Marrakesh, Morocco

In early January, I traveled to sunny Marrakesh, Morocco, for my first trip to Africa. Along with my trustworthy travel companion, Wes, I boarded a cheap RyanAir flight across that “other” pond to Spain’s south. As you can imagine the difference from Europe was patent. Morocco was visibly different from Europe in more ways than one. Though the medieval layout of Seville can be vexing for even the most able navigator, the alleyways and corridors of Marrakesh pose infinite challenges. Of course, added to this confusion is the fact that a simple stroll along the shopping district requires avoiding not only the various wares of shops, piled high and out into the street, but also a flurry of motorized bicycles, older pedestrians in cloak-like jelabas with their traditional pointed hoods , running children, and the ever ubiquitous donkey cart. Added to the cacophony of vendors hawking goods in Arabic, French, Spanish, English, German, Italian, Japanese (I kid you not), and a myriad of other languages I could not quite make out, the regular Muslim calls to prayer issued from the multitude of minarets that dotted the skyline were affirming of the foreignness of this new place. Were those factors not enough, the smell of spices that wafted through the air and mixed with that of sizzling lamb cooked atop butane burners only further served to confirm the truly exotic character of the city. In short, these things together made for a rich, at times even overwhelming, deluge for the senses.

Marrakesh, Morocco’s “red city,” so named for the color of its buildings and not for its political leanings, was a truly very beautiful city. It sits inland from the coast, a short distance from the waterfall laden foothills and snowcapped peaks of the High Atlas Mountains. The old portion of the walled city, or Medina, is built almost entirely out of mud. Deep in its center is spread an elaborate maze of souks, enclosed alleyways flanked on all sides by booth upon booth of vendors. This section of the city sits alongside a newer one known as the Ville Nouvelle, a cosmopolitan mix of Arab and French banks, McDonald’s restaurants, and Italian-style gelaterias, nestled amidst modern highrise architecture.

The city’s main square, or Place Djemaa el Fna, serves as the central hub of all activity in the city. During the day, snake charmers performed along aside men with pet monkeys, Berber water vendors, dried fruit carts, street gymnasts, and dancers with twirling Fez caps.

In the nighttime, the same space transformed with the addition of more than one hundred temporary tents for food vendors and a changeover in sort of open-air performers. Replacing the daytime groups, musical bands, storytellers, and theatrical groups with actors in drag (women do not perform on the street at night unless they are in another line of work), drew crowds that filled the square with more even more people.

Lunch and dinner was usually a mix of cous-cous, stews cooked in conical tagine dishes, shish kebabs, and olives mixed with lemon and chili. We never did make over to the stands ladling out cooked snails from enormous metal braziers. No meal was complete without mint tea.

Of course, true to Muslim principle alcohol was not an option.

After dinner, ginseng and clove chai, transported to the square in giant paste-like blocks (check out the picture, we thought it was chocolate at first), mysteriosly beckoned.

By far the most monumental sight we saw was the former Madrasa Ben Youssef, a former Koranic school built in the 1500s.

Reminiscent of both the Mezquita in Cordoba and the Real Alcazar in Seville, though built a few centuries after both structures, the tile-work in this structure was some of the more elaborate I’ve seen to date. Adjoining this structure stood ruins of the city that dated to the Almoravid Dynasty in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Indeed, Morocco’s history is tied closely with that of Spain. The city’s largest minaret, part of the Koutoubia Mosque complex was built at the same time as the Moorish predecessor to Seville’s La Giralda (See my earlier post on the Cathedral), and the two are sometime considered sisters of one another. Also impressive, were the Saadian Tombs, which dated to roughly the same period as the Madrasa.

The sheer bulk of our time was spent in the souks.

These were obviously a feast for the eyes, offering everything from honey soaked sweets to Berber rugs, and a whole lot more in between, but half of the fun was the actual process of bartering for goods using a carefully balanced technique that bordered on disinterest and a somewhat honest insistence in limited personal funds that was, I imagine, hardly convincing. On two occasions, once in a spice shop cum apothecary and again in the textile shop, we passed time sipping tea with the owners, chatting away in English, Spanish, and very broken French about the many curiosities of our two cultures. It was a very enlightening trip.