Headed into the centre of Marrakech first thing c/o the accursed yellow Mercedes taxi. Far less frightening being inside one of them vs sharing a road with them! Having read horror stories about the traffic in Marrakech, and experiencing it ourselves last night, we had no desire to drive in ourselves, although to be fair, until you reach the medina walls, its not really that bad. Once you’re at the medina though – utter chaos. The concept of roundabouts appears to have reached Marrakech, it just seems nobody has thought to tell people what they’re supposed to do when they reach them…
Within seconds of being dropped off we were approached by a young chap on a scooter who warned me that my bag was undone, which it wasn’t, but I can see why he would have thought so. He then started talking about where to go and what to see and was clearly trying to adopt the role of our guide, despite our attempts to shake him off. The taxi driver had told us which way to go, and once we had started down that road, our new ‘friend’ insisted we were going the wrong way and he would be happy to show us around the old town. We insisted that we were fine and didn’t want a guide, but he persisted and eventually, much to Cris’ annoyance, I gave in and agreed a price with him for a couple of hours (100dh or €10).
He proceeded to take us on a tour around the northern section of the old town, including a mosque and past various artisans workshops ; none of which were trying to sell anything, thankfully. They seemed to be busy producing items which would end up in the main souks and shops in the centre of the medina. Surprise surprise, he took us to a berber craft shop who, surprise surprise, offered us a free mint tea and a seat. We could see where this was going and had to be pretty firm to nip it in the bud. We simply didn’t have time for an hour-long presentation of all their different carpets and such. The shop owner seemed to take it ok and on our way out, asked if my wife (?!) and I had any children. “Not yet” I replied, assuming he was talking about Cris here 🙂 “Next time you visit Morocco, you must have 2 children. A boy and girl”. Right….
Eventually we ended up at the Ali Ben Youssef Medersa (Madrasa) which is where we had been heading originally before we were waylaid by our ‘guide’. Here we said goodbye to him but when it came to paying him, he protested when we presented him with a €10 note. His argument was that it would be hard for him to exchange it for dirhams, despite us agreeing to it earlier. He wanted 120 dirhams, which wasn’t what we’d agreed. So we said no. And he persisted, claiming that we could pay for the entrance to the medersa in euros if we wanted but he didn’t want them. We didn’t particularly want to pay him in dirhams as we were running short. And so it continued for a while, until we said “€10, 100 dirham, or nothing, up to you”. He took the 100 dirhams but clearly wasn’t happy about it. Oh well…
The medersa (an Islamic college, in case you were wondering) dates back to the 14th century and was in use until the mid 20th century, and apparently once housed something in the region of 900 students in 130 rooms. I’ll let you do the maths there. These rooms/cells aren’t particularly big, incidentally. Lovely central courtyard/patio with a large pool and lots of ornate decorations and inscriptions. Well worth a visit, and you can pay a bit extra and get a joint ticket that includes the nearby Museum of Marrakech.
The Museum of Marrakech, just a few doors down from the Medersa, had reasonable toilets, a rather nice central gallery containing various works of art and cabinets of ancient bling. Not really much to say about it other than that!
From here we headed south, into the hustle and bustle of the medina. I’ve never experienced anything quite like it ; people walking in all directions going about their day to day basis and plying their trade to passing tourists, the odd donkey and cart hauling goods and/or people and of course, people riding scooters through the crowds… Clearly they haven’t heard of pedestrianised zones like we have here in the UK 🙂 We had a plan to visit the Jewish Quarter before getting stuck into the souks and medina so didn’t linger too long and soon found ourselves at the famous Djemma el-Fna (or Jemaa el Fna, depending on your point of view I guess), the square at the heart of the medina and home to food stalls, henna tattoists, snake charmers, storytellers, monkeys and so on. Lots of noise, different musicians in different parts of the square competing to see who can make the most (worst?) noise.
