Marrakesh
Trip Start
Oct 30, 2005
1
83
122
Trip End
Ongoing
Marrakesh, Morocco
Friday, June 9, 2006
We arrived in Marrakesh around 2pm in the new part of town, but we had planned to stay in the midst of the action in the Medina. We grabbed a taxi (the driver was old guy with a white beard) and spluttered in french for him to take us to the "Djemaa El-Fna", the main square in the Medina. We arrived to such a spectacle of people - a massive square filled with sellers, entertainers, tourists and locals - such activity and full of life. We had no idea which way to go, so pointing to the map with the street name we needed to go, the taxi drove us right to the entrance (after that it was only for walking or mules!)
Ben Youssef Medersa
.We started to walk our way down side streets towards the group of hotels we were interested in, fobbing off touts as we went. They were actually helpful as we started walking past our street they ran off some names of hotels that were down it - and it was the street we were after! We checked out a number of places before finally settling on one. Although quite tired by now, we decided to have a quick walk around a get our bearings. We wandered into the main square again, this time, by evening, it was filled with food stalls, such a wonderful sight, with steam and smoke rising from some, a hive of activity buzzing around the whole square.
Wandering through the food stalls, lots of touts for the stalls were bugging us with "loverly jubbly" (a Jamie Oliver saying, thinking that we may be British), and "cheap as chips" and when finding out we were Australian - "ahhh kangaroo - g'day mate"! We settled on one, and although filling, the food was a bit bland. After taking another look at the human spectacle that is "Djemaa El-Fna", loved by both locals and tourists, we decided to call it a day.
With all the activity of he previous days, we deserved a sleep in. Following that we thought we had better sort out our flights to Hamburg, as this was weighing on our minds. Back on the internet, we eventually settled on a flight from Malaga, Spain to Hamburg, Germany on the 20th June. Glenn was happy as this meant that we got to travel to Spain via ferry - what our original (sketchy) plans incorporated.
Relieved to have sorted it out, and now have a fixed time left for Morocco, we tried to decide what we wanted to see in the remaining time and realised that we would be pushed to try to see the Sahara desert on our own
Djemaa El Fna
. Discussing it over lunch - a pastilla, we went to visit a tour office to see what they provided. Impressed, we bought tickets for the following day for a 3 day trip to the Sahara, incorporating the things we had wanted to see on the way. Although the last day was spent travelling back, we thought we could get an overnight train up to Fez, rather than try to arrange a bus from the middle of nowhere in the Sahara.We then dived into the souqs - the narrow streets filled with shops through the medina - the famous shopping experience in Marrakesh, but it was quite intense again, although with less touts, but more people.
We made our way through the souqs and came out into a small reprieve - at the Musee de Marrakech (Marrakesh Museum) and some nearby ruins of the Koubba. The Museum was inside an old riad (a Riad is a traditional Moroccan house or palace with an interior garden), which had been restored and was very impressive how the rich used to live. These type of places are now being restored all over Morocco by investors buying them and renovating them for luxury tourist accommodation.
Winding our way back through the souqs, we again had dinner at the stalls in the square, again hassled by touts until we chose a place. The food was more disappointing that the previous night - although not bad, it lacked the flavour and taste that we thought Moroccan food was famous for. To add to the disappointment, a cat sat next to Christie most of the time and was as persistent as the touts had been.
After dinner we had to get back to the hotel - we were heading to the Sahara tomorrow!
