Thanks to travel insurance we were able to get our Morocco flight moved, so that granted Katie one extra day to see London’s sights and a few of its museums. On Wednesday afternoon we departed for Marrakech, one of the three “imperial cities” of Morocco, so named largely due to the significant medieval architecture that has been preserved. Nearly all of the buildings in the city are of the same terra cotta, clay color. Not sure if this is a result of the natural color of the building materials or of the frequent dust storms that affect Marrakech, but it has made for a very interesting cityscape.
On the plane we were amused by how dizzyingly specific the directions to the hostel were: they included such lines such as “walk until you arrive at this cafe, then turn left, walk under a door, then take an immediate right and walk for 2 minutes.” When we arrived, however, we could easily understand why such directions were necessary; we were walking down streets that were rarely wide enough for cars and virtually lacking in street signs. It felt more like walking through a maze than walking through a city. Having just arrived from London, we were immediately and acutely reminded of the reality that we were back in the third world where nothing (including dependable information or directions) is free, endless piles of trash are the norm, and everyone is your “friend.” As we trudged through the narrow alleyways looking for the hostel, scores of individuals would offer to bring us to a hotel; most would only leave us alone after we repeatedly insisted that we had already made reservations.
We were a bit too tired to feed ourselves the classic and cheap way that is typical (street side vendors) in adventurous countries such as this one so we ended up just finding a small cafe/restaurant where we enjoyed traditional Moroccan fare, a tajine and lamb schwarma. We should mention that French here is spoken as much as, or even more than, Arabic– something we were quite surprised to find out.
The next morning we enjoyed a wonderful breakfast on the hostel’s rooftop restaurant and afterwards we packed up our booksack and set out to brave the city’s streets. We first went to the Djemaa el Fna, one of the largest squares in Africa and since the advent of budget airlines, the scene of some of the most intense hustling we’ve ever experienced! After walking down a few side streets and having an endless army of shop owners (most of whom sell the same cheaply made goods) approach us and nag us to enter their stores, we ended up breaking away and heading to the city’s gardens.
We spent the rest of the afternoon walking through some of the newer parts of the city that had been built by the French during their colonial days, so these tended to have very wide boulevards and not the slightly claustrophobic feel that the old medina brought. For dinner that night we decided to get some “street food” in the town’s square.
As we approached the square, a man fell in step with me and whispered in my ear “Hello, hashish?” “Non, merci,” I replied, just like any other polite, well groomed young man would reply when offered illicit narcotics. However, when within 10 minutes 7 other men offered me marijuana as well, I began to simply ignore them rather than give them what was earlier nothing more than, admittedly, just a bewildered reply to an unexpected and unwelcome offer.
The square was also filled with the sounds of music coming from the flutes of snake charmers, traditionally garbed water sellers, “harmless lunatics,” vendors selling fresh orange juice, and numerous French families on vacation. We had read from various sources that the square is filled with all sorts of street vendors at night. What was unfortunate, however, was that due to the huge influx of tourists, most of the stalls present now are really aimed at them and not at locals. The result has been a general decrease in quality (at least in taste) and an increase in prices. The place we settled for can be described as mediocre at best, and though the prices were relatively low, they were neither reflective of being “street food” or “a restaurant,” instead just really a tourist trap.
In some ways Morocco was a little bit of a disappointment. Europeans had been telling us how amazing they found it to be. In our opinion, it was was too full of tourists to consider it a really “genuine” destination, like perhaps Cairo or Zagreb. We wonder if some of this hype might be due to the fact that there may be some exotic appeal to being in such a chaotic country for the first time. Alternatively, it is also possible that several of the people who have told us so many things about Morocco only did organized tours so got a selective view of what the country is like.
Our third day in Marrakech we spent buying a few souvenirs. This ended up taking longer than expected because it was really difficult to find well-made products. Once we did, we had to begin the haggling dance (everyone has told us that one should begin haggling at 1/5 the asking price). We stopped for some ice cream and pastries for lunch and then tried to find a big park marked on the map, which turned out to be little more than a field of dirt (with a few camels). For dinner, we ended up going to the same restaurant in which we had lunch and then just headed straight back to the hostel, walking as quickly as possible past the drug dealers, snake charmers, etc.
The next morning we got up at 5:30, and after a brief taxi ride with a charming old man, we boarded a train to Fez!