Three and a half hours from London and it’s like I’m on another planet.
Flying into Marrakech you can see the sand and the dust like waves in the air, blanketing the olive groves and the pinkish, terracotta walls of village houses and mosques.
An easy, quick stamp of my passport and I’m out of the airport hailing a taxi for the Medina at the heart of the ancient Berber city of Marrakech. The contrast from London is black and white. The heat is intense; it’s over 40 degrees, dry and dusty, but with a great similarity to some of the scorching summers we can have in my home town, Adelaide. So this I understand.
But when I am dropped off outside the grand square that is the centre of the ancient narrow lane-wayed Medina, and have to make my way through what seems a mass of Moroccans, I am reminded in no small way of my experiences in Bangkok. Fortunately, there is far more room to move here and water pistol snipers are not evident. I manage to find the small “Hotel Cecil” some 50 meters down a narrow laneway off the grand square. The first thing I noticed when I booked my accommodation over the internet was a prominent declaration that “it is forbidden for Moroccan couples to be offered accommodation without a valid marriage licence”. I emailed the hotel 3 times, wanting to stay for a week, but only receiving confirmation for 1 night. We don’t get off to a great start; the room I booked is not available, and there is only one room available without air-conditioning or even a fan. With, what I feel is “local knowledge” I bet tonite will be an absolute stinker. To my dismay, I am completely correct. Sleepless, and after a dozen cold showers, I negotiate a change for tomorrow when another room will be available, and the man behind the counter goes back to reading the Koran to himself out loud and rocking in his chair.
I have memorised a few Arabic expressions, but I find I am generally addressed in French; it is the second language here, a relic of 44 years of former French colonial rule that ended in 1956. One year of schoolboy French comes in amazingly handy as few speak my native tongue.
It is nine o’clock and still light and I walk out into the grand square of Jemaa El Fna. At the edge of the square you can see the demolition site that was once the Argana Cafe. It was destroyed 6 weeks ago by a terrorist bomb. 16 people, mainly Europeans sipping cafe latté’s and watching the snake charmers and the general goings on, were killed. Some 23,000 bookings were cancelled in the month after the bombing, and its clear there’s not an awful lot of tourists here at the moment.
The setting is exotic if nothing else. The pipes of snake charmers combine with traditional tunes played on ouds and drums. Crowds gather at impromptu boxing matches that onlookers are urged to join. There are dancers and stand-up Morrocan comedians. A black Tuareg man in the magnificent blue turban of that desert culture, extols the virtue of his virility tonic to spell-bound local men, as snake oil salesmen have done since humans first gathered in carnival atmospheres. There are belly dancers in full burqa, and they dance far more sexually suggestively than any I have ever seen. The mainly male audience are goggle-eyed and respond to the dancer’s flirtatious entreaties. It is then I realise the dancers are men in a Moroccan Drag show!
Thousands of locals throng the square nightly. They come to promenade up and down in their family groups. Groups of young men hold hands or link arms as they walk, as do groups of young women. This is the place for couples to be seen. They hold hands or link arms; this is the extent of public affection displayed in this society. They cannot be alone without other family members present.
The first time in the square brings a blast of sensory overload.
There are fresh orange juice stalls lined up together, each end of the square. You can get a large glass for 4 dirhams (40 cents or 25p) and you drink it at the stand. There are carts that serve bowls of hot, broiled snails; and approximately 60 hot food eateries where you can sit down on benches next to strangers and chose from tagine, couscous, kebab or fish dishes, freshly cooked. The touts that work for these stalls are particularly aggressive. They are generally young men with a lot of Moroccan charm who speak four or five different languages. They coax, they plead, they try to physically lead you to their stand before you get to the next group of persuaders. They are almost rabid in their enthusiasm, and I am bemused when I learn, from a local, that they are paid a commission of up to 40% of the cost of your meal!
I meet Hien, a Vietnamese girl in a polka dot dress at one of the open air eateries. She is taking a break from her studies in France and is travelling through Morocco. We decide, with equal amounts of courage to enter the bazaar; that labyrinth of shopaholic heaven that makes up the ageless market-place of Jmaa El Fna. You can get lost in here; I manage to frequently. The lane ways snake in unpredictable twists and turns. You easily become disorientated; I wonder if perhaps some go in and never return.....
There are handcrafted leather goods of camel and goat, earthenware Tagines with Arabic designs glazed in an array of colours, spice shops, silver jewellery, berber rugs, tea shops and dried fruit. Ahmed is nice enough to show me around his spice shop. He blends up to 44 different spices for the curries and the marinades he sells to local chefs. The smells are overwhelming when he twists open the containers. It seems spice blending is a true art. Hien and I decide it’s time to go back to the square. I’m sure I know the way, but we come out in a completely different place and my head spins trying to work out the GPS co-ordinates. We are back at the square but I’ve no idea how!
Hien leaves as she’s off to tour the north of Morocco for the next week, and I drink another OJ in the heat.
Alcohol is not freely available as Islam forbids drinking; men approach me from various alley-ways and whisper “sh-sheesh” in my ear.
But this is not Amsterdam, and I retire back to my small Riyadh down the laneway, off the square, and revel in the coolness of my new room.
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