On our way through, we got collared by a couple of henna tattooists and before Cristina could stop them, they’d started a tattoo on her hand. Fortunately when they tried to start one on mine I had cottoned on and pulled away quickly, not (a) wanting one in the first place or (b) wanting to pay for the privilege! Sadly however we had to pay for Cristina’s. Whatever we paid for it, it wasn’t worth it other than for the humour factor as she tried to hide it for the next day or so…
Popped into whats supposed to be a fairly good patisserie – Patisserie des Princes – just off the main square, thinking we’d treat ourselves to some snacks. Whilst everything looked quite tasty and appealing, it was hard to convince ourselves to buy anything as just about everything on display was covered in wasps. So we opted for a bite to eat at Fast Food al-Ahbab (which seemed far more popular with the locals, and anyone for that matter, than the place directly opposite, which had the sum total of no customers) and it was on to the Jewish Quarter (the Mellah) to the south of the square, in search of the cemetery, synagogue, and a couple of old palaces.
Looking for the palace(s) first, we were directed a friendly local (not wanting any money, of course) down a few alleyways and told to “go through that door, then through the room and turn right at the end”. Thinking this would be a fairly unlikely entrance to a tourist attraction, we thanked him and said we’d go and look at the Saadian Tombs first. He then asked for money for his children. Yawn. Politely we declined and walked off.
Finding the Saadian Tombs was much easier, thankfully, with the usual 10dh entrance fee. There isn’t a huge amount to see but what there is, is pretty impressive. Lots of (generally unmarked) graves and a large prayer room, all dating back to the late 1500’s. They were bricked up by Moulay Ismail when he took over Marrakech around the end of the 17th century and largely remained untouched until ‘rediscovered’ early in the 20th century. More details here.
The directions we get from the ticket salesman on our way out of the tombs complex didn’t make huge amounts of sense, and once again people told us to go through the mysterious doors, and once again, asked for money. Getting tired of that! So, through the door we went, and surprise surprise, straight into a shop. Fortunately the owner didn’t seem to be around so we walked through it quickly and out the other side. Phew! Another hour long sales pitch avoided!
Couldn’t find any sign of Palais El Badi but found ourselves at Palais La Bahia instead so went in. Another 10dh, obviously. Nice enough for half an hour or so, a nice courtyard, and their loos were quite decent as well 🙂
Leaving La Bahia behind we went for a wander around the rabbit warren of lanes that makes up the Mellah. This went fine until we made another new friend, who said he’d show us where the cemetery and synagogue were and no, didn’t want any money, just ‘shukran’ (thanks) and a chance to practise his English. Oh well, here we go again! In his defence, he took us straight to the cemetery, I think, but then told us we couldn’t go in just yet as they were praying. Hmmm…. Whilst we waited, he said he’d show us around the mellah a bit, which inevitably ended up at a shop, this time a spice shop, where he took us through the various different spices etc and then the shopkeeper turned up to carry on the sales pitch, whilst our friend bade us farewell. Gave the shopkeeper a few minutes then told him we had to go, so he pointed us in the direction of the cemetery.
Within a few strides, we picked up yet another friend, who again, said he didn’t want anything from us, just shukran and to practise his English. Clearly these guys have a strategy! We tried shaking him off, telling him we didn’t need any help or a guide, but he was having none of it, just walking ahead of us all the time. He wanted to take us on a tour of the cemetery but we insisted we just wanted to look around for ourselves. He said he’d wait. We told him he didn’t need to. He insisted and sat down in the shade with (presumably) a mate of his who he said was the caretaker. We looked around but couldn’t find an alternative exit. Bugger! Whilst we were there, however, we took the opportunity to look around for a bit – it was on our list of things to see, after all. It was a bit sad to see so many graves, many of them unmarked as far as we could tell, packed in so closely, many apparently children who died of cholera during outbreaks in the 1800s. Many of the graves had small stones on top of them, left by visitors. This is apparently a common sight in Jewish cemeteries, acting effectively as a way of saying that someone had remembered and visited the grave.
