Mostly in One Piece - Marrakech Day One

  Marrakech, Morocco
Monday, October 20, 2008

We got up early in the morning and prepared our gear, waiting on the hostel to serve their included breakfast before bolting out of there to make it to the train station just in time for our train to Marrakesh.

Desolate Desert

During the three and a half hour trip we watched Morocco pass by our window, a mix of brown and red desolation occasionally spotted with a random run down villages in the middle of no where. The houses were often made of mud brick with corrugated iron roofs held on by stones and old tires. Sometimes a concrete building, incomplete in construction, would loom over the town, decorated in washing lines full of children's clothes. Shepherds wandered barren fields dotted with cactus, the sheep looking like a skinny mix between sheep and goat, and fences constructed entirely of cactus plants hemmed in the farmers meager crops.

View From the Train

Two Moroccan women were sitting with us in our cabin, a younger chatty woman who spoke broken English between her fluent French and Arabic, and a haughty and disinterested older woman who spoke decent English but seemed to prefer to spend more time arguing with the younger woman in Arabic. We did end up having an excellent conversation with the younger woman, Loubna, finding out that she was going to visit her sister in Marrakesh and that it would be her first time there as well.

Marrakech Train Station

Arriving in Marrakesh, we struggled to find a taxi at a reasonable price, the group of taxi drivers banding together in an attempt to suck out as much money as they could from the newly arrived foreigners. Finally settling on a taxi for only double what we should have paid, we set off with a word of warning from another local man to 'be careful in Marrakesh'. As we approached the medina, it was utter chaos - donkey driven carts, derelict busses, and wildly swerving motorbikes and mopeds vied for road space with honking cars, speeding taxis, bewildered tourists, and local pedestrians in a whirlwind of dirt and noise and colour. Our initial excitement gave way, as the chaos sank in, to the realization that we hadn't booked accommodation, had no idea where we were, and were about to haul all of our worldly belongings through a medina famous for pickpockets and scam artists.

Marrakech Traffic

We told our driver the street of a riad (upscale converted Moroccan mansion-not as big as you'd think though) that we were interested in and he dropped us off at the top of a street with friendly directions in French on how to find our way there. We found the street, and after some direction asking found the door where our riad should have been. A collapsed building behind a large door was all that was left. Believing that there had to be some mistake, we made our way back to a hotel that we had seen up the street and asked for directions. They told us that the medina (old town) was divided into different districts, and each district had streets by the same name - of course, the street we wanted was in a district on the other side of the medina.

Streets of Marrakech

Eventually one of the woman offered to go with us to find our riad (although, as it transpired, she had no idea where Riad Basma, our riad, was either), so off we went, following her short, chubby blue clad form at a surprisingly rapid pace through the narrow, crowded Medina streets. Still lugging all our bags and increasingly hungry, sweaty and tired, we lost track of how long we followed her, down dead-ends and U-turns, past shops and food stalls and countless other riads, through packs of kids who jostled and begged and tugged at our bags. Finally, frustrated and exhausted, our impromptu guide knocked on the right door and we were ushered into a quiet courtyard, our guide refusing a tip and smiling in response to our thanks.

Riad Basma

The riad was a beautiful restored old villa decorated with a fountain, flowers, and art along the walls. The serenity was broken when we found out that the room was twice the price as expected and only available for one night. Too tired to make any back up plans we took the room and figured we'd sort it out later. After a brief wait we were allowed into our room and we collapsed on the bed. Collecting ourselves and talking to the riad owner, she offered to try and find us something else nearby, which was encouraging, so we headed out from our riad prepared to enjoy Marrakesh.

We went to the main square, Djemaa el Fna, a giant space filled with tourists, fruit sellers, snake charmers, storytellers, grubby children selling tissues, henna artists, tea sellers, and more tourists. Starving at this point we found a small restaurant selling chicken schwarma (of course) off of the square where the prices reduced drastically. Feeling increasingly refreshed we hit the ATM, since the riad had taken most of our cash, and we dove back into the square feeling positively upbeat... until we hit the Medina. A light rain started falling as we explored the maze of narrow lanes lined with stores selling all kinds of goods. We probed at the prices on scarves and shirts, shocked when the starting prices came back at least three times higher than in Rabat, the stall owners refusing to reach a reasonable price with the knowledge that they could always find another tourist willing to pay their exorbitant fees. We ended up haggling for a loose cotton shirt for Dan, but left the stall with a bitter taste in our mouth. At that point the rain began to pick up heavily and we headed back to the riad, disillusioned in our dream of buying Christmas presents for everyone at the 'famous' Marrakesh Medina.

Room in the Riad

Torrential rain began to pour down and thunder raged overhead as we curled up in our riad, reading our guidebook, to research what we should see the next day, hoping that our remaining time in Marrakesh would deliver more of the amazing experience that we'd read and heard so much about. Fortunately our riad owner had found a much smaller riad down the street where we would be sleeping the next night, so at least we wouldn't be homeless in Marrakesh come the morning.


For now, All our best from Morocco


Dan and Gabes