Marrakesh - MOROCCO

WEDNESDAY 25TH NOVEMBER 1998

The dark morning hours beckoned and after a restless night of sporadic sleep in our over-heated compartment I gazed out the window in a state of wonder, bewitched by Morocco and its desolate African countryside. It was hard to believe we were here experiencing our last continent and I spent a good hour watching all the tones of light rise over the horizon and brighten up the surrounding dirt dunes, dry grass, and red brick villages that would pass.

By 7am the train was alive and I even braved the somewhat makeshift toilet and thanked my lucky stars that I'd never have to walk along the cesspit of railway tracks. We were the only ones out of ten travellers who had a guidebook for Morocco. What were these people thinking? The touts and hustlers are hard enough to deal with let alone constantly asking them for directions and even then how would you know where to go. They must have been mad!! Although they did turn out to be an interesting bunch and ten of us armed with backpacks set off down the street prepared for the onslaught. Marrakesh's new town was full of wide boulevards about six or eight lanes across - presumably to accommodate the mingling pedestrians, reckless taxi drivers, and ceaseless parade of donkeys. Sadly the donkeys were badly looked after and it was difficult to fathom why someone would have such little regard for their livelihood. One had been hit so hard that he was bleeding. I suppose this vision is the price you pay for visiting such an exotic location.

One of our Canadian friends had been recommended a hotel near the Djemaa el-Fna Square named Hotel Medina. For 80DH (dirhams) (per double) it was a bargain with two floors of rooms surrounding a central courtyard and some very colourful tiles. The views from the rooftop lounge offered a different perspective of Marrakesh, where the sleepy bodies of cats lazed, washing blew to-and-fro in the wind, and the life of the bustling streets and souq (market) seem a million miles away. A handful of us left by 8am to savour the joys of early morning in the souq, which is the most extensive maze of narrow streets lined with stalls. Only the locals could be found mingling down its lane-ways and the tourist draw was hours away. As we had force by numbers we experienced many more stalls than we would individually. I remember the carpet shops and the young Berber women weaving, the chameleon in the spice shop, all the smells from the pots and jars and the horrid forms in the meat market that would have turned the most ardent flesh-lover vegetarian. Perhaps we should have worn T-shirts saying "I don't eat heads for breakfast". Although what interested me the most was the abundance of silk inlaid with gold in the fabric shops and I set my heart on finding a few metres, at the right price of course.

As we exited the souq the square was filled with commerce of all sorts - men selling teeth (the size of large molars), a snake charmer with cobra, a colourful storytellers that one can only liken to fictional characters from some of the world's greatest fairy-tales. More than twenty orange stalls stretched out across the length of the square and their owners would ferociously try to part you and your wallet. For 2.50DH (about GBP 0.20) I've never tasted anything fresher and the look on the vendors face to his friends when he won our attention was most memorable. More life oozed out of a 100 metre radius than we've ever seen before as every man desperately tried to catch our attention. Here we learned to become hard-faced, uninterested beings so unwilling to promise anyone our attention or money. It's either sink or swim here and it wasn't long before we reached the other side of the channel.

Marrakesh is not a town of sweeping architecture, but one full of the atmosphere pictured above. We returned to our hotel to pick up our other friends and savour more of the souq's magnetism. By the time we emerged from its covered alleys it was time for lunch. We plied the streets to no avail and decided to enlist the help of our guidebook. We came to a place off the square which was totally barred up and looked as though it had been closed for years. In the usual fashion of Moroccan hustlers not one but three men came up to us at different times to state the bleeding obvious "it's closed". All in hope that they would spark a conversation. Restaurant Panoramic overlooking the square won our attention and we ate omelette avec fromage whilst drinking in the events below.

Carmen and John (an Argentine and Canadian) joined us in the afternoon for a walk around the medina. The architectural wonders of the city are few and far between, although ochre tones reflected off the red dirt buildings glowed in the afternoon sun, somewhat distracting your vision away from the cesspits collecting rubbish in the streets. This gave it character, especially as the narrow alleyways and streets were filled with old men on donkeys laden with all sorts of paraphernalia from plant life to man-made materials. You'd almost be hard pressed to spend five minutes without the sight of a donkey. As the hordes of locals, peasants, beggars and young children lined the streets nothing could be more pleasant than being squashed against the wall by an animal, rather than the diesel-chugging, smelly Mercedes - castaways from Europe. There is a vibe in Marrakesh that can hardly be described in words.

The monuments we did visit included the exteriors of many mosques, the Sardiaan tombs (64 tombs from the 16th century, adorned with high Arabic artistry glistening around colourful tiles). The tombs were fairly unexciting but a few friends we bumped into stated that it was worth "paying the entrance fee" (10DH) just to use the toilets. Six of us then barged through the streets passing the exterior of the Palais El-Badi (as you could see it's ruined state from the entrance and it had become a glorified garden surrounded by orange trees), the Palais de la Bahia (which was closed for a month as the royal family was in residence) and missed the difficult to find entrance to the kasbah, that was guarded by the military and apparently closed to visitors. We walked back somewhat defeated by the lack of Arabic / Muslim monuments, but were still enthralled by the happenings of the outer suburbs, where we became the local circus act instead of targets for false guides.

Whilst the others retired to the hotel for a bit of R&R, Dave and I ploughed on north through the souq, spying some lovely gold thread fabrics, great for wall-hangings, until we came across the Ali Ben Youssef mosque - the city's largest. A peek through its entrance was like a porthole into another, more calm, serene, and peaceful world, covered entirely with highly decorated tiles. Although all mosques are closed to non-Muslims we entered the mederna next door, a theology school of the Koran which amazingly once housed 900 people. The tranquility of its squares were a welcome sight, which we shared with only a few small pigeons. Colourful tiles adorned the floors and lower walls, centred on a fountain. Highly decorated stucco work lined the rest of the walls (often edged with extracts from the Koran) and carved cedar structures lined the ceiling, which is open to the elements. Above and around this central courtyard lie the many bare student rooms that surround several smaller courtyards. As we stepped back into the real world it was nice to finally that monumental treasure that we were sure Marrakesh was hiding behind its grubby walls!!

After relaxing in the tiled roof terrace of our hotel, watching the sun set over the rooftops and listening to the piercing call to prayer, we made our way back to Djemaa el-Fna Square. It had completely transformed in half an hour and was now covered with stalls of persistent food vendors, all displaying a sumptuous smorgasbord of freshly charred kebabs, meats and salads, grilled to perfection in front of you. The scene was an overwhelming theatrical performance and you could only be lured more into its depths. The aroma of fresh food fills the square and on spare spaces acrobats, jugglers, storytellers, madmen and lunatics fight for the attention of the wandering masses. The food vendors were the most desperate and demanding. As our group would cross the square voices from each stall would fight for our attention and it was a taste of what being famous is like. The stall that won our vote was headed unusually by a young Moroccan babe who would yell "hello" to all the boys. You've got to love their marketing and entrepreneurial skills and it's not often you see a Muslim woman being so used as bait. The food was cheap and excellent, although after we sat down, like the rest of their clients, we became invisible as the vendors would strive for the attention of other passers-by.

By 9:30pm we made our way back to the hotel and in good Muslim fashion enjoyed each others conversation for a few hours instead of downing as many beers as we could get our hands on. Besides, the only supermarket was miles away. By 12 we retired to our room to contemplate the colourful events of the day and soon fell into a well deserved sleep.