Marakech - Paul Heads Home

---

Breakfast was the standard French stick and jam on the roof terrace of Hotel CTM. The sight of a now quiet Djemaa el-Fna belied the action from the previous night, the odd food scrap being the only remaining remnant.

Paul, Jo and I were all stuffed from a week in Morocco and decided on a quiet day of limited sightseeing. This was to be Paul’s last day with us as he was booked on the 2100 train back to Tangier – leg one of a long trip back to Newcastle.

Our first stop was Palais el-Badi , a 400 year old palace in an equal state of ruin and repair where we spent an hour or so taking photos and discovering all the nooks and crannies.

Towards the Ville Nouvelle is Koutoubia Mosque – at 70 metres high it is the tallest mosque in town that can be seen from most vantage points in Marrakech. It was almost certainly the structure responsible for us waking at 0500 each morning as the call to prayer echoed around Marrakech.

Having become quite a fan of the cut-throat shave, I stopped at one of the many barbers shops in the Ville Nouvelle and took what was probably my last opportunity to get a shave. I negotiated the owner down to the local rate of Dh10 – two goings over, hot towel and aftershave all part of the service. The aftershave felt like fuel being poured onto me initially but within a few minutes I let feeling fantastic. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and was really going to miss it after we left Morocco.
The early afternoon was spent in the souqs of the medina once again where we purchased very little but enjoyed getting lost in the hustle before returning to the terrace at Hotel CTM for a café au lait.

As per the previous day (and I imagine each previous day for decades) at 1600 the call to prayer echoes out over Djemaa el-Fna and the food carts rolled past in preparation for another night preparing street food for the masses. I took a time-lapse video of the stalls setting up as the sun fell behind the horizon.

We had an early meal as Paul was keen to walk to the train station about 40 minutes away. Stall number one (“We’re number one”) was our choice from the previous night and we saw no reason to make any changes – after all – their brother was Jamie Oliver and the food was “lovely jubbly”). Kebabs, meatballs and potato cakes were the order of the night and all stacked up amongst the best street food I’d tried anywhere. Better yet, it cost little more than a few NZ dollars each.

We had one more session on the Hotel CTM terrace, reminiscing over the last few weeks with Paul. It felt like months before when he’d greeted us standing in the snow outside the Oakley shop in Covent Garden. The walk to the train station was fairly quiet with promises made to catch up in New Zealand, England – or perhaps somewhere more exotic next time.

Jo and I must have tried at least four Petite Taxis at the train station to get back to Djemaa el-Fna but not a single one of them wanted to put the meter on. Being keen to avoid yet another scam we decided to walk back.

It was a beautiful night for a walk anyway.

---