Trying to Get One's Bearings in Marrakesh

Location: Marrakesh, Morocco














Back in February while working in Madrid, I took a week off and traveled through Morocco. A fellow American intern had been planning it for awhile, and it sounded really exciting after he described it to me one day. I asked if I could come along, and after he said yes, I quickly bought my airplane tickets.

One aspect I realize in hindsight is a bit strange is how trusting I was. At that point I had been living in Spain for 4 months and was used to being the sole decider of all kinds of trips abroad. But I felt so busy at the time that I never even looked at the itinerary he planned; all I knew when I departed was which cities we arrived and left from. Fortunately he knew what he was doing.

Before we get started, here are some basic facts about the country of Morocco:
-It's located at the northwest tip of Africa and is right across the Mediterranean Sea from Spain
-Despite it being in Africa, it's completely an Arabic culture
-The main languages are Arabic, Berber (local dialect), and French
-99% of Moroccans are Muslim
-The country's size is slightly larger than that of California
-The currency is the Dirham (dh), which was roughly 10 dh to 1 euro at the time

The variety of places we visited almost made it seem like 3 separate trips, roughly divided up into the large cities, the Sahara, and a small & secluded town high in the mountains. All had a very unique feel, and it was undoubtedly an aggressive amount of ground to cover in 8 days.

Marrakesh
The town where our plane landed and adventure started is called Marrakesh. Located near the nation's center (see gold star on map above), it's home to roughly a million people, making it one of the largest in Morocco. Because it is also a former imperial city and capital of the country, it also houses many of the nation's important historical sites as well.

Marrakesh itself is comprised of two halves: the ancient & walled "Medina" built in the Middle Ages, and the "Ville Nouvelle" built by the French in the 20th century. This is typical for many of Morocco's cities and reflects French colonization.

The Middle Ages were a time of great prosperity for the country as they expanded and controlled much of West Africa and most of modern-day Spain. Their empire lasted from roughly 1100-1500 AD. As such, much of the historical architecture is from this era as well.

However, after the Christians reconquered what is modern day Spain (mentioned in a previous post for Granada), the Moroccan empire was greatly weakened and fought off invaders for several centuries until becoming an official protectorate of France in 1912. By then, the country had been dealing with outside political influence from other European countries for quite some time.

Depending on who you ask, the French influence was either a godsend or a curse. But they did build numerous new structures in many of the larger cities, essentially bringing modern aspects to populated areas which had stagnated for several hundreds years.

As you might imagine, having a city built half in the Middle Ages and half in the 1900's provides quite a contrast, and indeed it is quite evident as one explores Marrakesh.

Okay, no more of that boring history stuff - lets get into the pictures and stories!


Day 1
Our first stop was the Djemaa el Fna. It's the main market square surrounded by restaurants and a large open space with rows of cart vendors selling local fruit, vegetables, and spices. There were also snake charmers, acrobatic monkeys, and storytellers (at night), sprinkled around as well. Because of its central location, proximity to the souk and exotic attractions, it is the most popular spot in the city. Which of course attracts the bargainers and con artists, which we'll get to later.

This is a view of the main market during the day.

At night, the produce carts leave and are replaced by large food tents. Imagine hundreds of people grilling all kinds of food, arranged neatly one after another in long rows. Of course each of them promotes the best food in Marrakesh and have waiters wandering around promising as much. Smoke is everywhere, and at one point I just couldn't resist taking a photo.

Here's a shot looking down at the market from a balcony of a second-story restaurant.

A little further down are groups of men huddled in circles, with anywhere from 10 to 100+ people listening to a story teller. We didn't understand a word because it was all in Arabic, but the man with the collection plate still expected us to donate a few dirhams (roughly fifty cents).

They've also got games resembling the kind of thing from county fairs setup in random areas. Here's a picture of people trying to guide a ring around the top of a soda bottle using a fishing rod. Of course, I never saw anyone win.

At one point we were trying to find something resembling a club - music, drinks, girls, etc. So we walked around and finally found a place with audible music from the outside. But once we got in, it was a little different than we expected. First of all everyone there were white tourists, and the music was playing for the sole benefit of a few belly dancers. I managed to sneak in a pictures without attracting too much attention, and one actually turned out.

And that was our foray into the risque side of Marrakesh. In hindsight, it was really stupid of us to be looking for something resembling a night club in the old part of town because of the predominance of the Muslim culture. These people aren't exactly known for drinking or womanizing, and never in public places. But hey, learning these kinds of useful insights is what makes for good traveling.


Day 2
We awoke early the next day and headed into the Souks, also one of the most famous aspects of Morocco. Souks are essentially local markets, and in Marrakesh they are narrow & covered streets sprawling off from the main square like tentacles for very long distances. They consist of wall-to-wall shops on both sides, and the street itself is no more than 10 feet wide.

It's also a very loud place, and shopkeepers are always shouting at you in all languages imaginable. We found we had better luck if we didn't say anything so they wouldn't know which language to harass us with. They mostly started with French or English, but I tried to pretend that I didn't understand them. Considering most of them speak 10 languages, I'm sure they didn't believe me.

It's also a very fast-paced place. People walk very quickly and consistently dart in and out of side streets. At one point I was almost run over by a donkey-drawn cart, driven by a kid carrying dead animals to the local tannery. All the roads twist and turn, making it almost impossible to keep a sense of direction. And the smells are, shall we say, interesting.

The souks themselves are divided into sections based on goods. The sections we saw were mostly clothes, jewelry, carpets, ceramics, wood products, and metal crafts.

At first, the feeling of walking through was pure insanity. It was so much to take in and utterly impossible to not be bothered every 30 seconds. Shopkeepers were consistently stepping in front of us, forcing us to stop and listen to them. Most conversations went like this:

(With thick Arabic accent and large hand motions) "Hey! What you looking for? I give you good price. Come on - step into my shop and I give you good price. Very nice things. Hey, hey - where you from? My shop very clean. Have many nice things. I give you good price".

All of this while we were side-stepping him and trying to get around, only to have it happen 10 feet later. It literally felt like running a gauntlet.

We made the mistake of talking to store owners for awhile (after all, as a Westerner we're accustomed to answering someone if they ask us something). This was a big mistake, and made our journey through considerably more challenging until we stopped.

After about an hour, I found myself unwilling to say anything, even to my friend, because they would hear English and it would be all over. And I kept my sunglasses on at all times and only looked at stores from my peripheral vision; even turning my head to look at someones goods would incite the conversation above.

One part of the souks contained shops which specialized in gold, and I was lucky to get this pic while the shopkeeper was distracted with my friend.


Because of the craziness of the situation (not to mention the bad idea of pulling out a camera in public), I unfortunately don't have any pictures on the main streets. However, I did snap a few later on in another city called Fes, which are below. Keep in mind these show a souk much cleaner and less crowded than those of Marrakesh, but still conveys the general idea.


And this to prove I'm not just stealing photos from the internet :)

There's lots of other good Moroccan stories to tell including snakes, monkeys, and even camels. Plus I'm planning on talking about the food next post (which was surprisingly good), so stay tuned!

And if you absolutely can't wait to skip ahead, all other photos I took in Marrakesh can be found here.