Morocco was a feast for the eyes. For some silly reason, I was expecting a very drab country composed of primarily browns and tans and oranges, but Morocco has a ceaseless palate of colors and textures. The above photo (one of my absolute favorites from the trip) expresses the truth behind that statement a bit, but it doesn't capture how blue the sky was. You'll probably hear that comment a few more times in the next few blogs... but the sky was really so incredibly blue!
Bridget and I were picked up at the airport Monday morning by Mohammed, the man who ran our two-day desert tour (more on that in a later post) and he drove us to Marrakech's main square, Djemma el-Fnaa. Then he led us through the medina's chaotic maze of narrow alleys and through the souks to our hostel. We were really lucky that he did, because we would have never found our hostel on our own!
Everyone we met--from street vendors to locals--warmly welcomed us multiple times to Morocco, hence the title of this post. The people of Marrakech were unbelievably friendly towards foreigners, although I've heard this is not the case with other Moroccan cities, particularly Fes. One of the other girls in the Holy Cross group from last semester actually went to Fes and had rocks thrown at her by local boys. Marrakech is not at all like that. In all honesty, I was a little nervous travelling to Morocco, but as soon as I arrived in the city, I felt completely safe. The only thing I worried about for the entire trip was pick-pockets. As one of the people in the hostel said, "Marrakech is touristy, but in the best way possible."
As Bridget and I had little local currency, the first thing we did after arriving at our hostel was to head for an ATM. We thought our best bet was in the huge square, so we wound our way through the souks, got incredibly lost, and still managed to end up at Djemma el-Fnaa. This is where we encountered our worst experience of the trip, an hour fresh off the plane. As we were heading towards where we hoped an ATM would be, Bridget caught the eye of a relentless woman armed with a henna pen. They fell into conversation (Bridget trying to politely decline getting a henna tattoo) when the woman grabbed her wrist and started painting the ink on the back of her hand, insisting it was free because Bridget was so beautiful (this is a tactic that many local vendors used to try to entice foreigners into their shops). The henna woman's friend--armed with her own henna pen--snuck up behind me and grabbed my wrist as well. I insisted multiple times that I did not want henna and that we honestly had absolutely no money, but neither woman listened. After a minute, we both managed to pull away, but then the two women followed us, insisting on getting payed. They showed us to an ATM, and after we had withdrawn money, they pestered us. The smallest bill that the ATM had given us was a 100 dirham note (about 10 euro), so we each gave the henna woman 100 dirham, but they kept asking for more. "Moroccans usually pay 300 or 400 dirham" they said, but here I held firm and told them that neither of us were paying a cent more for the henna that we never wanted in the first place. Eventually the two women left to find new tourists.
Bridget and I quickly headed to a local cafe to wash the henna off (I actually would have liked a nicely done henna tattoo, but my woman had been sloppy in her hurried application) and then bought little pastries to shake off our slight stress at the experience, as well as to break our dirham into smaller coins. Faint orange henna tattoos still remained on the backs of our hands, though, since the ink had soaked into our skin while we were withdrawing money.
Needless to say that Bridget and I became much more firm in our denial of local vendors' offers for the remainder of our time in Marrakech. We felt a little rude, but even though Marrakech is a pretty safe and friendly city, it's not a place where you can run around being foolish, or you will be tricked out of all your money.
Ignoring the henna experience, our time in Morocco was flawless. Monday morning continued with the two of us stumbling upon one of the tall pinkish-peach colored mosques that towered above the city's other buildings. Afterwards, we headed towards one of the palaces on our maps, getting completely lost once again, but ignoring all directions given by locals. Early on, we were given sage advice by an employee of a local riad--he said not to trust directions except for those given by shop owners or by riad or hotel workers. Moroccans often feel that they are entitled to money for giving directions (a concept that rubs me the wrong way, actually, as I believe that helping those who are lost should be a natural instict and not a thing to be rewarded monetarily for). And it's not like you even have to ask--just walking down the street brought calls of "Are you lost? Here, I can show you the way to the synagogue" and "The palace is this way!" Throughout the whole trip, Bridget and I managed to avoid paying for directions except for one insistent man who had just pointed out the door to the synagogue (I only gave him 3 dirham in little coins, roughly 0.30 cents).
