Market Day in Khemisset

Bonjour,

Tuesdays are market day in Khemiset, a Berber city on the road from Rabat to Meknes.

It's also the day that both Tommy and Anna stay late at school, so yesterday, Bob and I decided to take advantage and check out the rug souk here, which is known for good carpets and good deals.

We were not disappointed.

Bob loves markets that aren't geared to tourists, which is certainly true of this market.

Most local people arrive in the horse-driven carriages pictured below. I saw one horse pulling about 12 people packed into a single carriage.

Once in the market, there's the usual wide variety of things for sale.

After wandering around for a little while, we stumbled on some people selling traditional Berber rugs for the best prices we've seen in Morocco. We couldn't -- in good conscience -- negotiate with them; the opening price was already a "bon prix".

But although we liked the Berber rugs a lot, we expected to find more rugs for sale...

And it wasn't until we had spent more than an hour searching that we stumbled into the building pictured below, which was packed with rug sellers, again with reasonable prices (although not quite as good as for the Berber rugs, so some negotiating ensued).


We went a little wild buying things.

Fortunately, this guy showed up with a hand cart to help us haul all of our treasures through the market and out to the car. (You can't really tell from the picture, but there are about several full bags under the rug on top).


A bientot,

Kim