Close to the city gate of Bab Bou Jaloud one stallholder is already busy cooking and selling one of the most common forms of Moroccan breakfasts , square-shaped pancakes called msemen . With deft handwork he pinches small balls of dough and presses them into a paper-thin squares covered with oil . Folded , then folded again he slips them onto a skillet sizzling with oil where they materialize into flaky pancakes waiting to be served to eagerly waiting customers with butter and honey .
In a nearby fruit and vegetable souk , produce of every kind line the street - juicy oranges , lemons and grapefruits from the sun-drenched groves of Agadir , golden melons , vine-ripened tomatoes , clementines , crisp celery and plump mounds of grapes , preserved fruits and nuts . Entire shops are jam-packed with nothing but olives - of every flavor , size , quality and color or bunches of fresh mint displayed in baskets and hanging from ceilings .
I head down into the dark underworld of the souks , through alleys so narrow that the only way the shopkeepers can get their stock in , is on a donkey ' s back . The medina ' s 9400 lanes and streets seethe with a human tide of endlessly streaming humanity , crammed with shops , restaurants , mosques , rug stores and even tanneries . Somewhere near the Al-Attarine quarter I stumble upon a spice souk .
20 . DRIFTTRAVEL . COM