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Published: November 7th 2007
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There is no turning back.
Once you've had a glass of Marrakchi fresh squeezed orange juice, there is no turning back. For some reason, they insisted that I take photos behind the counter with them. Maybe they could sense my excitement. Our cab dropped us near the Djama el Fna: Marrakech’s notorious central square, described as the center of night life for locals and as a twenty-four hour tourist trap. From the road we entered a pedestrian only pathway and walked past a park, where rows of boys sat on benches and stared intently at us—challenging us to break our determined, straight-ahead gazes. “Hello gazelle.” “Hey sweetie. Welcome to Marrakech.” We kept our eyes forward, pointed in the direction of the strip of white lights that our cabbie had pointed us toward.
At the center of the square was a maze of tables covered in neat rectangles of white oilcloth; a cluster of tables belonged to one food stall, and each of the fifty or so food stalls was lit with a single bare bulb or a string of bulbs, creating an illuminated stage from which the touts and waiters and cooks haggled passersby and tried to lure them to their stalls. Shouts from the workers (wearing white lab coats) rose above the stalls with steam from the escargot soup and kebabs, furthering the impression of an intensity (of light and heat and interaction) that emanated from the square.
Bordering
The inferno.
A djellabah fitted woman makes her way into the Djemaa el-Fna. two of the edges of the main food bazaar were an outer periphery of more stalls: carts selling crates of dried fruits and nuts (arranged in a checkerboard pattern of tans and browns) and fresh squeezed orange juice.
The guidebook had said that (with imagination) one could summon a feeling of the travelers’ and traders’ crossroads that Marrakech once us. As I stopped to take a picture of steam rising backlit from the food stalls, Moroccan families and local women on motorcycles passed us by. Whether it was by power of suggestion or because of a true sense of historical place, I thought for a moment that even I (usually challenged by the imagination necessary to, for example, stand at the site of ruins and imagine a functional empire) could feel a tradition of movement and energy that inhabited the square.
…Back in the square we stopped at one of the peripheral stalls for an orange juice fortification (certainly the best orange juice I could ever remember drinking, and only for 3 dirham, or less than fifty cents) before we threw ourselves into the maddening white chaos of the food stalls. With so many proprietors packed into one
Armani man.
I don't think we ever communicated effectively, but he seemed pretty please that I wanted to take his picture. The piles of spices are unique to their dishes. For example the red pile is a mixture of 36 spices that make up the dressing for tagine. space, the competition was thick and the men in white coats aggressively sought the attention (and money) of anyone within range.
“Hello sweetie! You like to try my food? I have good kebabs, Moroccan salad…”
“My gazelle,” they would say, grabbing our elbows and getting uncomfortably close to our faces.
“Eat here. It is the best food. The best!”
“Not tonight?” they teased, as we dodged men who tried to pull us back to their stalls or who blocked our way as we walked down the aisles. “Ok. Then tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow.”
The tone was aggressively playful. The density of the stalls at the center of the square, the bright lights and the constant pedestrian traffic going through and around the stalls seemed to create a space where local social codes were looser; where men could descend on three women like us and cross physical boundaries in the name of marketing mint tea and tagine.
We toured the maze and (after too much hustling—some more inappropriate than others) we settled on a stall with a beautiful display of salads and ample sitting space. The food was unremarkable (slices of fried eggplant paired with spicy
Self-portrait.
Additional wares of the spice man. tomato sauce stole the show), but the location on the edge of the cluster provided the perfect vantage point. Parades of Europeans with sweaters tied around their necks strolled by and were subjected to the pleas and jests of the waiters (particularly vigorously if the number of women in the group outweighed the number of men). Magicians, musicians and performers of various kinds held small audiences in the unused parts of the square.
One of the cooks made his way to our table to check on our enjoyment of the food and to make small talk with us about Morocco. Before long he and MC were discussing English literature and debating the merits of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. It turns out that Denzel (as he introduced himself to us) had studied English literature in university, and it was clear that he was eager to talk about it with just about anyone who would listed. So we listened and (after he had given us instructions for the next day’s adventures) traded e-mails, promising to come back next time we were in Marrakech.
Day 2
We had already decided that Marrakech had some undeniable draw,
Motorbikes and djellabahs.
A typical marrakchia souq scene. and in the morning we found the force of attraction only growing stronger. We emerged from the medina (where our small guest house was located among a hundred others of the same price range and quality) through a stone archway, greeted by the smoke of cedar incense being sold from a cart in the square. The snake charmers’ flutes played over each other in a way that appealed to all the orientalist stereotypes one could possible have about the old Arabic world, and men in large red felt sombrero-type hats with oversized sequins dangling from them wandered the square, posing for photos with tourists.
Yes. Marrakech is a tourist trap. But not in a greedy way. The city carries itself confidently—giving itself openly to the eyes and ears of travelers (as it must have for centuries)—and with an ambivalence that speaks to the years it has endured as a stop-over for people coming from and going somewhere else. People like us.
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travellingmum
Bobbie
wonderful photos
Love the sunset photo.. It is one of the most beautiful I have seen on the site!