Marrakech: medina v pseudo france

Soph and I were only in the UK for a couple of days, before it was time to pack up again, turn around and head back to the airport. This time the destination was Morocco. A quick climate check before we went meant we left our overcoats behind, as we headed for a sunny 17 degrees. We flew into Marrakech on Sunday night, got dropped off by the overpriced taxi somewhere in the middle of the Medina (the old city) and told our hotel was just 20 metres up there, with a vague wave toward a dark dead-end looking laneway. So backpacks on, and being followed/hassled, we trudged up the laneway, which with a few twists and turns ended up on a more populated laneway, where more local men latched onto us saying they knew where our hotel is if we just follow them down another dark dead-end looking laneway. After a bit of wandering, and realising there were no street signs or guidebook features to orientate ourselves with, we followed them down dark dead-end looking laneway number 2, and sure enough after several twists and turns we found our hotel. Not a great start to the trip but at least we could dump our stuff and head out to the main market square, Djemaa el-Fna, and wander around the souks. Soph wasted no time in starting to shop, but alas, it was late and shortly after we arrived everything started to close for the night.





















Now when studying the climate information, I had noted that Marrakech does get cold at night, but I had reasoned that we would rarely be out during the hours when it got down to the minimum temperatures of around 3 degrees. Of course there had been an assumption built in to this, that it would be warmer inside than out. I was wrong. Our room was a fridge. Reading before bed involved swapping hands with every turn of the page, so that a hand was always under the blankets to thaw out. The first night we both slept cold, despite two blankets. The second night I went to bed wearing my thickest jumper, two pairs of socks, beanie, gloves, etc. Luckily there was a trickle of hot water, and we could sit on the roof in the balmy sunshine to thaw out.

Our first day, Monday, was devoted to walking around the Medina - to the Kasbah, around the palaces and through a museum. For lunch we took the lonely planet's advice and went to a roof top restaurant that served fabulous tajines. Sophie's meatball and egg tajine was so good compared to the others we found on the rest of our trip that we came back for lunch on our last day. We wandered through markets, marvelling at the spice pyramids. And everywhere we went there were sheep, being transported by cart, bike, motorbike, or just carried. We eventually found out that the celebration at the end of Haj involves the slaughter of a sheep, and that on Wednesday the streets would run with sheep blood.


Dinner was market food – mmm, calamari.





Tuesday was a day of organisation, After finding Soph a pair of shoes (not as pretty as Vanessa’s apparently, but it kept her quiet), we wandered through the markets and back alleyways of the Medina. I was in charge of navigation, which is no easy task in narrow, covered, unsignposted alleys. The guide book had suggested that a compass may come in handy for such navigation, but I scoffed – the sun is my compass, the cooking smells my clock, blah blah blah. Oops. We got misplaced. Temporarily. Once we left the city walls, and got out into the more spacious new city, I knew which direction we were heading in, in a general sense, but, I worked out later, we had actually left the map. By the time Soph decided to ask directions, we were less than a block away from the car hire place we were aiming for.

The rest of the day was negotiating car hire deals – we planned to head off into the desert for three days, booking a Riad (town house) for when we returned, and hanging our in pseudo France (the new city) - sitting in pavement cafes, eating crepes, drinking coffee, smoking galoises and debating existentialism. Well, at least eating crepes.

We ended the day with a hamam. A nice hot steam bath and massage. I had been to one in Turkey and loved it - a beautiful mosaic heated platform, covered in naked old wrinkled tanned northern european women. This time we were at a local's hammam. Three dodgy, dirty rooms, without a proper door, and full of local women and children there to get really clean rather than to laze around. It was less of a massage and more of a rub-until-raw-scrub. Sophie, the princess, managed very well, sitting on the floor with the tangled hair and encrusted soap suds.