Advertisement
Published: November 12th 2010
Edit Blog Post
Morocco has been a bit of a surprise, especially after my previous foray to the African continent. They've really got the tourism thing working well here and on a variety of levels. I was half expecting it to be like Egypt with that mixture of dirt, chaos and everyone wanting a part of you from when you clear immigration til the time you're safely back in the metal tube out of there. But it was not to be, firstly you arrive at this amazingly clean and fresh airport followed by a complete lack of taxi drivers/touts hassling you as soon as you walk out of the arrivals. Taking the easy way out I had "organised" a transfer to the riad that I was staying at. It did not go exactly to plan, guys holding up signs everywhere but none with anything remotely like my name on it. After wandering for a while hoping that a driver would adopt me, it was time to make the call to the riad.
The guy that ended up whisking me away to the riad had nothing that even resembled my name or the riad's name on the shoddy bit of cardboard that he had,
but he got me there. When trying to book a room in a foreign land there's a few processes that you go through to try and get something that hasn't got views of the sewer or more bed bugs than the population of some one horse town. After much surfing the interweb looking for advice and reviews I ended up choosing a riad just up the road from the main part of town. From the time I set foot in the door I sort of knew that it was going to be up there with the little placed in Jaipur I stayed at that is yet to be topped as far as bang for your buck accommodation. This one comes close starting with the mint tea on arrival, followed by the comprehensive briefing on all that Marrakesh has to offer complete with map. After you've settled in it's off on the orientation tour you go, just to make sure that you can find the square and your way back home again. Speaking of which each time you return from wilds of Marrakesh to the safety of the riad, the door is opened with a personalised greeting and an inquiry as
to how the day went. There's more than a few more expensive places that I've stayed at that could learn a little from this place.
The only downside of all this personal attention is when you try to find something in your room. It would appear that certain things belong in certain places when you're staying in this riad. No matter how many times you move your toiletry bag in the morning to beside the sink come afternoon it'll be on the top shelf again. If by chance you threw your jumper on the bed in the morning come home in the afternoon and it'll be hanging up in the cupboard. Fortunately I'm used to such things happening in my current abode where the haus meri drops on by once a week to do all those things that I'm just too inefficient at doing like cleaning bathrooms. Although the battle of the third drawer with the haus meri did go on for a month or two before I had a temporary victory. I say temporary as just before I fled the island for this little sojourn there was a renewed attack on the third drawer by the haus meri
Djemaa el Fna
The guys with the surfboards aren't lost, there's some good surfing spots down the road a bit at Essaouira. and what should live there in her eyes.
Marrakesh's main centre of action is the Djemma el-Fna, an open square that is the meeting place for what seems like half of Morocco at times. By day there's your usual snakecharmers, monkey men, dentists and orange juice sellers and by night it's pretty much the same except for the added addition of foodstalls and the monkeys thankfully have gone home to bed. My favourite were the orange juice sellers, hopefully there's not a disease that you can get from having too much vitamin C because at 3DRM a pop (40 cents) I did manage to consume more than my bodyweight in orange juice over a three day period.
Just of to the north of Djemma el-Fna is the souks, which seem to go on forever in their maze-like alleyways. Thankfully now that Mr Casio is back on-board I was never too far lost. I never imagined that the compass feature would get so much use. After an afternoon of endless wandering down numerous alleyways all I had to do was head back south and I eventually found my way out of the souk and into the Djemma el-Fna ready
for another orange juice. Fortunately these guys in the souk here are not as abrasive as those in the Istanbul's Gran Bazaar, but I did take to speaking to them in pijin just to confuse them a little.
The other thing that you notice about Marrakesh is the storks, they have set up nests on anything higher than a pro basketballer. It was quite novel to look around and see these black and white storks perched on nests everywhere. I didn't see any of them carrying babies around though.
Being in Marrakesh I've become a bit of a tajine expert, you have a choice of either cous cous or tajine at just about every restaurant in town. The dish of choice has been the chicken tajine, with the best one not necessarily being had at the expensive place that I dined on my last night in town. It came in second, first prize went to one of the places that over looks the Diemma el-Fna which was a third of the price but the chicken just dropped off the bone and was full of flavour. It's one of the traps for the tajine chef is not to cook
it too long so that the dries out enough to become a handbag. One of the nice things about the expensive place I ended up at for my last supper in Marrakesh was the lighting. The metal lampshade in the atrium threw some very nice light patterns throughout the terrace. There was a spot of reality when I realised as nice as the effect is there was two minor problems with replicating it back at home. The lampshade wouldn't fit in the luggage and if I hung it from the ceiling I'd end up with a very sore head.
The notable sights as you wander the clean streets of Marrakesh are the Ben Youseff Madrassas which was a school attached to the Ben Youseff Mosque. It's no longer in use so it's been restored for tourists to see what it was like to be a student of Islam there. Right next door is the Marrakesh Museum, which didn't really have me jumping with excitement. The little hidden surprise was the Musee Tiskiwin that Dutchman Bert Flint established. It contains his collection of ethnological artifacts from his journey across the Sahara. The added bonus is the guidebook that they give
you when you enter the museum that explains everything about the artifacts on display.
No. 48
Advertisement
Tot: 0.117s; Tpl: 0.019s; cc: 11; qc: 62; dbt: 0.0784s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb