes, all on lower rooftops below us. 

Lime vats (white) at top and dying
vats (brown) below

Here in Morocco they have many of the natural dyes, indigo for blue, poppies for red, henna for orange, cedar wood for brown, mint is green and saffron for yellow but an alternative cheaper option for yellow is the skins of pomegranates which can give you shades from yellow to orange depending if you use olive oil. It was interesting to see this leather cooperative at work but even to get to the various viewing terraces, a tourist faces ongoing pressure to purchase.  The leather work here in Morocco is very high quality and many of the old Saharan tribes have beautiful bags, sandals and other useful equipment from leather.  

Inspecting dried skins on roof

We enjoyed a last wonderful dinner in our Riad and enjoyed the Chicken Pastilla and Leslie even looked up the recipe. We packed up our bags and prepared for our trip to Marrakesh.

April 27 and 28th Meknes, Volubilis and Fez, Morocco

Our Riad Zahraa Al Ismailia in Meknes was very inexpensive at less than $35 a night for a triple room. This actually gave us a queen to sleep in and a twin to put the suitcases on. It also gave us access to cheap laundry (a load up to 5 kilos was $5), and they had a good breakfast included in our rate. The downsides were no TV, somewhat noisy from medina neighbors until midnight or later. But these medina quarters are the most interesting with their narrow alleys and street, bustling market areas divided into various souqs and its outer walls and countless entry gates.

The first evening we got quite lost despite receiving some directions, and finally arrived at and enjoyed a good meal at Riad D’Or along with a bottle of Toureq rose wine from the Meknes area.  We asked to be guided back to our riad so we did not get lost on the way home. A "Riad" is a traditional Moroccan home which is focused on the interior open area. There are usually no windows on the first floor on the outside to keep the home private. In a riad the inner courtyard is supposed to contain a garden (riad in Arabic means garden) but a "Dar" has just an inner tiled courtyard with usually a fountain. Nowadays the open roof areas have been covered by movable roofs to let in light and fresh air and closed at night to reduce cold air and rain.

Next morning we spent some time on the internet, and only went out at lunchtime, eating at a rooftop overlooking the ancient main city gate.

Meknes Gate

We needed the internet to confirm our travel planning for the rest of our time in Morocco. We then visited the mausoleum of the country’s founder and ancestor of the current king, Moulay Idriss, who used Meknes as his capitol city, and was famous for his brutality, once fastening 10,000 skulls of his enemies to the city walls. He was a contemporary of Louis XIV of France, whose illegitimate daughter the princess of Conti he wanted to marry; Louis objected but sent him a collection of clocks in the exchange of gifts. 

We also visited his granaries, which stored enough food and water to hold off a siege of a year, and his stables, which held 12,000 horses. We traveled to the different locations with the petite taxis which should operate by meter. In each city they are a different color. In Meknes they are powder blue whereas in Casablanca they were red. We also visited a museum by the market square that used to house an important family, and several medrasas. 

Royal Stables for 12,000 horses

Meknes is the only city in Morocco preserving the art of damasquinerie, which is a technique of embedding silver on a surface of metal, before making a decorative product. This technique was originally developed by Jewish craftsmen in Toledo, Spain and with the expulsion of Muslim and Jews from Spain the technique was brought to Meknes. We were able to see this technique in one of the back alleys of the Medina.

Next morning, after some frustration with the internet which we later learned was because of visits to Meknes by VIP’s from Morocco and many other countries that day, and consequent restrictions on internet supplies, we left for Volubilis and Fez, using a “grande taxi” Mercedes that cost $100 for the half-day trip. Any as the vehicle is usually used as a “service” taxi with 6 passengers jammed in, the seat belts are missing/non-functional.

Mosaic floors still intact

Volubilis was the Roman Empire’s capital of the most westerly Roman province in Africa, and had a population of 20,000, including perhaps 7,000 slaves. 
Only part of the city has been excavated, mostly by French and Moroccan archaeologists, and money for further work seems to have dried up, but there is obviously a huge city remaining underneath. It’s Roman heyday was the 2^nd and 3^rd Century AD, but it had been settled 500 years earlier by Carthaginian merchants. It continued to be inhabited apparently by Arab conquerors, and later dynasties, but was abandoned  several hundred years ago when its marbles were taken to build Moulay Idriss's capital at Meknes.

