Marrakech

Our Marrakech experience so far has been kind of mixed. We’ve had some great food and seen some amazing things, but we’ve also had some interesting language barrier difficulties and experienced some of the not-so-great Marrakech experiences of being misdirected and taken for a ride.

We started the day with breakfast next to the pool in our riad. No eggs here, so I’m very very glad I found ricecakes at Marjane yesterday, or breakfast would have consisted of two Laughing Cow cheeses and some orange juice!

Our guide for the day, Mohammed, met us straight after breakfast and took us out to see some of the monuments. After checking out the Koutoubia mosque (and the ruins of the previous mosque on the same spot) we wandered into the attached gardens, where orange trees and rosebushes vied for prominence next to mosaic fountains and gazebos.

Our next stop was the Saadian tombs, a mosaic’d and filigree carved collection of tombs which was walled up by the king after the one buried here, and it was only rediscovered by accident by an aerial photo of the medina in 1917!

As we exited, we wandered into the herbalists Aux 100,000 Epices, which was a pretty amazing array of spices and dyes in glass jars, ready to be applied to any ailment. We were doused with various creams and perfumes as the assistant (I love that they wear white coats like pharmacists) expounded on the various spices, herb teas and creams. I ended up buying some Ras el Hanout and some magical weight-loss tea (we’ll see how that goes!)

Our next stop was the ruined Badi Palace which is undergoing extensive reconstructive work. It was pretty amazing to see the scale of this, and also to see the rebuilt sections in comparison to what they began with.

We were starting to get a bit over museums and rock by this stage, so we declined seeing any of the others, much to Mohammed’s despair, and he took us through the J’maa el Fna and to a back-street restaurant for lunch.

I had a regional specialty, pigeon and almond tagine, which was lovely, and R had a plate of mixed grilled cutlets and kefta.

Then we went into the souks, seeing the leatherworkers, carpenters and metalworkers at work, and wandering into a more upmarket light shop which, Mohammed assured me, would ship our purchases home. After falling in love with a couple of the light fittings, the price of shipping made it a bit prohibitive, and we wandered out again.

The dubious highlight of the afternoon was R being lured into a healer’s shop, which was very amusing until the time came to pay the bill! This guy started doing reflexology on me and then dragged us all upstairs to work on my back (which, to be fair, appreciated it, although the pressure point stuff would have been superseded by a good massage!) Then he went to work on R, and we all trooped downstairs again while the healer told us his diagnosis (I’m absolutely healthy in case you’re wondering, but I need to lose weight to be really happy, apparently!) and wandered around picking out “the important” herbs for us, before presenting us with the bill. We were so astounded by the bill of $50 each for our “healing” that we gave him all the money we had (a bit less than the asking price – we’re relatively modest in the amount we carry around, so at least we got a discount because of that!) and headed out as quickly as possible! Note to self: Always ask the price first!

Somewhat shell-shocked from our memorable, if expensive experience, Mohammed didn’t know what to do with us. He said that if we didn’t want to look at any more museums or monuments, there was nothing else to do! We demurred and suggested having a mint tea at one of the cafes around the square in order to relax a bit – after all, isn’t that the Moroccan tradition?

We ended up at the rooftop terrace of one of the cafes, watching the action as the food stalls began being set up for the evening. There are hundreds of different groups of people selling food, drinks, toys and tissues, or services such as shoe-shining, henna application, photo opportunities with snakes or monkeys, and games such as “fishing” for cool drink bottles!

After asking Mohammed’s advice about finding an Arab-style djelleba to use for a dance cover-up, we dived back into the souks. He knew the sort of shop to look for, and found one with exactly the sort of thing I wanted – black fabric with silver decorations and a zip up the front. This exceeded my expectations though – the zip even has sparkles on it!

The large size they had fitted well, but since I wanted it to wear over a costume (which can get quite bulky), we asked if they could find one in a larger size. They sent someone running off to another store to check, and meanwhile we looked at cotton and linen shirts. Our runner returned with another nice one, but it didn’t have as much decoration, so off he went again, this time bearing the original to match it as well as he could.

I decided against a shirt, but R found a couple he liked, and settled on a nice linen one in a grey flecked colour with black embroidery at the collar, cuffs and hem. In the meantime, our running friend came back with the same djellaba in a larger size and all was well. Then the bargaining started. They named 1600 dirham, and we ended up with 1050 in the end, which I was quite happy with. I keep forgetting to start really low, rather than “not being insulting” low, so we probably could have got them cheaper, but I was pretty happy to get these.

We went back to the hotel for a rest, saying goodbye to Mohammed, and then wandered out again for dinner. We immediately got lost, having somehow taken a wrong turn on our way through the medina to the square. We ended up coming out of the medina where we had originally come in, and thought we could go around to the square in another direction. Not helped by various boys on the street calling out to us that we were going the wrong way to the square, no matter which way we chose to go, we ended up asking a few shopkeepers for help, and after about half an hour of walking, we ended up back in the souks. A “helpful” boy told us he would show us the way, and took us a winding back way, then demanded a “gift” when we reached the other end. R didn’t want to give him anything but since the boy started yelling at us and getting angry, I ended up giving him 5 dirham.

Once we got to the square we were able to relax a little, but not for long, as the owners of each of the food stalls clamour for attention as you’re walking through, pulling you towards each stall. We started at one and I tried a p’stilla again, which was terrible (I should have just left it with Karima’s one in Fes) and R had the sausages, which were kind of like the small Italian sausages we’ve had at home.

Then we moved on as R wanted to try the sheep’s head. I wasn’t too keen so I didn’t order anything, and R asked for one small serve. He said it tasted pretty good, but had been looking for the soup he’d seen on Anthony Bourdain, with random bits of meat and whatever floating in it. The trouble started when we were leaving, as R paid for one serve, and the waiter insisted we’d had two. It seems that the language difference meant he’d thought we’d ordered two things, when R had asked for one. The strange thing was that he thought we wanted two separate dishes, which didn’t seem to fit what we’d had placed in front of us. After a lot of shouting and getting angry and finding someone who spoke slightly better English, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I gave R the rest of the money to give to them and left them to it.

While walking by myself for a minute or two, I saw a completely different side of Marrakech. Even though I was in the same spot as before, without R obviously next to me I had comments and blown kisses flying my way from all directions, and not in a good way!

Once R caught up, we headed back to the riad for an early night. Too much excitement for one day! At least we were able to find our way back a lot more easily than on the way out!