Morocco 2007

Marrakesh

After a morning briefing, which included the handing out of walkie-talkies, "in case of any problems" said Ray..., we were away at a reasonable 9.00am for the journey to Marrakesh via the Tizi-n-Tichka pass. At nearly 2300m it's higher than the more westerly Tizi-n-Test pass, but the road is somewhat better and is the safest route over the High Atlas, pretty exciting nonetheless! What we didn't know until later was that Ray had been up very early in the morning, visiting the local bus station, to check on the conditions over the pass from the bus drivers coming in, just in case he had to find another route for us.

Once again we were lucky with the weather, the pass is often blocked by snow in the winter but we had it fine and sunny most of the way with only a light snow flurry at the highest point. We heard that it had been closed by snow a few hours later.

Camping Feradous

Arrived in Marrakesh at around 4.00pm, Camping Feradous, about 13km out of the city on the Casablanca road. A large flat site, and not busy at all, OK facilities and electric hookups again!

Camping Feradous is a good base for exploring Marrakesh, as there is a minibus service from the site directly to the centre of the city, 40Dh per person return. The driver would also do group tours of the main sights, by negotiation.

We headed off into the city, the minibus dropped us off opposite the great Koutoubia mosque (the largest in Morocco, built in the 1190s), a short walk from the main square, Djemma el Fna.

Having been before, in the late 1970's, we knew what to expect, it is nevertheless an amazing experience to walk into the square in the evening to find it heaving with people, food stalls and performers. It is the main square of Marrakesh and although, of course, very popular with tourists, there are just as many locals enjoying the story telling and food stalls. During the day it is less busy, there are many orange juice, date, nut, and dried fruit stalls, snake charmers, and something that many find distressing, chained barbary apes. There are water sellers in colourful costumes with traditional leather water-bags and brass cups. All will pose for photographs (for a fee) for tourists. In the afternoon and evening the square becomes more crowded, with Chleuh dancing-boys, storytellers telling their tales in Berber or Arabic to an audience of appreciative locals, magicians, and peddlers of traditional medicines. As dark descends the square fills with dozens of food-stalls, and the crowds are at their height.

Djemma El Fna from the Argana

The best place to get an overview of the square is from the balconies of the cafes that surround it, we went to the largest, Argana, and after a short wait got a table right on the balcony with a superb view overlooking the square.

After supper we had a short foray into the souks before getting the minibus back to the campsite.

The next day we spent the morning in the souks, just absorbing the atmosphere, and visiting the tanneries, where we were given a sprig of mint to hold to our noses, very necessary! In the evening we came back to eat at one of the many food stalls in Djemma El Fna. As you walk around the stalls they are all vying for your custom, but fortunately most have their tariffs displayed. We opted, having bypassed the stalls serving sheeps heads and the ones offering a large bowl of snails for 10Dh, for one which was loudly being proclaimed as 'air conditioned' (they are all of course in the open air) and had a tasty selection of olives, aubergines, sausages, chicken & lamb brochettes, chips and bread, with a Sprite and a Coke it came to 50Dh each. The rest of the evening we wandered the square, finally returning to the campsite at around 11pm.

Our last day in Marrakesh was spent in the souks - having finally found our way around the main bits of it! To us, the Place Djemma El Fna and the souks are the essence of Marrakesh but they are certainly not to everyone's taste, Morocco has a very different culture than most visitors are used to, there are customs and practices here which would not be tolerated in the 'civilised west', particularly if you venture into the depths of the souks. Personally, we accept the differences, others couldn't. Morocco is changing, Marrakesh medina feels a very different place now than it did 30 years ago, it's undoubtedly easier, safer, and there is much less hassling in the souks than we experienced back then.... Visit before it's sanitised any more to suit the western tourist market.

Dyers souk

Tannaries

Metalwork souk

We were due to leave the next morning, I had some work to do on the laptop so, before we went back to the campsite, I went into the cybercafe I'd noticed just by where the minibus picked up. They plugged me into their network and I had 90 minutes on the Internet for just 12Dh.

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