Caracalla Arch

Volubilis is watered by two streams and is
 surrounded by fertile rolling hills

April 24, 25 & 26th Casablanca and on to Rabat and Meknes, Morocco

We really sweated out getting a new passport for Leslie, whose passport was going to expire six months during mid-May when we would be in Morocco, and therefore after that it would be difficult for her to travel. We had allowed two weeks after applying in Muscat, which, from emails from the Consulate back in March and discussions with them when we handed in the passport, we had understood should be enough time – no problem. 

We sent an email a week after the application to check on the passport. Next day we had a call that there was a tech glitch and not to expect the passport in time for our flight plans, and that we could consider getting an emergency passport. This made us stop our Morocco travel planning until we were sure about leaving. We sent a long email going though our options as we saw them and asking for advice on what to do. We received back the standard response that we could expect an answer in 3 days. You cannot just directly call the Consulate, you have to make an appointment to go see them. We decided to call the DCM to see if he could add any assistance for us in getting some advice on the email we had sent in, but it turned out he was in the US, and we woke him at an ungodly hour! On Wednesday we scheduled an appointment for Thursday and were lucky to find that there were 2 slots available, and also followed up with another email asking why we had no response to our urgent message. Thursday morning we finally had a call from the Consular staff indicating they hoped the passport might come that day. No guarantees until the pouch showed up and they had it in their hands and reviewed it. They did say that if it was not in the pouch that day, they would give it to David’s brother Paul and he could send it to us on the understanding we would go to a Consulate the get the old one officially canceled or they could send it to another Embassy/Consulate for us to pick up there. The passport ID cards would take a month to arrive but they would allow Paul to collect these for us, as Embassy/Consulates can only hold documents for 1 month and we won’t be back in Muscat till mid-September. 

We started packing right after this phone call, and “closing up” our upstairs space in Haramel. By 2pm we had my new passport in hand and by 2am we were heading to the airport to catch our Qatar airways flight to Casablanca via Doha. We are enjoying our finally reached Silver membership level with Qatar airways with its lounge and priority check-in and boarding!

The flight was 8 hours from Doha and unfortunately we had just a few empty seats in the plane and it was an older aircraft, but they did still have the individual TV monitors. It was a lower quality flight easily seen with no printed menus for meals, bathrooms an absolute disgrace, and the head flight staff not stopping by to welcome you on board as a Silver Member.

On arrival in Cassablanca entry was very efficient, entry quickly with just with an immigration card to fill out, bags arrived fairly promptly and then we went out to get some money from the ATM and find a taxi to go to the hotel.  The queue of taxis was like a lineup of ancient Mercedes. Unfortunately we got a 1960s model that even from the outside I had been looking at the appendage that was the muffler. Suitcases barely fit in, David sat up front with no functioning seat belt and I was in the backseat with luggage and no functioning seat belt and a driver that only spoke Arabic. The car had minimal brakes and lots of squeaking to further enhance the white knuckle ride, which, combined with the fumes coming into the backseat of the car, made us particularly thankful to finally arrive. Lesson learned with these “grand taxis” is to gauge which one you will be assigned and then adjust your position in the queue so you might get a different (better) one.

The Art Palace Suites and Spa is interesting with us having the opportunity to stay in 2 rooms. The first room on the 6^th had a lovely terrace but no wi-fi functioning. We had a soup and salad dinner at the hotel as we had been up over 24 hours and were slightly exhausted.  The next day we requested again (4^th time now) that they send someone to fix the internet and we ended up switching rooms to a larger suite, the Charlie Chaplin, which had good internet but no terrace. As we had not really planned any of our Morocco travel, access to the internet was important. We arranged for an English speaking guide/driver named Zuhair to take us around. We ended up with a nice newer van and a fellow that spoke Arabic and French. He drove us around to the  Hassan II Mosque, the third largest in the world and completed in the 1980's, which we were able to walk around the outside of, as non-Muslims can only enter the mosque in the morning on specific guided tours. 

