Marrakech, Final Moments

The sun was out again now in its full glory and this certainly improved the disposition of the two girls. We walked along the busy east west thoroughfare until we reached a roundabout and a major junction with Avenue Mohammed V where there was a debate to be had about what to do next. Mike wanted to see the railway station but it was obvious that Margaret and Kim could happily live without this experience so we agreed to split up. Mike and I would carry on and they would return down the Avenue and return to the Complexe Artisanal, which was an excellent compromise because just as railways didn’t appeal to Margaret and Kim more pottery and kaftan shops was not going to especially thrill the two of us either.

So while they risked their lives, crossed the road and headed back toward the old city we continued west along a modern major road flanked on either side with swanky shops, car showrooms, Kentucky Fried Chicken and leather and chrome banks that was all just about a million miles away from Djemma el Fna and the Souks. We passed not one but two McDonald’s where they serve burgers and fries of course but also a sandwich that can’t be bought anywhere else in the world, a cumin-spiced flatbread creation called the McArabia Tagine. The McArabia was launched in 2003 and the twenty-three McDonald’s franchises in Morocco localised the recipe by tweaking the seasoning and sauce to give it a specific local flavour.

We carried on until we reached the train station and were surprised when we got there to find a modern glass and concrete structure behind a wide open flag stoned square. Quite honestly we expected to find something more colonial, something you might find in a city of the Indian Raj with old fashioned waiting rooms, street vendors and market stalls and clanking old steam engines. Actually we didn’t see trains of any kind because there are only two or three every day and the next one wasn’t due for nearly two hours. The ticket inspectors allowed us to go on the platform but warned us not to take photographs and we went through to a modern transport terminus that neither of us was really expecting.

Leaving the train station we took our turn to risk our lives crossing the road at a roundabout lacking any sort of lane discipline and walked down another wide boulevard, the Avenue Mohammed VI, the present King of Morocco, and started to make our way back to rendezvous with Kim and Margaret. The road was straight and smooth, two lanes in either direction, wide footpaths with a leafy central reservation and modern corporate hotels on one side and expensive villas behind security gates on the other. The sun was shining ahead of us but clouds were chasing up from behind but we kept ahead of the rain and turned into Rue Moulay El Hassan, the Crown prince heir to the throne, and reached the Place de la Liberté where it met the Avenue Mohammed V.

From here it was just a short walk to the Complexe Artisanal where the timing was perfect because the shopping was reaching an end as Kim had finally made her selection and with no luck on finding the black pottery she had set her heart on she had settled on the royal blue one instead. From here it was just a short walk to the little restaurant where we had eaten last night and where we returned to now for a last meal in Marrakech before returning home.

Once again it wasn’t very exciting but it tasted fine and filled us up ahead of the journey and after we had dined we left and walked back for one last time through the Souks and Djemma el Fna where the weather was deteriorating again now and then back to the Riad Nafis to collect our bags, say goodbye and meet the taxi that Laurent had arranged for us. It arrived dead on time and the driver took us back to the airport where there was another form to fill in, this time to say that we were leaving the country before our early evening flight back home to the UK.

Marrakech, The Grand Tazi, a Hotel with Alcohol!

On the way Kim kept snapping away taking pictures of local people as they went about their business. She had to be quick however and mostly secretive about what she was doing because a lot of people weren’t that happy about having their photographs taken. This is something to do with being suspicious about having an image made of themselves and on most occasions when someone saw a camera pointed their way they would either turn away or wag a reproachful finger to say no.

My stomach was groaning and I was ready to go back to the Nafis but Margaret and Kim wanted to go back to the herbalist shop that we had visited this morning and when we arrived there the shopkeeper must have surely been surprised that they had kept their earlier promise to return. After the massage they bought a few bags of spices and I began to worry about taking these little multi-coloured bags of suspicious looking powder through customs especially bearing in mind that Morocco has a reputation of being a big producer of illegal drugs.

After the massage and the shopping the girls still had enough energy left for a bit more shopping but I was ready for a rest so I left them and Mike and went back to the Riad while they returned to a small bazaar that they had briefly seen earlier in the day.

