Day Totals: 8 hrs, 13.1 kms



Next day I need to drop off my wife at the airport in Marrakech at noon… and I have a conference to attend in the evening… so… can I do it? Can I still make this day an Adventure Day? It's not enough time to get out of town, and there’s really not a whole lot left for me to explore in Marrakech . A large, dense neighbourhood just on the other side of the airport does catch my eye on Google Maps, so after dropping off my wife, I walk out of the airport to check it out.

Marrakech is the only city in Morocco that has an airport right in the middle of the city—well, it wasn’t that way originally, but the city grew around the airport. So I can now add Marrakech Airport to my collection of "Airports I Escaped on Foot" along with LAX, Newark, JFK, O’Hare, Harrisburg, Lisbon, Bergamo, Templehof Berlin, Accra, Cairo, Rome and Mexico City.

I smugly stroll out across the parking lot, much to the chagrin of the taxi driver who swear they will give me a “good price” to take me to the city. I just wave and give them the “walking fingers” gesture. Marrakech taxi drivers have become the worst in Morocco, entirely refusing to use their meters and charging whatever strikes their fancy. So I always relish a chance to blow them off.

At the entrance of the airport just some 50 meters away, instead of heading left towards downtown, I take a left, and within minutes I have open fields on my left and a bustling neighbourhood on my right . As I dive into this neighbourhood, down a narrow, busy street I get the feeling that this area is low class and might not be all that safe. (Later I learn that, yes, my assessment is correct). Marrakech is considered a relatively “safe” city here in Morocco, being its tourism capital… of course, the people who make that assessment never enter these sorts of neighborhoods… and after my unfortunate encounter with some thugs a couple months ago, I’m a bit less inclined to take risks than I use to be. I figure, as long as I stick to the busy streets, I should be OK.

I follow this street as it gets narrower and narrower… then wider, until it ends at a park overgrown with weeds, with a construction project on the other side. This looks like close enough to the edge for me, and I wander to my right a little until I find a wide, grimy boulevard to follow back. Maybe I’m getting a little paranoid, but I get the feeling that some fellows are following me… finally I make it to a cheerful, bustling open air market street, and back to the airport . From there I have a long, stretch along a wall following the perimeter of the airport, until I finally reach the entrance to Menara, connecting to my Marrakech Hike of 2011.

I’m glad I saw this less glamourous “other face” of Marrakech. But, quite frankly, I think I think this should be the last lower class neighbourhood I’ll explore here. I should stop while I’m ahead… if an incident were to happen to me here, it would cast as shadow on my entire Superhike—as happened in my Megapolis Superhike.

After reaching Menara, I try to catch a taxi, but can’t find any that will give me an honest price—or they flat out refuse to take me where I want to go… Oh well… I tried, Marrakech… I really tried…