Hassan II Mosque, Casablanca

View of Hassan II Mosque over bay

 We then drove along the Cornish and Zuhair pointed out various residences of members of the Saudi Royal family. Going into the area around the Moroccan King’s main palace in the La Nouvelle Medina (Quartier des Habous), we enjoyed looking out the car windows at the new souk but we wanted to focus on the old Medina area so off we headed.

The old Medina was interesting and we walked through with Zuhair so we were not really hassled. An unusual aroma led us to a man selling escargot soup as we were leaving the Medina area after perusing the jewelry section of the souk. 

Escargot Soup Seller in Medina

We had arranged to go for dinner at "Basmane", which had a belly dancing show. Our food was good and, of the two belly dancers, one was very good and surprisingly enough she was very slim. We got home after midnight.

Fortified outer walls of old Rabat Medina

The next day, Sunday, April 26^th we had breakfast and headed off for Rabat and Meknes, respectively the current capital and one of the ancient ones, using the car and driver that we had organized through the hotel. He did speak English and had a comfortable newer Mercedes with functioning seat belts, so we headed off to Rabat along the coast road. Arriving at Rabat we went straight to Kasbah les Oudaias (12^th) which has wonderful views of the sea and the river from its perch on the cliff in the oldest part of the city.

Rabat Medina alleys

The picturesque kasbah is still predominantly residential, and the narrow streets are lined with whitewashed houses - most of which were built by Muslim refugees from Spain in the Fifteenth Century. Some seem to have been restored by foreigners judging by some of the nameplates we saw on the doors.

We then wandered through some of the shops in the Medina across the road, primarily looking for a bathroom. We had forgotten that like all Buddhist temples, near Mosques you can usually find bathrooms. We then went back to the car and had the driver take us to a local restaurant for lunch before heading on to Meknes.

On arrival at Meknes’ old Medina we found that no cars are allowed entry. This necessitated us hiring a “porter” with a cart to help us move our luggage about half a kilometer to our riad accommodation. As you can see from the photo the lanes get very narrow!

Suitcase size a source of laughter!

We checked in to our Riad Zahraa al-Ismailia, which is the traditional old house which Leslie had booked for $32 a night, breakfast included. 

Cute little room in Riad Zahraa

We went out for dinner in another old riad, Riad D'Or, which not only gave us quite a feast but also had some local rose' wine, brand Tuareg. 

Since we had become lost trying to find the place, we had one of their staff lead us "home" after dinner, as we never would have found it after being turned around a dozen or more times.Then we crashed, pretty tired, and not yet organized for our next day in Meknes.

Chicken Tajine with Tuareg rose'

April 5th, 6th and 7th the Wind Down and Do We Feel Restored?

The last three days at the spa were the normal routine with no dietary restrictions. While Leslie did not go back to the Yogic cleaning other than the eyes we both were at the morning yoga. Leslie did an intermediate yoga just before lunch and David went to the little fitness center. The heat has definitely picked up in Goa. With the yoga class inside a building (no A/C) it is like Bikram Yoga just because of the heat and all the sweating that takes place. The fitness center has some overhead fans at least.  We have taken to using our rehydration salts so that we continue to have energy. We make a liter bottle of the stuff in the morning and drink some to see if it tastes sweet or salty.  If it takes salty we don’t need it but if it tastes sweet then we drink some more to help keep the electrolytes in balance. The food here has very little salt.

On Monday April 6^th, we went out to June 18 street in Panaji to do some last minute shopping, leaving the Spa at 3:30 so we would arrive at the shopping area at 4:30 as the city cooled down. We were able to find the dress-up dresses that we wanted for our granddaughter. Leslie came home with the shawl for a lovely blue and gold Indian Choli,  the rest of which was being made up for her in 24 hours. It was to be delivered to the hotel about 6 hours before we were to leave. She lucked out and her dress arrived 5 hours before we were to leave the hotel.

The other item to buy in Panaji is cashew nuts. They have them flavored with all kinds of spices and salts. We enjoyed looking around in the shops but did not want to miss dinner so we were back by 7:30pm.

The daily spa therapies were moving away from those fixing injuries (back and knee for David) to being more rejuvenating massages.  Leslie enjoyed the herbal Scrub again and on the last day even a facial (Mukhalepam). The facial included a mask of honey and herb powders along with a massage using various herbal creams. Before the last day Leslie pointed out to the Dr. that we had paid for nights for which we would not be getting therapies…..so on our last day we had 3 hours of therapies each. Leslie was the happier camper about this.

