Marrakesh

Location: Marrakesh, Morroco

We arrived at Marrakesh at 12am on Thursday morning. Our hotel was a riad called Dar Marhaba. A riad is a type of hotel that is unique to Morocco, and especially Marrakesh. It is a home that used to belong to a rich Moroccan family, that has since been bought, and restored in a bed and breakfast style. As a result, all the original designs have been kept, and they are very beautiful. Anyway, we gave the information to a taxi driver, who at first did not know where it was. He took us to the main square, and then passed us off to a boy who had a wheeled cart, who walked us to our riad. It turned off to be fairly close to the main square, called the Djemma al Fna, but tucked away enough that it was nice and quiet. Here are some pictures of the riad:

On Thursday, we ventured out into the main square, the Djemma al Fna. It is a large open space, with a semi covered market in one spot, and plenty of vendors setting up spots on the open square. There were a lot of shops on wheels, selling things like dates, apricots and figs, as well as fresh squeezed orange juice. There were also many snake charmers, and men walking around with monkeys. One guy was sitting at a table that had nothing but teeth on them. I have no idea why. As Ben and I were walking, I saw that he was about to walk right into a man with a monkey. I told him to watch out, but it was too late. The man proceeded, uninvited, to put a monkey onto Ben's arm. I could not stop laughing. I snapped a photo and paid the man 10 dirham. I don't believe in paying people for photos, but it was so funny that I decided it was worth it. Some of the pictures below you can find on Ben's blog as well.

The differences between Fes and Marrakesh became quickly apparent. While both cities have medinas with plenty of shops, selling roughly the same things, Marrakesh is much more of a tourist city. There were many foreigners wandering through the medina and souqs (shops). The locals of Marrakesh were much more experienced with dealing with tourists, and therefore were more aggressive about demanding money and sales. I found it to be a little annoying, but I guess that's the way of the world.

After walking around the Djemma al Fna, we decided to head out to the Majorelle gardens. These gardens were designed by the French artist Jacque Majorelle, who settled in Morocco to paint during the 1920s. The gardens were bought and restored by Yves Saint Laurent, and today are a beautiful collection of cacti, lotuses, and other exotic plants, as well as Majorelle's house, painted in a strikingly blue color. The building houses an Islamic art museum, which we didn't go to (it cost extra). Here are some photos of the gardens.

On the way to the gardens, we passed by one of the big mosques in the medina. Just as we were walking by, the muezzin sounded his call to prayer. This call is recited 5 times a day, for the 5 times that Muslims pray. In fact, Ben told me that he was woken up by one of the calls at 3am, since there was one very close to our riad. I guess that's one advantage that I have for being hearing impaired :-) Below is a video showing the minaret of the mosque, during the muezzin's call.

We were in Marrakesh for another day as well; I will be writing more about the city in another post.