Marrakech is a surreal experience. We arrive around 2 p.m. and after a 15 min taxi ride, our driver drops us in the Medina (old city). It’s 109 degrees outside, our luggage is loaded in a wooden push cart and we are led through the DJemaa el-Fnaa (The Central Square) full of snake charmers, fortunetellers, juice bars and pet monkeys dressed like children. Did we just drop into a movie scene from Indiana Jones? This city is about 1 thousand years old and it appears not much has changed in this ‘Red City’ named because of the color of the clay walls.
We walk another 5 minutes through souks (market area) and strange smells and finally arrive at our Airbnb- a two story Riad with a roof top deck. Riads are built around a courtyard, and ours has a palm tree, massive wooden beams and iron work and a couple of singing birds. It is a quiet refuge from the heat, noise and chaos of the old city. Yes, we have AC.
We are invited for tea and cake at the owner’s larger Riad Airbnb that they rent to groups/families which is gorgeous. Mint tea is a tradition in Marrakesh and is a symbol of hospitality and friendship. It is served in glass tea-cups with lots of sugar and is poured from the pot a couple of feet above the tea cup to create bubbles.
Breakfast is served on the rooftop of this Riad and we also had dinner there in the evening- 3 types of Moroccan salads and chicken tagine (food cooked in a cone-shaped ceramic clay pot) with olives and preserved lemon.
We have no real map to help us navigate and this drives Douglas crazy. We weave our way through the maze of hundreds of souks (markets) down narrow streets & alleys and we both know we are going to be lost as soon as we leave the safe haven of our Riad. Welcome to Marrakesh. Douglas’ mustache is already attracting lots of attention from the sellers and their barkers as well as a pick-pocket. Our first night there he retrieved a young man’s hand from his camera bag. “Hey moustache!” is heard constantly as we amble thru the markets.
At night the atmosphere in DJemaa el-Fnaa square is overwhelming and chaotic and morphs into a huge circus type party. Douglas says it reminds him of being at Burning Man. The party in this square has been going on since 1050 AD when the square was the site of public executions (DJemaa- El-Fnaa means assembly of the dead). Let the show begin! 100 chefs arrive to open pop-up restaurants as well as musicians, belly dancers, henna artists and street performers. BTW, photos are supposedly not allowed in Marrakech unless you ask permission and pay the person you are photographing so you will probably not see any of photos of us with snakes or monkeys around our neck.
Our evening ends with the final call for prayer at 10 p.m (but the ‘party’ in the square continues). Five times each day is prayer call, starting at 5 a.m., a lone voice (this is live- not recorded) can be heard over a loudspeaker throughout the medina for their call to prayer, reminding everyone to be present with Allah (God).
Locals tell us Morocco is one of those ‘green’ travel zones surrounded by a bunch of ‘red’ areas. The Argana restaurant you see in the lead photo is the one that was bombed in 2011. Tourism is the major industry here so we meet people from all over Europe that are traveling on inexpensive package deals. The first few days we waffle between leaving Morocco immediately for a ‘perceived’ safe and more comfortable environment or buying a Riad and setting up shop in the souks! I think we both agree that we are way out of our comfort zone and, that could be a very good thing.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” – Mark Twain