There was bad news at the Riad Nafis because no one had restocked the beer cupboard so it looked as though this would possibly be a dry night. It was a good job that we still had some wine left in the cartons that we had thoughtfully brought with us from the UK and after everyone had returned Rashid (now working frantically on his end of holiday tip) opened up the terrace for us and made sure we were comfortable and we sat and had a glass of red wine.

Margaret and I still had weak stomachs so we weren’t sure where to eat tonight but earlier we had seen a small restaurant with a reasonably priced menu that we were confident that we could find again so we agreed that we would go there.

At about seven o’clock we left the Riad and made our way back towards the centre tackling the crowds and the traffic on the way. At a busy section there was a rather seedy looking hotel called the Grand Tazi and the word was that it served alcohol so we took a look inside and indeed it did and delighted by this discovery we followed a waiter to the roof terrace and ordered beer and wine. Mike and I had a bottle of premium Casablanca lager and Kim and Margaret had a small bottle of Moroccan red wine to share. We drank it and thought about a second but before we had made our minds up the waiter returned and charged us 200 dirham (about £20) so that made our minds up for us and we left.

After walking around the fringes of Djemma el Fna and through the food market again we made our way to the little restaurant and found it effortlessly. It was busy and we had to wait for a table but it didn’t take long and soon one was ready and we ordered a simple meal that didn’t turn out to be especially thrilling but it was cheap so we didn’t have any complaints about it.

Walking back we debated returning to the Grand Tazi for a second drink but the prices put us off and in any case Kim started to speed up and walk faster and faster and by the time we reached the hotel it was difficult to keep up with her as he reached Olympic walking race speed. The reason, it turned out, was that suddenly her stomach wasn’t feeling too clever and she was in a rush to get back to the Nafis. Now there were three of us with upset tums!

We sat on the terrace again and Rashid fussed about and made sure we knew that he was leaving early in the morning and we may not see him then. So we gave him his tip and he seemed delighted with it. Now three of us were ill our theory about the Setti-Fatma lunch was thrown into doubt so we had another think and suddenly something that we hadn’t previously thought of came into consideration. At the argan oil cooperative all of us except Mike had sampled the produce and used bread broken into pieces to soak up the oil and now it seemed possible that this may have been responsible.

Marrakech, Navigational Difficulties

It was after midday by now and time for a break from walking and sightseeing so we selected a café with a roof top balcony on a noisy road leading to Djemma el Fna. There had been some hints of blue sky on and off this morning but now as we sat in the open air the cloud was noticeably thickening from the west and turning from chalky white to peppery grey and we had to admit that this was probably about the best we could expect now for the rest of the day.

The plan now was to make our way from the Bahia Palace through Djemma el Fna and the around the Souks to visit the next site the Medersa Ben Youssef in the northern part of the old city and we found our way without any difficulty back to the main square and we congratulated ourselves on our grasp of navigation around Marrakech.

To get to Medersa Ben Youssef the direct route now was to walk through the Souks again so we took the main route in through an arch and past a Mosque which led us to the Rue Semarine which is a perpetually busy street with shops selling robes, kaftans, carpets and antiques then into the Souk el Kebir with a tight warren of alleys all with tiny shops and kiosks.

The Souks were busier today because Sunday is a main trading day and all of the shops were open, there were more people and more noise. There are signs at the entrance to the Souks which clearly say ‘no bikes’ but they were only there for decoration because no one took any notice of this at all and people on push bikes whizzed past and there was the constant rasping of moped horns as impatient drivers forced their way between the shoppers and the tourists and we had to keep a permanent eye out for danger.

Half way through and we were in the Souk des Babouches where every shop sold a range of brightly coloured, pointy toed soft leather slippers and then the Souk de Tapis where the shops were larger and most specialised in carpets and then finally the Souk des Ferronniers where metal workers and carpenters were working in cramped workshops making furniture and lanterns and intricately designed silver jewellery and belt buckles.

