Marrakesh madness

Posted on 6 April 2009

Six in the morning is an interesting time to arrive in a reputedly chaotic city because nobody cares. All million (true figure) hotels are closed.

One guy rose to the occasion and made himself our guide, waking up various hotel doormen as we inspected and declined our options. Eventually two backpacking girls told us that their place was cool so we went there, a few paces away from the main plaza. Two rooms, sex division. Three ladies. Three dudes. Sleepiness overcame. Six sleeping travelers.

Our hunger alarm clocks all went off around the same time and we ventured out into the new, chaotic and wild city to feed. Wow, and what a place. Snake charmers with sad, toothless pythons and cobras that they sling onto you, demanding money. Monkeys on short chains pushed onto your passing shoulder in return for a few Dirham. Caravans and caravans and caravans of orange juice sellers, shouting at you from between carefully piled-high oranges. Ladies waiting on little benches to cover you in henna. Fresh bread sellers. Black magic supply sellers with the likes of herbs, buck heads, skins and spice laid out on carpets. Waiters fighting to get you to eat at their restaurant. Sad horses pulling decorated carts of royal tourists.

And a souk of “sales”, “half price”, “student price”, “just looking” and “how much you want to pay” eagerly waiting for us at the other end of the plaza. But we needed to feed. Tajines, couscous, mint teas, fresh breads, low prices. Orange juice from verbally abusive sellers and then it was souk time. Bargain offers flying from all directions. After impressive haggling I bought two leather bags for 400Dh instead of 1050Dh. A quick coin poolage resulted in two boxes of post-Ramadan sweeter-than-sweet sweet things which we devoured on our hotel roof terrace when the siren signaled the end of the fast.

The night markets are a chaotic blur of white marquees, billows of smoke, aromas of fish and tajines and over-eager salesmen aggressively pushing menus into your face and pulling you towards their tables, promising tasty dishes, good prices and free mint tea. We should have known that the couscous would have been tasteless and the calamari rubber. Not a single local was eating there, just pale tourists, bewildered by the number of choices.






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