After inching our way through the Hollywood of the Sahara and zipping down the Tichka Pass over the Atlas Mountains, we landed in Marrakesh, the last big stop on our tour before flying home. This was late in 2015, so “home” meant a month of frantic, last-minute remodeling projects before putting our house on the market and moving to Atlanta. We weren’t looking forward to that, but were also worn out on our “package tour” itinerary and being rushed from one place to another in order to see as much of the country as possible in two weeks.
In Marrakesh we would abandon our tour and take the city at our own pace. At least that was the plan. Marrakesh is a city that demands you take it at its pace, which is lost, bewildered, hassled, and confused. It’s a bustling city, a hustling city, and a market city to rival any other medina on the continent. As such, it seemed the most African city of any in Morocco, with its cacophony of sights, sounds, and smells, and its aggressive vendors who will literally chase you down and grab you to make you visit their shop (this happened).
On our first day in town, we stuck with the tour for as long as we could stand it. The first stop was the 16th century cemetery of the Saadian royal family, now home to a lush garden, crowds of tourists, and the cutest cats in the country – which is saying something.
After, as we wandered through the maze of the old city trying desperately not to lose track of our guide, I practiced a little more of my “guerrilla photography,” taking secret snapshots of Moroccan daily life. Next was a stop at the Bahia Palace, filled with room after room of the lush, amazing Arab architecture and design that had been permanently burned into our retinas by that point.
It was here that we ran away. While Hamdan, our guide, was yelling “Yallah, yallah!” to get our group to follow him, we jumped ship and headed in the other direction (after telling him, of course).
The next stop on the tour would have been a march through the heart of Marrakesh’s central marketplace, and we weren’t interested in being forced into any more recreational shopping – certainly not the way it was practiced here. Instead we did our own thing, finding our way to the huge El Badii Palace, which was under renovation but still open to the public, and then the nearby Jewish cemetery (because, as long-time readers of this blog should know, we always check out the dead people).
Our next stop was to locate, in the maze of the city, the Henna Art Café, a restaurant Lea found where you can have henna done using the artist’s home-made henna recipe. Today, with current GPS tech, better worldwide access to data networks, and directions on the café’s own website, it’s probably easier to locate, but four years ago, working only from vague notes jotted down in our hotel room and a rough (nearly fictional) tourist map of Marrakesh… well, it’s a miracle we found the place. But we’re so glad we did.
Because we had to escape from the crowd. The streets pointed every direction but straight, and while trying to find the right alley we got into a shouting match with a shop owner who followed us several blocks trying to get us to come to his store. At last we asked for directions at the post office, since the postal workers were the only people in town we could trust not to direct us to a spice shop instead of where we wanted to go.
The Henna Art Café is a refuge of quiet above all the foot traffic. You can still hear it all through the windows, two and a half stories below, but you get to lie back on comfortable cushions, enjoy the food, and ignore it all. Then the henna artist comes out and creates some of the most amazing skin art you’re ever going to see. Just look:
That evening we splurged at a wonderful French restaurant a block from our hotel. We went to bed early, because the next day had an early start of our own devising.
Day Two was scheduled as a “free day” in Marrakesh to spend however we wanted. Gate One offered an optional trip to the resort town of Essaouira, but a little research showed us that Essaouira offered nothing but more and more shopping. Instead, we booked a tour that picked us up before dawn and took us to ride in a balloon over the Atlas Mountains at sunrise.
Getting a balloon into the air in the desert is a tricky thing. The wind was the main problem. Our guides drove us around until we found a depression they felt was sheltered enough that the balloon wouldn’t get dragged away or fly off while being inflated. There were eight tourists and one pilot who were to ride in the balloon itself, and all of us got to take part in getting the thing off the ground. The women in the group got to sit in the basket to anchor it, while the men got to hold the guide ropes on the other end, keeping the balloon from dragging while it filled with air.
And then we were away! The sun hadn’t long been over the mountains before we were sailing over farms, sheep pastures, highways, and the foothills of the Atlas themselves. Our guide kept trying to crack us up, shouting to imaginary Taliban fighters on the ground far below that we were friendlies. The flight itself was eerie and serene at the same time, and the vistas of the desert and mountains in the early morning sun were everything I’d hoped they’d be. Such a flight would have been the perfect end-cap to our experience of Morocco.
Alas, we still had Marrakesh to deal with.
We followed our balloon flight with a gratuitous camel ride through a palm grove. Recommendation re: camel rides – one is enough. Back in the city, with most of the day left, we took a taxi to the Majorelle Gardens, a private two-acre botanical preserve at a private residence that was started in 1923, and then purchased and renovated by Yves Saint-Laurent in the 1980s.
After that, for some ungodly reason (cheapness being my first guess) we walked to the old city, entered through the north gate, and hunted for a photography museum we wanted to visit. This was made excessively frustrating by the impossibility of distinguishing streets from shopping alleys in that part of the city, the inaccuracy of our tourist map, and the fact that even the children we asked for directions would lie to our faces, insist the museum was closed, and that we should visit their family’s shops instead. We found the museum, enjoyed it (though we don’t have any photographic evidence) and haggled with a taxi to take us back to our hotel.
That night we set out on foot looking for a tapas restaurant we’d glimpsed while on our tour bus, desperate for anything to eat that wasn’t kefta kebabs or tagine. We didn’t find it, though a nice man who saw us walking insisted he knew where it was and offered to drive us. Fools that we were, we got in his car. He drove around in circles before bringing us to his souvenir shop. We pried ourselves away as quickly and politely as we could, then wandered back toward our hotel and ended up having dinner at KFC.
That’s Marrakesh for you.
Our tour at last brought us full circle back to Casablanca. We’d already been there, done that because we’d arrived a day ahead of everyone else, so we skipped the Hassan II Mosque tour that we’d already taken. Our tour did visit a Christian church with beautiful, modern stained glass windows that strongly reminded me of those at the Methodist church where I grew up in Baton Rouge.
Here’s where we also witnessed a bit of “Muslim exceptionalism” similar to the “Christian exceptionalism” prevalent in the United States. In Muslim countries, no one but Muslims are allowed to so much as set foot inside a mosque (with the exception being the Hassan II). However, at this church, our guide encouraged us to go inside and take photos even though Sunday services were still in progress. This attitude made us really uncomfortable, so we waited until church let out to go in and appreciate the architecture.
Years later, in our trek around South America, we became much less shy about visiting churches that were actively in use, even going so far as to crash a wedding in Chiclayo, Peru. However, the attitude that “mosques are sacred, but this church isn’t” rubbed us the wrong way, just as do assumptions of Christian privilege here at home.
That night we had one last group dinner on the waterfront. The next morning, early early early, we boarded the plane for home.
Verdict?
Morocco: Go there. It’s a beautiful country, with many amazing sites and cities. Our favorites were Rabat and Fez, and I also enjoyed the historic sites in and around Ouarzazate. However, unless you’re a crowd person who loves to shop and haggle, skip Marrakesh.
Our Packaged Tour: It had its ups and downs. Because of taking a group tour, we got to see a lot of places that we otherwise wouldn’t have considered or had access to. However, there was also the perpetual feeling of being rushed, and of having too many activities crammed into every single day.
My recommendation: If you choose a tour, don’t be shy about taking a day off from its itinerary or planning a side trip on your own if it’ll make your experience better. Just be sure not to miss the bus.
The Escape Hatch will be going on a brief hiatus. In a month or so, get ready to experience the aurora borealis in Iceland.
Yallah, yallah!