Eventually we were through and out of the Souks and outside Medersa Ben Youssef which is supposed to be one of the best buildings to visit in Marrakech but unfortunately I am unable to confirm that because today it was closed. We walked around all four sides of the building looking for an entrance and when we had circumnavigated it someone told us that it didn’t open today because of the leather auctions at the nearby tannery although I couldn’t really understand what the connection might be.

So now we had to rethink the itinerary and we must have looked as though we needed assistance because people kept stopping to give unrequested help with the map. Most wanted to take us to the leather auctions and they assured us that they didn’t want money but we were suspicious and politely said no thank you. Some were more persistent than others and kept insisting on leading us and as we doubled back and slipped around corners we managed to disorientate ourselves and we lost our sense of direction, a situation that wasn’t helped by the fact there was no sun in the sky so we couldn’t establish any sort of directional fix.

We thought we were walking in a north-easterly direction and the plan was to reach the wall and one of the twenty city gates. This quickly proved difficult and made even more so by the fact that although the streets were named on the map there were no corresponding signs on the streets themselves so establishing location and direction quickly became a matter of guesswork and we had to admit that we hadn’t grasped Marrakech navigation at all.

Marrakech, Djemma el Fna and the Food Market

Later on the terrace we watched the sunset usher in the darkness and bring to an end a day of perfect blue sky and sunshine and refeshed and rested we made preparations for a night on the town. We were returning to Djemma el Fna and when we arrived there the place had taken on a whole new identity.

Sometime between the end of the afternoon and the early evening the square had been transformed from a market place to an open air theatre with swarms of people and this is something that occurs every single day of the year. The snake charmers and the monkey men had packed up and gone home and had been replaced by a carnival of musicians, storytellers, transvestite dancers and other entertainers. There were fairground stalls and all sorts of opportunists trying to sell things not just to tourists but to each other as well. There was a crackle of excitement around the square that was fuelled by the energy of all the players and it was impossible not to be caught up in it all.

Some more than others it has to be said because first Margaret and then Kim allowed a young woman to decorate them both with a henna tattoo, Margaret on her arm and Kim on the back of her hand. This didn’t look like a good idea to either Mike or me so we just stood and watched and wondered when they would come to their senses. Sadly they didn’t and they both ended up with a skin decoration that they didn’t really want. And then of course the woman wanted paying for her handiwork and although they both explained that they hadn’t asked her to do it in the first place so they wouldn’t pay it was obvious that this was never going to work.

She asked for 200 dirham (£20) and we laughed and offered her a few coins and now from behind her black veil that covered her face the dark opal eyes that had once been warm and friendly became narrow and angry as she hissed and cajoled and kept her hand extended for payment. I offered her the coins again and she explained that she thought that I was crazy and taking the piss and I explained that it was all that I had and she could take it or leave it. She remained persistent and a stand off ensued during which time Mike and Margaret took the opportunity to slip away and she must have noticed that our bargaining position was strengthening the closer we got to the edge of the square and the crowds of people in the food market. I offered her the coins for a final time and she cursed and scooped them out of my hand and disappeared to find another couple of mugs. I can’t be sure but I think she made off with about 40 dirhams or nearly £4.

Now we were in the food market where every night a corner of the square is transformed into an open air free for all restaurant with one hundred and sixty hastily erected stalls and kitchens all competing for business from hundreds of people, locals and tourists, as they pushed through the narrow aisles in between the steaming barbeque kitchens. At every stall there was someone trying to entice us inside by explaining the menu options and making impromptu offers to entice us and we didn’t get very far before we gave in and allowed one of them to lead us to a trestle table with a plastic tablecloth before thrusting the menus into our hands.

It was all really lively and good fun and there were local people eating here so we thought that might be a recommendation and we ordered a selection of food in a tapas sort of way and in only a short time the table began to fill up with bread and spicy dips, beef tagine, mixed skewers, couscous, salad, fish and chicken and we all tucked in to this rather unusual food combo. While we ate we were pestered constantly by young children selling a variety of things we didn’t need – mostly packs of tissues, but they were doing no harm so it was a bit sad when one of the waiters in an adjacent kitchen kicked one of them up the arse to chase him away and clouted him round the head for good measure. He didn’t half squeal and he didn’t come back in a hurry.

