Following our exploits at Lisbon Airport, we arrived in Casablanca a little later than anticipated, but excited to start the next leg of our roadtrip. It had rained heavily in Casablanca that afternoon and evening, setting the scene for much of the next three days of unseasonably cool and wet weather ("it never rains after the end of March" so our guide Saíd informed us). That resulted in a change or two to the planned itinerary and our “scenic drive” across the Middle Atlas Mountains from Fez to Marrakech was largely obscured by heavy rain and mist. It even necessitated a room change for Harvey & Noelene in Fez after we returned from a day of sightseeing and they found their room flooded! Nonetheless, we were able to get a good taste and feel for three of Morocco's great imperial cities: Meknes, Fez and Marrakech. Morocco’s history and culture have been shaped by the Berbers, originally a nomadic Jewish people converted to Islam around 1000 years ago when the Arabs invaded from the east, then by the Arabs for nearly a millennium and finally by the French who showed up in 1912 to “protect” Morocco. The French departed somewhat reluctantly in 1957, but their influence particularly on the language, is still strong.
We arrived in Morocco just a couple of days after a bomb blast at the Argana Restaurant in the centre of Marrakech had killed 15 people, mostly tourists
. So everywhere we went, there was a heavy police presence and many police checkpoints along the roads that we travelled. Saíd told us that this hasn’t been a good tourist season anyway and the uprisings across North Africa and the Middle East plus an act of terrorism like this have scared away many people. We had no qualms whatsoever about coming here and at no time felt unsafe. Ironically, we were in Marrakech on the day that Osama bin Laden’s death was announced.
Didn’t we once work together?
Other than our first night in Casablanca, rather than staying in regular hotels we chose to use “riads”, inns or guesthouses mostly created from former merchants’ villas or small palaces within the medina (the old city of narrow streets and alleyways). Riads catering to overseas tourists took off as an idea in the late 90’s, the intention being to provide foreign visitors with a taste of what living in the medina is all about. Like all good ideas at that time of global excess, the concept exploded out of control and in Marrakech particularly, the only experience foreigners got in their section of the medina was of other foreigners
. Locals were being priced out of the market as housing was snapped up to be converted into luxury accommodation. At that point, the city authority stepped in and now it’s difficult if not impossible to get a permit to create a new riad. Our riads in Fez and Marrakech were indeed luxury accommodation; both beautifully restored and converted merchants’ palaces. In both cities, our driver brought the car to the closest vehicle-accessible square, Saíd called ahead and there we were met by a “porter” (at a guess, a local delivery man) with a handcart. With our luggage piled on to the cart, we were led through a maze of alleyways to a locked door in an otherwise anonymous wall. Typical of Islamic architecture, the outside of houses (or palaces or riads for that matter) is completely plain – absolutely devoid of “curb appeal”! The grandness of any house is on the inside with the living areas built around a series of courtyards. And so it was with our riads. It was a bit like staying in a private home or bed & breakfast (dinner optional!) with no signs or any room numbers, just lots of staircases and ample opportunity to wonder around completely lost
. Outside each of the riads was indeed like stepping in to another world. In both Fez and Marrakech, the souks (markets) in the lanes adjacent to our riads were food markets, open most of the time selling everything from grains and cereals to live chickens, pigeons and rabbits destined for the pot. Adding to the atmosphere in both cities were the neighbourhood mosques from which the (live, not a recorded) muezzin called the faithful to prayer five times a day (and night!) and in Fez, by a rubbish tip just under the back wall where donkeys (the local garbage trucks) delivered their loads on a regular basis!
The evening meal in a riad is primarily Moroccan banquet style: soup followed by vegetables, followed by chicken, lamb and beef, followed by a vegetable and couscous tagine, followed by sweet, nut-based desserts…..An obscene amount of food and we learned after our first day (when we had such banquets for lunch and dinner!) to be firmer both with Saíd and the riad staff and cut back to at most one, abbreviated banquet a day
. Given their location down alleyways hard enough to identify during the day, let alone in the dark, eating in the riad seemed like a good bet. At the first evening meal in our Fez riad we sat next to a Dutch couple one of whom looked very familiar. Having lived for so many years in Holland, my first thought was that this was someone I had worked with in the dim and distant past. A somewhat awkward exchange took place (“didn’t we use to work together” etc) ended by him asking whether I liked football. My half-forgotten former colleague was actually Pim Verbeek, the coach of the Australian national soccer team during the last World Cup campaign and the reason he looked so familiar was because we had seen him so much on Australian TV. Happens to him a lot he told us although less so that he now lives in Rabat and works for the Moroccan football association – next goal, getting Morocco qualified for the London Olympics.
