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, The Atlas Mountains and Setti-Fatma

Crossing the river was an interesting experience but I think we were all glad to get back to the other side and continue the journey for the last few kilometres to the village of Setti-Fatma where the road into the mountains ended and the final stage was to be on foot. I imagine Setti-Fatma was once a desperate and inhospitable sort of place but the locals have turned it into a bit of a tourist trap with cafés and shops for the visitors who find themselves caught at this natural terminus.

Hassan quickly found a guide for us for 50 dirham each was going to take us further up the valley to visit the waterfalls, which were promised as the highlight of the day. We crossed the river over one of the rickety apple wood bridges and then began a gentle ascent at first as we set off for the top. We were at one thousand six hundred metres (that’s about half as high again as Mount Snowdon) and we were going to climb another two hundred to get to our destination.

At the beginning there was no real indication about how tough this was going to be and the path meandered gently through shops and cafés but after a while the track narrowed and started to get steeper and suddenly instead of just strolling to the top, as we imagined we were going to, actual climbing was required instead. It was probably a bit dangerous and certainly wouldn’t have been allowed in the safety conscious UK and people all around us were attempting this in inappropriate footwear and flimsy clothing. What made it even more difficult was that people coming down had to use the same narrow track as those going up so there was quite a lot of congestion to cope with and a quicker group behind us was showing irritation with our slow progress as their pushy guide tried to find inappropriate short cuts so that they could get ahead of us.

It took about thirty minutes to get to the end of the walk and to the inevitable café at the top where we stopped for an expensive bottle of water next to the waterfall that was plunging through the rocks and vegetation. The pushy guide was saying his prayers on the roof which explained his impatience to get to the top and some people were paddling in the shallow pool of icy water and taking a drenching under the waterfall and before we set off back down Margaret decided to do the same although she couldn’t persuade Kim to walk over the sharp gravel in her bare feet to join her.

Going down was if anything more difficult than going up and fairly soon our legs began to ache as we slipped and slithered down the uneven path. At one especially tricky spot Kim got into a bit of bother and as she slipped she gave up any attempt at saving herself and launched herself at the unsuspecting guide who took the full force of her bosom full in the face and we thought that would probably do as his tip! Gradually the path levelled out and we passed through the shops again. Shops which incidentally sold pottery and I cannot imagine for one minute why anyone would want to buy pottery while climbing up the side of a mountain. Back at the road we said goodbye to the guide and thanked him for getting us back in one piece and then he led us to a tagine restaurant by the side of the river which was probably owned by a member of his family.

In the garden of the restaurant we sat at a table by the water and had a simple lunch of meat skewers and local sausages all swilled down with a nice glass of beer and then I realised that I was hallucinating because it was just a nice glass of ordinary mineral water! As we sat there some musicians turned up and played a repetitive tune that they wanted paying for but we refused and then they circled the garden with similar lack of success. It was starting to get cooler and some worrying bits of cloud were coming in from the west so we paid up, left and reunited with Hassan we left Setti-Fatma and began the drive back to Marrakech.