After we had finished we left and continued walking and had to explain every few seconds that we had already eaten to the waiters that continued to accost us every few metres or so. Most of the stalls sold fairly similar food but there were some speciality places and at the edge of the market there were five or six stalls, next door to each other and back to back, all cooking and selling portions of steaming snails with glistening shells which seemed to be really popular with the locals but which didn’t especially appeal to us.

It had been a long day and we seen all that we wanted to by now so although it wasn’t especially late we negotiated our way back to the Riad first through the jostling crowds of people and then the traffic that even now showed no sign of easing up. Once inside the walls of the back streets we left the noise of the city behind and then through the heavy wooden door of the Nafis it was though it never existed at all.

This was a perfect place, an oasis of peace and quiet deep inside the disorderly mayhem of the city and we had a final drink on the terrace served by the attentive Rashid who was already working on his end of our stay tip. While we chatted Kim and Margaret scraped the brown henna from their skin only to find that it wasn’t henna after all and it had left behind no sign of any decoration. The mixture that the tattoo artist had used had probably been a simple mud solution (we hoped) because it washed off without any difficulty and there was nothing left to show for our 40 dirham.

Marrakech, A Pedestrian’s Nightmare

The layout of the Souks was interesting because it was set out in sections where every shop sells the same produce. A whole Souk selling silver, another selling silks and so on which would be a bit like all of the jewellers shops in a UK shopping mall being organised side by side which I think we would find unusual but here the competing shop keepers seemed quite comfortable with the arrangement.

Getting lost in the maze of streets was not altogether surprising and we wandered around for an hour or so before we emerged at last in the sunshine of the streets. In a small square traders were set out in the centre selling products, squabbling with each other and encouraging tourists to stop and take a look. On the edge of the square there was a three storey café with a good view over the proceedings so we went inside and climbed to the top of the building where we sat in the sunshine and drank tea and coffee. We would have preferred alcohol of course but this was quite impossible because of the strict Muslim rules on drink.

After this short stop we made our way back into the streets but stayed in the open now and away from the Souks as we wandered in a westerly direction, (well, I think it was a westerly direction but it was difficult to be absolutely sure) along a narrow busy street where we had to have our wits about us not to be knocked over by the horse drawn tourist carriages that seemed to use this as a principal sightseeing route. And then there were the motorbikes and the pushbikes that made no concessions to pedestrians which meant this was not really the place to have a casual stroll.

The further we walked we began to leave the main tourist areas and the landscape transformed into a predominantly local environment with little markets selling vegetables and small butchers shops, just kiosks really, selling meat I couldn’t identify, except for the cow hooves and the sheep heads! There were lots of ad hoc improvised stalls sometimes no more than a blanket or a bit of cardboard on the pavement where men and women offered a few products for sale that had probably been grown in their back gardens or on their window cills.

Soon we were the only tourists amongst the crowds of men and women in their traditional Arab clothing, the men in long gowns called djellabas and the women in colourful kaftans, headscarves tied around the hair, some with face veils and a small minority with a full burqa. We were in unfamiliar territory now and although there was no danger and we felt perfectly safe there were no street signs to help with navigation so at a convenient junction we took a turning into a parallel street which seemed as though it should return us to Djemma el Fna.

By a stroke of good fortune it did and as we got closer the local stalls gave way again to tourist shops and we pushed our way back through the Souks and into the huge square where shifting circles of onlookers were constantly moving between acrobats, drummers, dancers and street apothecaries. We kept a safe distance from the snakes and the monkeys and had a second cup of tea in a café with a balcony that overlooked the square and we worried about finding somewhere with alcohol for our evening meal.

By now it was mid afternoon and for the time being we had had enough of the market and the Souks so we slipped out of the busy square along a road that smelt of equine piss with a line of horse drawn carriages with drivers looking for customers. We walked along the opposite side of the road and looked unsuccessfully for restaurants with alcohol along the main route of the Avenue Mohammed V but a short way along we had to admit defeat and turned instead back towards the Koutoubia Gardens and Mosque.

