Current mood:	accomplished
Entry tags:	pictures, travelling

Going to Marrakesh, the red, and surprisingly green, city
So, my trip to Marrakesh. Unlike our trip to Istanbul we really didn't have much of an idea what we wanted to see and do. The tickets where bought mostly on whim. I wanted to listen to the storytellers at the Djemma el-Fna*, which I heard about a couple of years ago when I attended a course in storytelling. Hilde wanted to smoke waterpipe, and these were our plans at arrival.
*Djemma el-Fna, also known as Djemaa el Fna, or Jemma/Jami/Jeema/Jema/Jmma/Djmma/Djema el Fna. I follow the age-old Norwegian tradition by writing it the way I think it should be written based on how I pronounce it.


We had reserved rooms at a small hotel in the old part of the city - called Jnane Mogador, since we were slighty late in our reservation they only had a quadruple room available, but it was all right, clean, cheap and centrally placed. The breakfast wasn't the greatest, but since the Djemma el-Fna was just a couple of steps away food really wasn't a problem.


Jnane Mogador, your home away from home.

The first day we spent getting lost in our immediate neighbourhood, the central part of the medina and the souqs. The old city of Marrakesh is all rose-red, the streets are winding in strange directions, and the archways are many.



And the souqs can bring out the shopper in everyone - even me...


And then there is spices, ceramics, jewellery, lamps, scarves, of all and every quality..




They are dying red today, in the dyer's souq.


And of course, carpets...


Djemma el-Fna is the centre of the medina, the whole medina is on UNESCOS world heritage list, but the Djemma el Fna is on the list of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity .



It is a strange, weird place. It's like a place taken taken from 1001 Nights, except with French (and the occasional USanain and British tourists). During the day the place is filled (as far as I have documented) with stalls with orange juice sellers, spice sellers and pirate copied music. Around the place people sit selling peddling strange objects and services; snake charmers (yes!), fortune tellers, artificial teeth sellers, normal henna artists, and guerrilla-henna artists. The guerrilla-henna artists does not take no for an answer. If you refuse they say, "Ok, take my hand", and holding your hand they bring out their application syringe, and starts hennaing you. Had it been me I would hav pulled back my hand with force and walked away , but not all members of my company are grumpy like me. But I am not the person who spent 200 dirhams on an ugly henna tattoo.

And then there is the (I think) water sellers, which doesn't sell anything, but demand money to be taken a picture of. Sadly we didn't realise that this guy's feet, because he was wearing Crocs!


In the afternoon the food stalls are set up


Hungry?


And everything smells grilled...


In the evening the storytellers (yay!) also set up camp along with various drumming groups. The stories are strickly in Arabic, and mostly for men. But I found a nice guy who translated for me, or should I say bowdlerised because the storyteller that I watched the most was really good and told his stories in such a way that you didn't really need much translation, and I think he glossed over many of the ruder parts. Or "I will call the fire department" something one says when a person pulls down his trousers? (My French may also be the reason for this though)


Aside from souqs and storytellers Marrakesh also has some old stones that I just had to visit, namely the Ben Yussuf Madrassa. It's beautifully decorated, and after spending about one hour trying to find it - since it's in the middle of the souq, and maps were of little use, it was lovely to sit in the courtyard and relax.



And then there was the Marrakesh Museum, which was worth the visit for the wonderful building alone.




The toilet is also worth a visit, it is beautifully decorated:


Gardens
Marrakesh is also famous for its many gardens. Here people wander around (keeping off the grass), and young people go on dates. Of course chaperoned, which made the gardens a great place for people-watching and relaxing.
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The Koutoubia mosque is one of the landmarks in Marrakesh. It has the typical square minaret, and we never figured what the scaffolding on top was supposed to be used for, but all the other minarets in Marrakesh had the same thing. And speaking about minarets. We lived - of course - close to a mosque. But not only that but we lived just by the mosque with the overzealous muezzin. So every morning at horrible o'clock we were awakened my the calling for prayer:
Allah akbar!(...)
It's better to pray than to sleep!(...)
This was lovingly translated by a loving arabophone friend who sat up spluttering ten minutes into the calling with the words "No, it's not better to pray than sleep, go to bed!" The muezzin didn't listen, of course, and continued singing for another 10 minutes. My arabophone friends didn't quite catch what he was saying, but he was reading from the Qur'an they think. Thankfully I had brought lots and lots of earplugs for everyone.

Sick
Then I spent one and a half day in bed, until the heavy duty diarrhoea-medication my fellow travellers got me started working, and I was able to eat again. During this time I read almost all the books we had collectively brought to Marrakesh, including all three of the travellers guides from cover to cover. And on top of that I read Jerusalem by Selma Lagerlöf, The Yaoubian Building by Alaa Al Aswany and When languages die by K. David Harrison

The Atlas mountains
After getting on my feet again we went on a day trip to the Atlas mountains. We had arranged through a agency to get a driver, and we had said several times that we did not want to see the waterfalls, and we were reassured again "No waterfalls". So of course we , and the compmay that suddenly arrived and was supposed to join us, ended up in Setti Fatma and the waterfalls. We were more or less thrown out of the car and into the arms of a "guide" who spoke some English and some French, but sisn't make much sense in either. And he said "wtaerfall, just 15 minutes", and we were just grumpy and thirsty but followed grumpily. I have no idea where these fifteen minutes comes from, but after half an hour I totally collapsed, unable to breathe, and retching. I hadn't eaten or drunk properly in two days, and didn't quite deal with the height. The wonderful guide didn't even care, and only urged "come, soon waterfall!" I just sat down in one of the many water and soda-selling places along the path and refused to move, After a while we continued a bit, before turning back to the village. And sorry, but waterfalls must be pretty amazing to impress Norwegians. But the trip back to the village was nice, and the scenery was beautiful.




Back down in the village we went to the first, and quite possibly the best tavern in the village, and ate a wonderful meal - according to the others. I only managed to eat a bit of bread, but Hilde ate both her and my tagine with meat and white beans, and she's still talking about how wonderful it was.

We also went to the Novelle Ville, the new part of Marrakesh, where getting alcohol was easier than in the old part. Here we also had a wonderful dinner at Grand Cafe de la Poste. Because even though tagines can be tasty, they do get a bit boring after a while...

We also went to hammam a couple of times, once we got a real scrubbing, the kind when the layers of dead skin is rolling off your back. The other time we went to one of those up class, touristy places and weren't scrubbed at all, but the massage and the beer afterwards made up for it.

All in all it was a great trip! Not too hot either, although I bet it can be scorching later in the year. I was also amazed at how relaxed everyone was. People kept warning us for the aggressive sellers, but apart from the guerrilla-henna woman, and one annoying man who wanted to us to come with him to the dyeing pits, everyone was very polite and nice. Also we were kind of surprised that we managed to live in our rather small quadruple room without wanting to kill each other for a whole week!

The whole gallery is here.