What began as the first thing I wanted to see in Marrakesh, Morocco, ended up being the last thing I want to see again.  Snake charmers! Ideally they would be banned from operating all together due to their aggressive and unscrupulous business practices. I like snakes fine.  I was always the one at the State Fair to wait in line to get my picture taken with the huge boa constrictor. I don’t like them well enough to own one. I sort of feel bad for my cousin’s snake, Pablo, being kept in a glass box all day, but… seeing a real snake charmer sounded fun to me.  After checking into Riad Dar Anika in the Medina, or walled city, we started our adventures in such a unique city. Our first stop was to Jemma el-Fna, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the most famous places in the Arab world. I could immediately see why. The souk with its hundreds of stalls, narrow alleys, food carts, and countless stray cats, proved to be worth passing the snake charmers for.  As we entered the culture rich area, the first thing that caught my eye was a large group of 30-40 people standing in several rows, in a circle. Before I moved close enough to even see what they were looking at my dad had a snake around his neck. I started laughing and took pictures as quickly as I could because I knew my dad would make them take the snake off of him right away. He hates snakes! The next thing I knew, I had a snake on my shoulders too.  While my mom was busy taking pictures to remember the experience, my dad was arguing with the snake charmer to have him take off the snake. The “charmer” wouldn’t remove the snake until my dad paid him more money. The key word here being MORE money. My dad had already given him $5 or $10 for the photo taken because we know it’s customary to pay for photo experiences like this. What we didn’t expect was that the snake guy would harass and threaten us till he exhorted a significant amount of money from us.  I don’t think there is even a specific amount he wanted. He just wanted more than the unsuspecting tourist wanted to pay. If you gave him five, he wanted twenty-five. If you gave him twenty-five, he’d want forty or fifty dollars. As soon as we gave the charmer a few more dollars my dad was freed from the snake, and had proclaimed that he wasn’t going back into the square ever again. Although the snake charmers were an unsuspected experience, it became one of the most memorable events of our trip!

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