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Well, Jane has been wandering again. Slightly shorter trip this time, but worthy of blogging. As organised as ever, I had a few days holiday to take so went to the travel agent and said “give me what you’ve got on these days that isn’t cold” and came out with flights to Marrakesh a week later. Morocco has never appealed to me that much, to be honest, but I thought why not. Anyway, so, organised Jane bought a Lonely Planet, found a hostel online the night before I flew out and had to take my big wheelie suitcase as my rucksack was left at my mum’s house after my last trip (I don’t think I was planning on going anywhere for a while, but I have been back eight months). I accidentally found out that it is actually a million times easier with a wheelie suitcase than a backpack; it’s easier to pull one behind you for a couple of miles than it is to walk around with 13kgs on your back, and the only stairs I had a problem with were in London.
So I arrived into Menara airport in Marrakesh on Monday afternoon (after setting off at 5am to get to Gatwick for my flight), and got the bus to Djemaa El Fna, the main square in the old part of Marrakesh. Then I had to find Equity Point Hostel. There was a cheaper one which didn’t have very good reviews and I figured I can afford some luxury if I’m only away for ten days. Apparently it’s very difficult to find this hostel, as indeed it is to find anywhere in Morocco. “Streets” there are more like very narrow alleyways which don’t look as though they lead anywhere. Because they give such detailed directions on the website, I found it quite easily (after accidentally ending up in a few shops along the way). Equity Point was the nicest hostel I have ever seen anywhere. The traditional old houses in Morocco are called riads, and Equity Point was a big old renovated riad. I was in an eight bed dorm, though “dorm” really doesn’t do justice to the huge room with well spaced beds (I didn’t even have to sleep in a bunk), complete with high, ornate ceiling, and beautiful furnishings of lamps, rugs and sofas.
I went straight out for a wander around the Medina. I didn’t travel that much within Morocco but the places I did see all had city walls around the old part of the town, called the Medina, which is pretty much mainly what you want to see. Inside the Medina are all the souqs, or markets, most of the mosques and palaces, and where you can find most of the crazy traditional stuff happening. I headed straight for the square, which is the central point of Marrakesh, at least for the tourists. The square is really cool when you first see it as there is so much happening, all during the day they have snake charmers, musicians, story-tellers, cross-dressing belly dancers (yes, really), fortune-tellers, very insistent henna tattooists (I had a few women grab my arm and one even painted a daub of henna on my hand and then tried to charge me the equivalent of £10 for it). The cool thing about the square is that there always seemed to be more Moroccan tourists than Westerners around, and they even had games like you would get in a fair in England, like fishing for coke bottles and improvised mini-golf. There are orange juice stands where you can get freshly squeezed juice for 30p, and lots of dried fruit and nut stalls.
Then at sunset they rig up loads of restaurant stalls. A few sell snails (I tried, I did not like) but the majority (over a hundred) are doing freshly cooked Moroccan food: tagines, which are like slow cooked stews, mainly made with lamb and vegetables; skewers of barbequed lamb and chicken; cous-cous, and loads of salads. Every single meal is served with bread and olives. Breakfast was also bread. I really never want to eat or even see bread again (which I most definitely will at work later!). And most meals are washed down with mint tea, made with fresh mint and copious amounts of sugar. After a few days we realised the market is actually a big rip off and you can get nicer and cheaper food at restaurants surrounding the square, but it’s definitely good to eat there a few times for the experience.
The next day I went on a trip to Ourika Valley with Bradley and Henry, some guys I’d met at the hostel. I’d only been in Marrakesh half a day but it was really good to get out of the city and see some of the countryside. The bus journey took us through beautiful landscapes and mountains via a collection of customary pottery and carpet shops, a variation of which they seem to have in every country. I gues s we have Edinburgh Woollen Mill... We did have one interesting stop at a place where they showed us some of the traditional Moroccan herbs and spices including the legendary mint tea, and the native argan oil, which you can use for cooking and on your skin and apparently has properties which makes it really good for your skin. I now have quite a cosmetic collection of argan oil goods and it does seem to live up to the hype. We also crossed a very shaky bridge that looked as though it was going to collapse, and have the pictures to prove it! We finally made it to the Valley and after a leisurely lunch started the climb up to see the waterfall there, which was the main part of the trip. Our guide decided we should take the “easy” route, which was pretty tough going in itself. We had a Swiss couple in their 70s in our group and I was very impressed by the gentleman who had no problems scrambling over the rocks and didn’t even break a sweat. On our way back down we went past a group of Moroccan girls who were wearing stilletoes, I was very interested to know how they fared....
On my third day I tagged along with the boys again and we did the city sightseeing tourbus of Marrakesh. We got a bit disorientated at first and ended up just staying on the bus whilst it did its full loop from the Medina to the new town past the palaces, mosques and lots of fancy hotels. We mainly ended up in parks and gardens, including the Cyberpark, a really attractive landscaped park with orange trees and wifi! Innovative. We also saw the Majorelle gardens which were designed or adopted by Yves Saint Laurent and were now dedicated to him. We went back to the hostel via the supermarket (Morocco is a dry country; they don’t have bars so if you want booze you have to buy it at the supermarket) to buy a bottle of vodka to celebrate Henry’s last night. Myself, Henry, Bradley and Sue, played a drinking game which was intended to be more intellectual than the average. It was lots of fun but descended into a war of football vs feminine hygiene products (don’t ask) between me and Bradley. He started it.
Fourth day myself and a hungover Bradley (he lost the drinking game) went for a further wander around Marrakesh. The place was so interesting and every street and alleyway was like an Aladdin’s cave. Literally, I guess. It’s the kind of place you can happily wander and get completely lost but there is always something to look at and see. We actually spent a while trying to find a mosque but got lost and gave up after an hour of wandering in circles, but on the way we saw lots of crazy things. They have woodworkers, metalworkers, fabric dyers (they all work in their shops so you can watch them at work), we even found a chicken farm up one street (this was smelly). We also went to a couple of palaces with really impressive carvings and paintings. By now though I’d seen most of what there was to see of Marrakesh and keen to get out of the city....
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