(Kingston, Ontario, Canada)

The above photo was indeed taken on the “Road to Marrakesh”; we drove to the famous Red City after shaking off my jet lag in the coastal city of Safi.  This was my first and so far only time in Africa; Marrakech (which is the local French spelling) was the first time that I felt like I was close to a desert.

We may have been relatively close to the desert, but it was still cold.  We were all wearing winter costs; in fact, after Marrakech, we would go skiing in the Atlas Mountains at Oukaïmeden.  Still, despite the cool late December temperatures, I also saw my first camel on the outskirts of Marrakech.

I’ve never seen anything like the Djemaa-el-Fna before.  It’s a huge square on the edge of the old city and is impressive during the day…but it was like another world altogether in the evening.   There is sensory overload, with what seems like a massive carnival every day.  There were ornately dressed water sellers, traveling musicians, hawkers of various kinds…we even saw snake charmers!  It was quite cosmopolitan here, with people from all over Northern Africa, including the nomadic Tuareg (also known as the “Blue People”, as the indigo pigment from their clothing often stains their skin blue).  We really felt like we were on an ancient trade route.

We took full advantage of the atmospherics and ate freshly prepared street food at the market stalls.  I had some kind of couscous for dinner at Stall 26 but I remember Stall 60 even better.  Here, I had freshly squeezed orange juice from local oranges…it was, without question, the best orange juice I have ever had.   There is definitely something to be said for eating and drinking locally!

As Marrakech attracts a lot of travellers and Morocco had rather high unemployment at the time, anybody who looked like a tourist was persistently accosted upon nearing the old city.  They didn’t want to harm us…they just wanted to be our guide.  It was often a rather hard-sell approach.  The old city is very confusing and it is a good idea to have somebody with you, at least for your first trip inside.  Of course, they are motivated to bring you to certain shops where they will get a commission if you buy something, but having a guide also stops other potential guides from soliciting your business.

To avoid making a bad decision, we hired a trusted and licensed guide through our hotel.  “Hajj” took us through various souqs and made sure we got back to our hotel safely.  We went back to Djemaa-el-Fna on our own later and spent quite a bit of time at the perimeter politely declining assistance.  Djemaa-el-Fna itself is not difficult to get around so it wasn’t necessary to have a guide for that.  Once we were inside the square, the soliciting stopped.

I’ll have one more post on Morocco soon.  As for the vague clues I gave in my previous blog post about our summer travel destination, I can give one more:  we are not going to the Olympics!