Can’t get off the subject of food without a mention of Dar Yacout – another beautifully renovated and furnished former palace in the Marrakech medina and now a renowned restaurant
. An evening there had been recommended to us by both the Moroccan ambassador to the US (not directly, I hasten to add, but through a mutual acquaintance) and Pim Verbeek and wife. It was indeed a fitting end to our stay in Morocco and an evening that we will long remember.
Without cats, this place would be pretty unhygienic!
There are many “first impressions” that you get of the medina and the many souks (markets) that dot the medina. The people, many in traditional garb (including tourists – particularly in Marrakech); the incredible array of colorful goods, much of it edible; donkeys and mules, the main form of transport through the narrow, hilly medina streets of Meknes and Fez; even more surprisingly, the scooters and mopeds, the main form of transport through the slightly wider (and flatter) alleyways of the Marrakech medina. Thousands of small stalls (more than 60,000 in the Marrakech medina) with hundreds of each selling exactly the same goods
. And cats! Cats everywhere. Very few dogs which are considered by devout Muslims to scare off the “good spirits”, but cats as pets, cats as scavengers and cats presumably to keep mice and rats at bay. Because there is food everywhere: fresh vegetables and sacks of grain, freshly butchered meat, fish, spices and endless displays of olives and preserved lemons used in cooking tagine, the “staple” dish. Everything out in the open, nothing covered – a health and safety inspector’s nightmare!! Even less appetizing were some of the food displays in a Berber market we stopped at on the way to the Ourika Valley around 50 km from Marrakech, although that wasn’t helped by the glutinous mud the market was sited on, caused by the heavy rain of the previous days. Traditional crafts are still practiced: wood turners and carvers, tailors, metal workers etc each have their own sections within the medina. Nothing quite hits the senses though like the tannery section in the Fez medina. The stench is pretty overpowering, but it’s worth coming to grips with that to be able to wonder into a courtyard and see a process that has changed little in hundreds of years
. Most of the workers we saw were young men. Perhaps it’s the family business and they have little choice; perhaps the pay is good. The working conditions are indescribable – take a look at the photos!
Decorate It Like Beckham
Meknes and Fez are still pretty much traditional (Arab) Moroccan cities. Each has a “new section” of fairly drab 20th century buildings where the lifestyle (and dress style) is somewhat European surrounding 16th century medinas where hundreds of thousands of people still live (and dress) as they have done for centuries. The two seem worlds apart and I can’t imagine that there’s much interaction between these starkly contrasting communities. The historical sites we visited – palaces, mosques, madrassas, synagogues and so on are all mostly within the walls of the medinas and adjacent kasbahs (originally fortresses) and so that’s where the tourists go. Meknes and Fez at first seemed a little more “authentic”, perhaps because there are fewer tourists than in Marrakech or perhaps it’s the use of donkeys rather than motorbikes! The Marrakech medina does have some fascinating sections; our riad was certainly in one as we found out one evening when we chose to walk the mile or so back from the main square (with few recognizable landmarks, we needed a crowd of small boys to get us home!)
. (Berber) Marrakech is different though. In the new section, no building can be higher than five stories (just lower than the Koutoubia) and have to be earthtone coloured – mostly ochre, so from a distance (and certainly from the air), the city blends beautifully with the surrounding desert. Marrakech and the Ourika Valley with their proximity to the northern edge of the Sahara have always seemed more “exotic” to westerners and in the '70’s, the area was “discovered” by the jet set. From French fashion designers (Yves St Laurent owned a palace here until his death) to rock stars (several places were pointed out to us where Mick Jagger had been, or perhaps still is, spotted) to film stars and all their associated hangers-on, all flock(ed) here for a bit of easily accessible exoticness. As we were being led in to another “Aladdin’s Cave” full of Berber antiques, we were told that the Beckhams liked it all so much that they have had one of their homes completely redecorated, Moroccan-style…..
On the Road In Morocco
Friday, May 06, 2011
Marrakech, Morocco
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Comments

2025-02-16
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Rob
2011-05-10
Wonderful narrative and pictures - I can almost smell the Goats!!!!