Hoping that our guide/friend had decided to leave us to it, we headed back to the entrance, only to be disappointed to see he was still there. He asked for a donation on behalf of the ‘caretaker’ for the upkeep of the cemetery, which we figured we could live with as clearly they need funds – its fairly overgrown and run down. So we handed 10dh over to the ‘caretaker’. As we left, our ‘guide’ told us he’d take us to the synagogue but we declined, saying we wanted to go back to the square (and having figured out from the rubbish map in Lonely Planet how to get there). He then, despite earlier promising he just wanted ‘shukran’, asked for money (for his kids of course). We declined, having had enough of this now. He insisted, saying he’d sat around for ages waiting for us. We pushed back saying that whilst we were grateful for him telling us the way to the cemetery, we neither asked for, or required his help, and he had told us he didn’t want money. He then started going on about “you give money to the dead but not to the living?”. We said he should ask his friend for half of what we gave him. When it became clear that he wasn’t going to get anything from us he started getting a bit irate, at which point we just turned around and walked off, with him shouting “f*ck, go!” at us. We were already on our way, thanks 🙂
Arriving back at the main square, we decided it was definitely time for a cup of mint tea and fruit smoothie so found ourselves a cafe with a roof terrace and enjoyed a (relatively) quiet half hour break, taking in the sights and sounds of Marrakech from a safe distance…
Back into to fray, this time heading straight for the souks to the north east of the square, which seemed to be mainly used by locals and catered for them rather than tourists. Rammed with people, bikes, motorbikes, you name it, but great to just wander around. Definitely one of the highlights of the day for me, although its hard to put my finger on why.
As we reached the outskirts of the souks, various vendors told us “not that way, it is closed” or “they are praying”. We’d nod and go there anyway, and nothing was closed and nobody appeared to be praying.
Somehow we managed to find ourselves back at the Ben Youssef Medersa and mosque. Not quite sure how that happened, so we plunged back into the souks and 15mins later, reappeared back at the mosque. Tried a different route this time and finally found ourselves back in the square, just as the sun was starting to set and the food vendors were starting to get the evenings shenanigans underway. Smoke began to waft up from their stalls and the air was filled with a tempting array of flavours. Definitely intended to try some of that food later!
Before then, however, we wanted to have a look at some of the ‘performers’ who were attracting small crowds, predominantly locals. One was just a series of soft drink bottles (presumably complete with contents) which people tried to hook with fishing rods, effectively. Seemed quite popular although we didn’t see anyone ‘win’ a bottle. Another group circled a small group of musicians, or maybe it was just one musician who had roped in onlookers to bang drums out of sync. Hard to tell really. Lurking under sun shades were occasional pairs of henna tattooists who we steered a clear path away from, Cris not wanting a matching one on her other hand, although one solitary predator tattooist almost managed to get started on her hand before seeing that someone had beaten her to it. She offered to put one on the palm of her hand, but Cris was quick enough this time to pull away. The tattooist saw the funny side and we bumped into her later, still trying to convince Cris she wanted another one.
Eventually we ran the gauntlet of the food stalls, all of which had their own seating and their own sales teams trying to persuade you that theirs was the food you are looking for (apologies for the blatant geeky Star Wars gag). We wandered past as many of them as possible to try and decide which one looked most appealing, or least likely to give us food poisoning. To be fair, the latter was unlikely I imagine as they probably do this every night and probably know what they’re doing. Probably. Most stalls seemed to offer what we’d come to expect from Morocco – kebabs and tagines. Some seemed to specialise in soup (harira) whilst others were offering sheeps heads, brains, and eyes. Whilst Cris was I think yearning to give those a go (apparently they have similar dishes in Spain?) I was more inclined towards the more standard menu. One stall in particular stood out, with a rather cheeky chappy doing the sales pitch. As soon as he figured out which language to use for us, he was throwing in a cockney accent and random phrases he’s presumably picked up from TV, including some from Only Fools and Horses. So we ended up sitting down at their stall, which seemed quite popular anyway, and had to laugh as we heard one of them shouting “luvvly jubbly” to more passers by…
Ordered some sort of aubergine dish for starters which was frankly the dogs bollocks. By far the tastiest way of preparing aubergine I’ve ever experienced – looked like it was shallow fried with spices and maybe a very light batter? Either way, delicious. We also had some sort of potato cake or something which whilst not as tasty as the aubergine, was more than just edible. Cris finally got to order a pastilla (lemon chicken in pastry) and I went for mixed kebabs, with some fries as a side order, which we didn’t order – they must have been psychic.