It never even crossed my mind that there would be a Jewish quarter of Marrakech, but apparently there is. The blue of the synagogue really stood out against the general peachy-rose colors of the rest of the city, and I thought it was beautiful. After a quick look around, though, Bridget and I continued through the maze of the medina's streets to the Palais Badia, a now-looted palace built in the late 1500's for a Saadian sultan. Although it is mostly ruins now, the palace is still quite majestic, and I can only imagine what it looked like at its peak, with marble columns holding up the pavilions and intricately tiled floors. Going slightly off-topic here, but what surprised me most was the amount of orange trees in the palace! For that matter, the amount of orange trees throughout Marrakech... I never thought of Morocco as an orange-producing country, but after seeing all the trees (and having clementines for desert after every meal, along with fresh-squeezed orange juice every morning and evening from the numerous vendors in the main square) I will now always associate Morocco with the citrus fruits.
By the time we had finished exploring the palace, it was well past noon, so Bridget and I went off in search of food. We immediately saw the Kabash Cafe (highly recommended for the next time anyone is in Marrakech) and sat down to eat outside in the sunny 70-degree weather. Both of us had fresh-squeezed fruit juices, followed by bread and olives (Morocco is also a country of olives, which made me quite happy) and our meal of chicken kabobs with steamed vegetables and hummus. It was absolutely delicious! For desert, the two of us walked down the street to a patisserie and bought little cakes and water bottles. What shocked us most, though, is that two bottles of cold water and two chocolate cakes--each the size of a deck of cards--cost 17 dirham TOTAL. That's about 1 euro 70, and I'll tell you from experience that you can't walk into a patisserie in France and buy even one little cake for that price!
After lunch, we headed towards the Saadian tombs, which happened to be about ten steps away from the Kabash Cafe. The tombs date back to the late 1500's--the same time period as the sultan who had the Palais Badia built--but they weren't actually discovered until 1917. About 60 people are buried in the Saadian tombs, including the sultan and his family. My favorite part was the beautiful tiling throughout, it was quite beautiful. It was hard to capture all the intricate detailing in the entrance ways, though... I wish we had spent more time at the tombs.
Next we realized that we hadn't seen Marrakech's main mosque, the Koutoubia Mosque (it looks quite similar to the first one we saw, but I believe it is larger) so we navigated the streets once more to find it. I'll tell you that there are absolutely no rules when it comes to Morocco's streets: there is a significant lack of traffic lights (I think I saw 4 traffic lights in the entire medina area), and everything is a free-for-all. People are walking in the streets, weaving dangerously between the numerous cyclists, cars, donkeys, carts, horse-drawn carriages, and motorized bikes. It is disorganized chaos, and crossing the streets is nearly always a dare for vehicles to not hit you, but it was also kind of fun.
The Koutoubia Mosque is actually across the street from Djemma el-Fnaa, so I have no idea how Bridget and I missed it. It dates--surprisingly--from the late 1100's! Non-muslims are forbidden from entering mosques, so I could only photograph the exterior, but while we were leaving, we passed open doorways inside and managed to catch a glimpse of a bit of the interior hallways. I didn't take a quick picture, though, for I felt that it would've been disrespectful.
Following the mosque, we once more delved into the narrow maze of the souks to find our hostel. It actually took us a bit of wrong turns, but eventually we found it! We checked into our room and took a quick nap (I mean, we had woken up at 4 that morning for our 6 am flight!) then contemplated what to do for dinner. The two of us decided to go wander around the main square for a bit before finding dinner. It was dusk by the time we left our hostel, and we arrived in Djemma el-Fnaa to find it buzzing even louder with activity. The innumerable fresh-orange-juice stands had been replaced by tent-covered kitchens and long tables filled with people as steam from the cooking foods rose in thick clouds and hung above the square. Crowds were everywhere--locals and tourists alike--wandering around looking at what was being sold and bunching up around groups of drummers. The henna women and medicine men had been replaced by old storytellers weaving tales in Arabic to enthusiastic locals. The whole square was alive with a very Moroccan energy, and Bridget and I just walked around for a while to breathe it all in. Then, we found a cheap three-course meal on the third terrace of the Cafe de France, which dominates the square, giving us a panoramic view of all the activity throughout our meal.
Around 9 pm, the two of us wound our way back through the souks to our hostel, just as all the vendors were locking up for the night. We had to get to sleep pretty early, as we once again had an early morning wake-up ahead of us: for Tuesday morning, we were setting off on a two-day tour of the Atlas mountains and the Zagora desert! Until next time!
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