By our fourth day in Morocco, you would think that Bridget and I could successfully navigate the maze-like souks... and frankly, there were many times throughout our trip where we thought "Yes! We've got this! We know exactly where we are!" Naturally, those were often the times where we either hit dead ends or found ourselves somewhere completely new.
Let me start from where I left off last time, though: it was Wednesday evening, and we had just arrived back from our two-day desert tour. We made a beeline for our hostel and re-checked in, dropped off our bags in our new room, and showered to wash off the desert. Then Bridget and I decided to eat at the Kabash Cafe, one of the restaurants that comes highly recommended. It sounded perfect, especially because it was meant to be pretty close to the hostel. However, it was hidden somewhere in the souks, in a direction that we had never been before, so to be safe, we asked the concierge at the hostel for directions. He told us that it couldn't be easier to find the Kabash Cafe--just "take the first left, then the first right, then go straight no matter what way the road goes for ten minutes."
Bridget and I followed the first two directions perfectly, but the last step was somewhat abstract and threw us off. Needless to say, we headed the wrong way and got lost once again. Then, the street we were walking down actually blacked out on us--the whole street for a good kilometer went dark, and it was a bit chaotic at first. Bikes--both motorized and the average pedal variety--were still zooming past us in the dark, so I illuminated my cell phone and held it in front of us to alert people that we were there. Finally, we walked far enough that the black-out had ended, but we still couldn't find the Kabash Cafe. We ended up sitting down in a different restaurant and playing three games of chess throughout our meal, which was a lot of fun.
Thursday was our last day in Marrakech, and we came up with a large itinerary of things to see that we ended up running out of time. First, we ate a leisurely breakfast at our hostel's rooftop terrace--more fresh-squeezed orange juice and cornbread with apricot preserves! The hostel (Equity Point Marrakech) was set up like a traditional Moroccan riad with two beautiful inner courtyards, which were really fun to explore.
Once breakfast was finished, we headed outside of the medina (the old city) for the first time and started off towards the Jardin Majorelle, which is a beautiful botanical garden created in the city by the French artist Louis Majorelle. Of course, we got lost (it seems to be a trend) but it wasn't totally our fault! One weird thing about Marrakech is that there are NO STREET SIGNS outside of the medina. Seriously, Bridget and I searched to see street signs as we were heading towards the Jardin, since the map named all the streets, but it was in vain. We couldn't even find street signs written in Arabic--literally, there were none! The streets were all unmarked (even at major intersections and round-a-bouts) so we just ended up guessing. We did find a great Italian gelato place, though, so we actually sat down to huge ice creams at just after half past 10 in the morning before continuing on our quest to find the garden. I love vacation.
Eventually we sneakily followed two other tourist couples who looked like they were heading towards the Jardin Majorelle, and we found it! It's been owned by Yves Saint Laurent and his partner Pierre Berge since 1980, and the designer's ashes were scattered in the garden after his death in 2008. It's been called the oasis of Marrakech, and that's exactly what it is: so much vibrant green and blue in such a small space.
After about an hour exploring the garden, Bridget and I realized that we were running out of time. It was early afternoon and we only had about two hours before we needed to catch the bus to the airport--unfortunately not enough time to find and walk through the Bahia Palace that I had wanted to see. So instead, we took a taxi back to Djemma el-Fnaa (where we saw several snake charmers and a guy with monkeys!), then lost ourselves in the souks on purpose. We wandered down little side streets that I didn't know existed, successfully honed our haggling skills, and just walked.
The souks are one of the most colorful places in Marrakech: there are people selling everything from silk shoes in every hue and tiny magic lamps bedazzled with jewels to silver tea pots and tagine pottery and baskets of spices or olives. It's a maze of scents and colors and sounds, which was very disorienting when we first arrived in Marrakech, and which was hard to imagine leaving by the end. I almost bought a beautiful little magic lamp for myself as a souvenir (and I had haggled it down from 120 dirham to 70 dirham), but I was running low on local currency and I didn't want to withdraw any more money, so I ended up not buying it. Now that I'm back, though, I regret not purchasing anything other than a few postcards. Next time I'm in Morocco, I will buy myself a little magic lamp! Or something like that, at least.
Bridget and I accidentally found our way back to the hostel a little earlier than we had meant to, because that's what happens when you are purposefully lost: you always find yourself when you don't want to. Anyways, we grabbed our bags and ate lunch at the hostel's roof terrace restaurant (a fantastic last hurrah of Moroccan cuisine: a spicy soup, couscous with steamed carrots and zucchini, and a sweet vanilla yogurt that I'm hoping was not made with camel's milk). Following that, we ran through the souks back to Djemma el-Fnaa to catch the bus to the airport, which was much cheaper than taking a taxi. Funnily enough, all the vendors who saw us running through the souks with our bags called out to us, saying different variations of "Bon voyage, les filles!"
At the airport, Bridget and I parted ways: she had a later flight to London, and I was heading off to Geneva. It was sad to leave Morocco, and I honestly hope that I'll have the chance to visit again for a longer period of time! It was truly the perfect destination for an adventure, and I'm so happy that I was brave enough to step out my front door and head off into the unknown.
"Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore." -- Andre Gide
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