The obligatory mint tea followed, and all in, it cost us about 140dh. As we paid, we asked ‘Del Boy’ where we ought to head to find a taxi, and he pointed us in the direction of the southern end of the square, towards the Koutoubia.
We quickly found a queue of the notorious yellow Mercedes taxis and set about haggling for a fixed fee to get back to the campsite…
“How much?” we asked the taxi ‘pimp’ (not the driver, just someone who’s role appeared to be to agree prices for them) when we showed him the address of the campsite.
“How much?” he replied. This threw us a little as surely he should be opening with an offer? This isn’t how it worked in The Life of Brian (the film, that is).
Knowing we’d paid 60dh to get here that morning, but having read that shared taxis shouldn’t cost anywhere near that, we took a stab at the low end.
“20 dirhams?” we suggested.
“20 dirhams?!” he replied, incredulous. “No, I know where this is, its 20km away. That is no fee!”
Ok, what next… “Hmmm ok…. how much then?” we asked.
“100 dirhams”.
“Pfft… no way” we reply. We weren’t going to pay more than 60dh, or at least, not without a struggle.
“It is night. This place is 20km away. The taxi will be empty when he returns”.
A fair point, perhaps, but not really our problem.
“Ok, how about 40 dirhams?” I offered.
“No, no good”.
“Ok, 60 dirhams?”
“Each? Yes, that is ok”.
Nice try, buster!
“No, not ‘each’, 60 dirhams in total”.
Again he counters with the whole “its night, it will be empty” thing.
“Ok, well, we’ll leave it then”, and begin to walk off to the next taxi.
“80 dirhams?” he suggests. Thinking this was as far as we could push it, and not wanting to spend all night haggling, I said “oh ok”. Cris however put her foot down.
“No, 60 dirhams or nothing. There are loads of taxis here. If he won’t take it, someone else will”.
Conceding that she had a point, I turned back to the pimp. “Sorry, no, 60 dirhams or nothing”.
“You agreed to 80 dirhams. We had a deal”.
“Maybe, but we’ve changed our mind.”
“80 dirhams, we agreed”.
At this I just held up my hand, said sorry, and turned with Cris to walk away again. After a few steps he comes back to us.
“Ok, 70 dirhams”.
As we couldn’t see this getting to 60 dirhams we agreed to 70, although I suspect Cris was angling to get it down further.
Soon after, we arrive safe and sound back at the campsite. As we got out of the car, and went to pay, I gave the driver 70 dirhams. He laughed and said “c’est tout?”. I laughed back and said “oui, c’est tout” and waved him goodbye, before escorting Cris to the bar for a well earned couple of alcoholic drinks.
All in all, a pretty cool day. Marrakesh has a lot to offer and trying to cram it all into one day is asking a bit much, I think, so we probably only really scratched the surface. That said, the touristy sites like the Saadian Tombs don’t really have huge amounts to see so you can cover them off relatively quickly. There are large gardens to the south west which we didn’t get time to see, and we missed a palace in the mellah, and the tanneries, which is a bit of a shame as they’re supposed to be quite nice. But c’est la vie. What did get annoying, pretty quickly, was the incessant lies told by people who offer to help you. They will hassle you for money despite assuring you they won’t, they will tell you that xyz isn’t open currently or you can’t go that way but hey, here’s an alternative route that takes you through my uncle’s shop. And so on.
Around the World in a Campervan 