This involved the tricky process of crossing the busy road with two lanes of manic traffic driving in each direction. Buses, cars and lorries don’t give way to people in Marrakech so this was a potentially death defying procedure. There are zebra crossings marked out in the roads but they are there only for a bit of highway decoration and are not something a walker can rely upon so we watched the locals as they strayed into the carriageways and we stuck close to them because they appeared to have a sort of sixth sense about which vehicles might stop and which would simply mow a pedestrian down without a second thought.

Marrakech, The Souks and Djemma El Fna

There was only one way out of the warren of alleys so we had to follow the same route again back through the anarchic streets and to the hectic roundabout where the traffic situation had not improved and even the policeman had given up and left his post but his didn’t seem to matter at all because he wasn’t being very effective anyway. We were a bit confused and the free tourist map wasn’t a big help but we were confident that we were making steady progress towards our first intended destination of the famous big square in the heart of the city, the Djemma el Fna.

A pedestrianised boulevard gave us relief from the incessant traffic and this led us directly into the square which claims to be the biggest in Africa and is an all day spontaneous entertainment centre. The first people we came across were the city’s iconic water sellers in their red tunics with gold braid, colourful sombrero hats and brass cups hanging from leather belts strapped around their bodies. In the old days these people provided a real and valuable service and dispensed water from a leather canteen to local traders and thirsty travellers but they are practically redundant now in their substantive role because sensible people prefer safe bottled water to the uncertain quality of the water in their satchels. Their job now is to have their picture taken with the tourists and charge 10 dirham a time (about £1) and they probably make a lot more money doing this than they ever did selling dirty luke warm water.

Djemma el Fna was busy but because it was so big didn’t feel crowded. I took a picture of some musicians who demanded money and became rather agitated when I refused and then we walked past the snake charmers and the men with Barbary Apes all trying to sell photographs, fortune tellers and soothsayers and my favourite the tooth puller who would have provided dental surgery at a fraction of the cost of the National Health Service if we had been brave enough to allow him. There were rows and rows of market stalls selling fresh and dried fruits and others competing to sell a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice and all around the square were cafés and restaurants with high level balconies where people were sitting and just enjoying the random entertainment.



This was quite unlike anything we had ever seen or visited before and it was everything we had expected but more with a riot of colour and frenetic activity that was exciting and vibrant. We walked through the square in a northerly direction and eventually arrived at what most people concede is the biggest Souk in Africa and we slipped into the labyrinthine maze of covered but sun-dappled market streets.

Here was a whole new experience with street after street of shops all overflowing with things for sale that we didn’t need but each with an owner who didn’t understand this and was determined to part us from the cash in our wallets. Some of the shops were no bigger than an average English garden shed or a Moroccan broom cupboard and many of them sold exactly the same things and as we walked through we were under constant pressure from the owners all trying to entice us with a ‘special price’. What didn’t help in establishing whether this was a special price or not was that nothing was priced in the first place which meant this form of shopping was very difficult process for people like us who are not used to haggling. A lot of the stuff in here was rubbish of course and my favourite was the honest trader who told us that he only sold genuine fakes!

We walked past carpet shops, elaborate lampshade shops, slipper shops, silver and pottery shops, shops selling leather, silks, ceramics, spices and pastries and our senses were under constant assault from the colourful sights, the rich aromas and the constant chatter and noise of the traders. Occasionally a donkey and cart would send people scattering as new supplies were delivered and the shop owners were probably glad of this because the only place to go to get out of the way was inside the shop doorways where someone was waiting to pounce.

Threading our way through the heaving twisting lanes we nodded politely as we rejected invitations from all sides, trying all the time not to make eye contact and declining inducement to go inside and look until at one point Kim and Margaret were caught off of their guard and were persuaded to take a look inside a herbalists shop where they were talked into a €2 ten minute shoulder massage each. Mike and I had to wait outside and try not to draw attention to ourselves or show any unnecessary interest in the products for sale in the adjacent shops.