Marrakech, Morocco
Thursday, April 9, 2015
The call to prayer failed to wake us, so we arose at a sleepy 8.30am. We wandered to a lovely breakfast of breads, juices, cakes and yohurts. Not much for the gluten haters amongst us, so Luce and I kindly donated our yoghurts in exchange for more cake – oh the sacrifices we make !
After a most helpful run down of the delights of Marrakech and surrounds from Bachir we took of first, tentative steps into the maze of streets. We had read the guide books, we had poured over the TripAdvisor pages, we had memorised the web pages and … They are wrong. At no time did we feel overwhelmed by traders trying to get us to buy their wares, never did we feel set upon to purchase tacky touristy things, the people were generous, friendly, polite and helpful – it was a perfect morning. We wandered through the crowded alleys breathing in the scents, devouring the sights and generally “loving it”. We had coffee overlooking a small square with the high Atlas mountaind dominating the far horizon. Luce and Belinda had their hands henna-ed and I managed to resist the urge to buy a fossil !
Jemaa el-Fnaa was our next stop, the famous square where everything happens. We saw snake charmers, dancers, cross-dressing henna artists, horse drawn carriages and a multitude of other sights. It is truly a marvellous spectacle. We then had a rather boring lunch in a cafe where Lucia failed to get her choice of meal, a problem that will reoccur at least once in this narrative…
We returned to the riad for a North African siesta and then later in the day ventured forth into the souk once more, managing to avoid buying anything but more importantly avoiding the mirriad of motorcycles that festoon the narrow pedestrian streets of the old medina.
Dinner this evening was only noteworthy for the problem I had warned you of earlier – but at least this time Lucia was able to pick a second choice. We returned, weary and footsore, to the hotel, booked a day trip to Essaouira tomorrow and collapsed into the beds dreaming of manic motorcycles and missing meals…