DAY 1 Marrakech
29th November 2005
Stepping out of the plane in Marrakech the evening was cool, and it had recently rained. Outside the airport we looked for a petit taxi to take us into town (grand taxis, usually large old Mercedes, are used for travel between towns). We were offered a vastly inflated price by a man who spoke some English. We haggled him down to an only mildly extortionate price, during which he gave a convincing performance of being mortally offended by any reasonable offer we gave. He turned out to just be touting buisness for other drivers, and so we were driven away in a yellow Fiat Uno by a man who spoke no English, but was, like most city dewellers, a French speaker. It was only a short journey before we were travelling alongside the red-earth coated medina walls, which were topped with parapets and full of small holes for defenders to peer through, and worse.
Inside the city the taxi couldn't drive through the small medina streets so we walked the final part of the journey. As soon as we stepped out of the taxi we were identified as easy prey for ‘guides’, and acquired a couple of unlooked for friends in seconds. However, they did in the end turn out to be quite useful for getting us through the maze-like medina to the hotel. The medina consisted of low, flat roofed buildings in various states of completion or decay. Above all was the Koutoubia mosque minaret visible day and night (by flood-lights). Five times a day an amplified chorus of calls to prayer issues from this and all the surrounding mosque minarets. It starts as a single wail, which catches and spreads until the city is covered completely in overlapping praises to Allah.
Our first foray from the hotel that evening was out into the main square, Djemaa El-Fna, hyperbolically described in one guide book as the greatest open air spectacle in the world. Perhaps we had come on the wrong day. The square is large and open, contrasting with the medina, and is bordered along its northern side by Marrakech’s extensive souk (market). The city appeared to be relatively devoid of tourists at this time of year, and so we attracted plenty of attention. Calls from the double line of carts selling freshly squeezed orange juice, stacked high with their raw material, entertainers, hawkers of various kinds and simple beggars. We concluded our brief search for food by stopping at a stall with benches out in the square. We attempted to say what we individually wanted to eat, but each order came to all of us, along with salad, chips and bread. It is fairly common not to order at all when eating out, you just get what you’re given. The meal was finished up with mint tea, theatrically poured from a long spouted tin kettle from great height with vocal accompaniment. As well as mint, the tea also contains green tea and copious amounts of sugar, making it almost a syrup, and is very tasty. Despite our rather embarrassed attempts at haggling we ended up paying probably twice as much as we should. The evening was completed by further wanderings around town and visit to Hotel Taziz, with the only licenced bar in the area.
