Marrakech: The Inside Scoop

For the first time since I left home, I‘ve really missed San Francisco. From our 4:30AM start, today has been marked by a mix of high emotion and chaos. On our flight to Marrakesh, we were the only two women of child-bearing age who did not have a flock of shrieking young children in tow. We kissed the concept of a line (as in queue, not geometry) goodbye once we reached our gate and were herded onto the Easyjet plane. Once on board, I got little much needed sleep as the children continued to screech and added running up and down the aisle, including during the taxi after landing. From my back aisle seat, I had an adolescent lean far too close into my personal space to spit something out in Italian (or so I assume as he commenced with scuzi), and a baby repeatedly tug on my poneytail as whoever holding him stood waiting for the bathroom, all the while doing my best to avoid the gaze of the creepy man next to me. For a culture that keeps such a strong thumb over women, you would think they’d enforce a little more discipline on their young. This was all followed by a fight that broke out at the passport check, where a veiled woman draped in equally shrill children was shouting in French at the European woman behind her.

All that was only a small taste of what lay in store for us beyond the airport’s jurisdiction. The 7 minute cab drive to our guesthouse, Dar Limoun, cost 150DH, the equivalent to over US$20 (my ‘08 Lonely Planet quotes no more than 60DH). After asking twice for directions, the cabi dropped us off a good ¼ mile away, forcing us to follow an all to eager man pushing a wheelbarrow (which he persisted in trying to get us to throw our luggage in) through the pedestrian/bike/scooter/motorbike-only walkway to the guesthouse. He of course wanted a tip for his kind services and pressed me for more after I gave him a mere 15DH($2) and offered to give me change for bigger bills if I had nothing smaller. I thought this was going to be an inexpensive break from Europe, but have quickly discovered I was absolutely wrong. Prices here are comparable to in the US, if not higher.

I would be OK with accepting this and the fact that as a tourist, it is my fate to get ripped off up the wall, if that was the extent of the antagonism awaiting us in Marrakesh. That is not to be the case for Steph and me however, because for us, walking in public (modestly dressed in long pants and t-shirts despite the near 90 degree heat) solicits cat calls from every other male vendor, peddler, and general deadbeat, of “Japonaisee? Konichiwa-arigato-nihao-japonaisee japonaisee japonaisee”. Walking through the rows of vendors for 10 minutes after lunch was enough abuse to drive us back to the confines of our guesthouse, on the way to which the harassment continued nearly to our doorstep, and from which we’ve yet to emerge today.

This, combined with the ubiquitous stench of urine, hot air thick with pollution and construction dust, relentlessly aggressive salesmen and beggers, unappetizing (expensive) food, utter absence of alcohol, constant rooster caws, and what I presume to be calls to prayer at regular intervals of the day that sound similar to the antichrist with a megaphone. We’re dreading the next 3 days here and wishing, longing, yearning for Europe and exodus from the Third World in general. I’ve spent my fair share of time in developing countries and so far, to say Morocco takes the cake would be an understatement by far.

---

---

---