Marrakech

Back to a city of crazy traffic. Manic taxi-drivers, horse-drawn carriages full of tourists, donkey carts, mopeds, bicycles, trucks, the odd trishaw and huge tour buses all vie with each other for their piece of road, performing some startling manouevres and making road-crossing an adventure not for the faint-hearted. A fork-lift truck chugs sedately the wrong way round a traffic island.

The main square, D'jemaa el-Fna was packed with evening revellers. Drumming groups, dancers, singers and story-tellers busked their hearts out to the heaving crowds. People sold strange herbal remedies from mats on the ground, or sat on little stools selling off single cigarettes from their single packet. Approaching the lights on the far side it was hard to make out what we were heading towards, just a sense of thousands of shadowy people heading the same way as if to some pilgrimage site whose lights blinded you to your own surroundings. There was a row of orange-juice stalls, another row selling bowls of steaming snail soup. One stall offered sheep's head, which we resisted. Most of the stalls were quite large restaurant operations offering cheap, freshly-cooked staples such as salads, brochettes, tagines and soup. Smoke rose from their grills into the bright lights and a hundred smells wafted on the air. Most of the staff work at getting customers to come and sit down so the service was merrily haphazard, but the food was good and the atmosphere buzzing. People sat crammed at narrow tables rubbing backs with those at the next stall's tables. After dinner we headed for the spiced tea and cake stalls. The tea was delicious, zingily spicy and syrupy sweet, it would make a perfect winter warmer. It seems to contain half a dozen different spices, the predominat tastes being ginger then cinnamon.

In the daytime, the square looked quite different. The restaurant stalls unbelievably had completely gone, leaving the juices and a row of dried fruit and nut sellers who offered samples as we passed. There were no big crowds, just small groups wandering among the snake-charmers, hawkers, acrobats and story-tellers.

We took a morning walk through quietish back-streets, learning quickly to dodge out of the way of motorbikes which roared with alarming speed between pedestrians and donkeys on the narrow lanes. There was a mixture of tourist shops and local, practical shops and the pace was fairly gentle until we hit the main souk area. Along the way Katrina decided that what she needed in her life and luggage was a large brass door knocker. I have to say, it's pretty gorgeous.

In the afternoon we headed out to the Jardin Marjorelle – a lush tropical oasis of a garden designed by the French artist who used to live in the small deep-blue villa withing the garden. The place was amazing – beds of enormous cacti, heaps of bougainvillea cascading from trellises and gazebos, pools and fountains, bamboo, exotic grasses, trees and flowering creepers. All the paths were lined with plants in huge clay pots painted a vibrant yellow, blue or green. Unfortunately the garden was overcrowded, so lacked some of the calm we'd hoped for. Still it was good to breathe in the moist greenness after three weeks of dry, dusty air.

Friday was a morning of farewells as members of the group began to leave. It was sad to say goodbye, especially to Katrina and Esther, but I enjoyed a day on my own wandering around the kasbah and mellah. The area was full of would-be guides and salesmen, along with a number of genuinely selfless advice and direction givers – unfortunately it's not always easy to tell one from the other at first. One man gave me a leaflet for a spice shop and told me to visit the tombs first before they closed for lunch. I gave a very non-committal 'maybe' to visiting his shop later. I sat outside the tombs for a minute to read about them to see if I even wanted to visit and spice man reappeared to ask why I wasn't going in. Later as I left that area he chased after me with a barrage of complaint about tourists who lie and don't go to his shop and steal his papers. He then demanded his flyer back and left with it, still muttering abuse.

I visited the Palais el Badi, a huge place comprising one large courtyard, a summer residence and a series of tunnels leading to underground rooms and dungeons. It was buit around 1600 and although it has been plundered of its finery it is easy to imagine what a palace it must have been. The main courtyard includes a 90m pool (now empty), two smaller pools and a number of sunken orange groves, ponds and fountains. An area of ruined buildings gave a good view of underfloor water channels and an idea of the layout of in living quarters. From a roof terrace in one corner there was a fine view of its mud-plastered walls against a backdrop of snowy mountain-tops. A small side room housed the restored minbar from the kasbah mosque – a free-standing wooden structure from which the immam preached. Overall, it is a tall wedge shape light a steep narrow staircase. Eight deep steps lead up to the seat at the top, the sides intricately decorated with marquetry in islamic designs.

In the afternoon I shopped in the ville nouvelle for a picnic dinner, but amazingly failed to find bread. I walked back to a fairly smart cafe I'd seen, where I explained what I wanted and was presented with a neatly halved and wrapped baguette, free of charge. Just when you've been hassled and sleazily chatted up once too often, someone reminds you how good and kind people can be. So back in the hotel I enjoyed bread and cheese, olives and fruit, washed down with a beer – something of a rare treat and very hard to track down in Morocco.

On Saturday I wound my way through the maze of souks to find the the merdesa, an old islamic school. It is a marvellous, calm and beautiful place. A cool shallow pool nearly filled the courtyard and every wall was finely decorated with carved stone. Gorgeous dark wooden ceilings meant wandering around the interior with my neck craned, or the camera lying on the floor flat on its back. On two sides of the courtyard were the students' rooms, apparently a hundred and thirty-two of them. They were basic cells in a variety of compact sizes and I'm assuming that the power point in each one means that they were used until fairly recently. Rooms either overlooked the central area or their own small well-like courtyard, only a couple of metres across. The ablutions block housed a washing pool and what looked like original cubicles around this had been refurbished with modern toilets behind their rather attactive old wooden doors.

Nearby is the museum of Marrakech. While the collection wasn't anything unexpected the museum building was. It's a restored palace and quite magnificent. The central courtyard has been covered by a transparent roof that allows light to flood into the tiled and ornately decorated area. The ceilings and stucco are grander and more intricate than I could have imagined and an unbelievably enormous chandelier hangs over half the space. Rooms leading off the courtyard are framed in carved wood, with elaborately decorated alcoves where sofas sit, almost throne-like. The whole place was both mind-boggling and relaxing and I enjoyed sitting back and imagining living like a king.There's an original hammam, although the only signs of its purpose are the drainage channels around the sides of the rooms. Rounding the corner, I bumped into John and Ayesha so we navigated our way back (much easier) together.

Some Marrakech moments:

Gridlock in the souk, and just when the pedestrians have come to a standstill, two men on bicycles come round the corner in the middle of an animated argument.

A tanner tried to persuade me to visit his tannery. I said maybe, after the museum. He pointed at a random door in the wall nearby and told me, “See, the museum is closed,” - and I was supposed to believe that?

Hundreds of bees in patisserie windows.

The koutoubia minaret, a beautiful beacon by night.

Three men sitting sitting singing on a wall serenaded me as I walked past.

A restaurant with camel tagine on the menu.

Mints called Mental

For sale: small plastic train circuits, Bush in a big tank chasing Bin Laden on a a little pallet round and round the track.

A last night out - fantastic tagines - with John and Ayesha. I know they'll be expecting humorous anecdotes in this blog, and yes, they deserve them, but how can I sum up the witty comments, Ayesha's funny faces, sheep noises, the jokes and warmth of these people? So as with the others who've made this trip such fun, I'll just have to wish them a fond farewell and leave it at that.

Today is cool and cloudy and I'm filling time until my flight. Besallama, Morocco.


19 april