Our energy levels have really increased since we have finished with the detox and we are now ready to move on. We are looking up apartments in Florence for the months of July and August and focusing on Morocco, which we will be visiting in two weeks. Our last day included a final weigh-in, and yes, we both lost some weight, and then we had our final consultation with the Dr. We received our files which noted all the treatments we had been given each day plus several pages for food balancing for our particular doshas. David is a Pitta Dosha primarily and his health concerns are in the Pitta Dosha, so she said he is an easy fix.  Leslie is a Vata Dosha, but her problems are across the other 2 doshas (Pitta and Kapha) so her food balancing was to balance the Kapha dosha. All she cares about is trying to stop the hair loss which the Dr. said will take 6 months and hopefully she will not be bald by then! We were each given herbal medications to take, the cost of these was about $150 total, so we will try them for 6 months and see how we go along.

Interesting that Ayurveda treats thyroid issues with natural herbs and roots but they do the same regular blood testing that is done for chemical medications. Guess there is no way to get around that.

It would have been helpful to have had a primer on Ayurveda, which is the traditional medical system of India and about 5,000 years old.  “Ayu” means life and “veda” means knowledge, so ayurveda is the science of life. It is based on 3 fundamental concepts:

1. Food is medicine. (That’s why we have so many lists of food do’s and don’ts)

2. Through your daily habits disease can be prevented and eradicated (those oil massages for one thing)

3. Lifestyle recommendations are based on your physical, mental and emotional profile.

 In looking on the internet to try and give you an idea of the summary that is in Leslie’s book, she needs to reduce the Kapha dosha in order to lose weight. The link below gives you a good idea. For her, fish can be eaten twice a week, chicken once a week and red meat once a month. David in the meantime gets fish every other day (he hates fish), chicken once or twice a week and red meat every two weeks.

http://www.doctoroz.com/article/kapha-body-type-meal-plan

We will keep reviewing this list of foods and see if we can adjust to it. Time will tell.

The Spa had arranged for their car and driver to take us to the airport leaving at 12:45am so that we could catch the 1am ferry to the mainland. We were off to Doha to celebrate our granddaughter’s first birthday.

April 1st and 2nd Purgation Days and then Freedom April 3rd and 4th

Wednesday, April 1^st

April fool’s day was David’s special day for his purging enema. He was first given a full hour body massage with oil, then the enema. He had an allergic reaction to the material, which was even apparent as a skin rash after two showers. This changed the Doctor’s plans such that now he was to have only one more medicated oil enema the following day. He had a limited diet for the entire day and was basically confined to the room as food was delivered. Good thing the room has a television and he watched the news and several old movies. As in the USA, watching the same Indian advertisements over and over got a bit boring. He thinks India has more ads per hour than the USA!

David’s allergic reaction was happening on Leslie’s free day. She was able to go to Yoga at 7 am, followed by an unrestricted diet for breakfast, fruit snack and then intermediate yoga. Her morning treatment was the ongoing oil massage and in the afternoon it was a foot massage. David joined her for dinner (only lentils allowed) at the restaurant.

Thursday, April 2^nd

David started the day early and had a “hard oil massage” with two men using their elbows, forearms and palms to massage the whole body, front and back. The pressure on calf muscles was a little uncomfortable, but otherwise it was fine. They used special oil supposed to be good for skin. After that, he had 10 minutes in the sauna, then to breakfast, where he was disappointed to be allowed only the soup! Must be that restricted diet again. The dining staff knows who we all are and are quick to make sure we don’t eat anything not on our diet!

At 2:30 PM he had a second massage for a half hour with a special oil for the back only, then oil enema to complete his “cleansing” or detox process. Glad to be done with that!

Leslie had been instructed not to go to yoga in the morning, there would be no breakfast and thankfully was given a milder purgative which was so thick that you had to use a spoon to eat it, followed by warm water.

