Marrakech

When I arrived in London I told myself that if I did nothing else I would travel to Iceland and Morocco, two places that are not the easiest to pop into from Melbourne. Mission accomplished.

When I arrived back from Morocco I promised I would immediately write interesting and informative entries here about my trip. Mission not accomplished. It's been a while coming - although I had a wonderful, fabulous time, the post-holiday high has gone and I'm less motivated to write about my trip. This is a start.

I went to Morocco with Intrepid Travel, a company I am more than happy to plug. Not usually one for organised tours, this turned out to be perfect for what I was after; I was a bit sick of travelling on my own and not in the mood for spending the little time I had there worrying about where I was going to sleep that night or from where I needed to catch the next bus.

This is the short summary of Marrakech: SENSORY OVERLOAD!

I was constantly alert and felt like the adrenalin didn't let up as all my senses were in overdrive the whole time I was there. The main square, Djemaa el-Fna, was full of constant activity: selling, dancing, performing, buying, drinking, eating, cooking, talking. There were quite a lots of tourists there, mainly French, but what was nice was that I had the feeling that even if we all went home the place would still pretty much be functioning as wel saw it.

I saw a table covered in teeth for sale, poor monkeys on chains, the vivid orange and browns of dried fruits for sale, sheep heads ready for boiling, veiled women painting intricate henna designs on the arms of others and bright colours of the slippers for sale.

I smelled spices, spices, spices. Perfectly formed pyramids of spices for cooking tagines and couscous are in every second shop and the aromas are down every street.

I felt bustled in the busy streets of the souq (market), the pleasant and long missed feeling of sun on my skin (not a frequent occurrence in London of late) and energised by the constant activity in every street.

I tasted sweet, sweet freshly squeezed orange juice from one of the many stalls, the refreshing goodness of sweet mint tea and the spice infused chicken and lamb and vegetables of the tagine meals that were at every meal.

I heard the constant music of the snake charmers and musicians in the square, the stories of the salesmen who urged me to buy their purfumes, fabrics, tagine pots and ceramics and the call to prayer from the mosques five times each day.

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I flew into Marrakech and through the serendipity of travel that often occurs I ran into the lovely Roma in the passport queue at the airport. Roma was a gem of the trip: a grandmother, fluent in Polish, Russian, Hebrew, English and French, an author of short stories, the teller of many more and an amazing woman full stop. She was not the archetypal Intrepid Traveller I'm sure but her presence added to our group immensely. Roma and I quickly worked out we were on the way to the same hotel and from thereon spent much of the time in Marrakech exploring the city together.

There was a risk that the other people in the group would annoy me, being a usually solo and generally non-chatty traveller, but again I was lucky and I have now made a lovely group of friends, four of whom also live in London. We came from Australia, Canada, the USA, South Africa and our tour guides were from Russia and Oz. A lovely mix.

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