Purge Yuck

The Doctor had said that the room temperature needed to be above 82 degrees. Leslie had to drink warm water every 15 minutes and was also given a hot water bottle to put on her stomach while she sat in an elevated position in bed. In between dashes to the bathroom she read a travel guide for Morocco. At 1 pm she was given a soup to eat and then at 4 pm she was given some fresh pomegranate juice. Dinner was served in the room and consisted of Khichadi which is rice and moong lentils. (We have been calling this a mixture of rice and dhal but Khichadi is the proper name for this food). David found out he was also having only Khichadi for dinner when he got to the restaurant.

Khichadi

The Doctor called several times during the day and then stopped by at around 6pm. She is off-duty for 3 days. The Doctor had given David information as to who was in charge of us during her absence. Leslie’s stomach cramps had not been too bad but she was asleep by 8:30pm.

Friday  April 3^rd

Leslie continued to have a restricted diet of soups and Khichadi but her therapy treatments started to vary. She had a herbal scrub (Udwarthanam) in the morning and a head massage in the afternoon. The benefits of Udwarthanam are softening and exfoliating the skin, improving muscle tone, improves blood circulation and eases joint pains. Her herbal scrub was one containing grains and milk. This paste was rubbed all over her body and then she had a shower to wash it off. The next phase was a yellow paste (milk and something else).

We escaped the Resort in the late afternoon to Old Goa which is only about 15 minutes drive plus ferry-ride away and is where we catch our ferry boat to come to Divar island. There is not much remaining other than a gateway arch dedicated to Vasco De Gamma and the Basilica of Bom Jesus with the relics of St. Francis Xavier, who was a friend of the founder of the Jesuit order (UNESCO Heritage Site).

We attended mass in Sé Catedral de Santa Catarina, which was standing room only and overflowed outside. The Se Cathedral was built to commemorate the victory of the Portuguese over a Muslim army, leading to the capture of the city of Goa in 1510. Since the day of the victory happened to be on the feast of Saint Catherine, the cathedral was dedicated to her. Mass was in Konkani, the language of Goa, so we did not stay too long. We were then taken to some high-end tourist shops that were in old homes. The prices made me laugh – an Indian tunic top with hand embroidery that I buy in Muscat for $15 from an Indian lady’s home and here they were asking $50. No purchases from us.

At the Basilica of Bom Jesus we were determined to keep our tradition of lighting candles but we had a hard time locating where the candles were sold and then getting them lit and placed while still lit – we ended up with a mini bonfire.

Saturday April 4^th

We had our usual morning hour and afternoon 1/2 hour therapies. Leslie had the Podi Khizhi (herbal boluses that are warmed in oil and then pounded and rubbed on the body) which she likes in the morning followed by the dripping hot oil (Shirodhara) which for many guests is their favorite treatment but not really hers. David had the whole body oil massage and the Padabhyanga (Indian foot massage.)

 We have met many nice people here at the Spa and as we are well under 20 people you talk to just about everyone. In the last few days we have had more Indians come but previously it had mostly been tourists from Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Holland and the UK. Two weeks seems to be the time most guests stay with a few doing 3 weeks or 4 weeks depending on their purpose in coming. We have never spent 2 weeks focusing just on our health. They would give us each a personalized diet if we had requested but I think we are doing okay with out it.

We left at 4:30 in the afternoon to go to the Saturday Night Market in Arpora, a one hour drive away back on the mainland. Others from the Spa have said it was interesting and they kept talking about “the old hippies”.  We decided to arrive as the venders were setting up, so that it would not be so crowded. What an interesting, eclectic group of stalls teeming with creativity! The meandering lanes upon lanes of kiosks snaking through this vast open field selling everything from fruits to hand-made leather belts, jewelry, apparel, Tibetan items etc. There is also a concert stage where the performances change from ethnic Indian music and dance to “old hippies” performing with their guitars.  There are many bars and signs saying "Drug Free Zone" but as pointed out by our Dutch friend who came with us, she saw several vendors sitting there calmly smoking pot. She was more sensitive to smokers because she just gave up cigarettes when she arrived at the spa.

Leslie was delighted to come across a Desigual seconds stall in the market.  If you wanted to try anything on you had to do it over your clothes but that didn't stop her from checking it all out. We left around 8pm and we had arranged for our dinner to be left in our room so that we could eat when we returned. While we had talked about treating ourselves to a fresh coconut water, we were all too busy looking around to hunt them down in the food area.  We did notice the big mugs of beer being enjoyed by others.