D-Dog’s Blog

Today is expected, at the time of writing, to be our last full day in Marrakesh, and at this point I realise that we travellers have told you folks at home almost nothing about this fine city. This is chiefly because our activities within it have been limited, for the most part, to lazing about on our roof terrace, eating ice cream, taking a few walks, going to the internet café, stabbing Duncan, and, on my part at least, being beaten on the posterior with a twisted-up newspaper (thanks for that particular piece of advice, Jimi). However, there are some truly wonderful things about this city that have largely been ignored in previous posts. The architecture is imposing, particularly the Bank Al-Maghreb and the mosque(s), and the place is littered, here and there, with flashes of greenery which, outside the medina at least, help to maintain the impression of cleanliness and modernity that makes up exactly one half of one’s perception of the place. There is a lovely, shaded park area consisting of walkways among tall palms, the perfect place to get one’s shoes shined if one has shiny shoes that should be shined or shone or shiny for sure. Anyways, the quiet bits are nice, but the best part of Marrakesh, as in most Morrocan cities, is the medina. Marrakesh’s medina is different in structure from that of others. Whereas most medinas consist entirely of tightly-knit, labyrinthine streets, wherein lie the souks, markets, street vendors, dealers, hustlers and merchants that bring such colour to the Moroccan experience, Marrakesh’s medina is so populous, so thronging with tourists even during the quiet season, that there is simply not enough room in the rat-run of the medina per se to hold the mass of people. So the action is relocated to the Djemaa-el-Fna, the “Assembly Of The Dead”, the huge square that from the sky, or at least on the map, gives the distinct impression of a heart, pumping the droves through the veins of the medina’s tight, winding streets. The Djemaa’s openness is all that saves the atmosphere from being constrictive. So much noise, so many smells, so much noise, so much noise, one can hardly make out a single person in the humming crowd for more than a few seconds, and at night, the impression one gets is of the myriad shapes and noises moving as one, clustered in huge numbers around the dancers, storytellers, musicians (competent or no) and snake charmers that populate the square.

Venture north from the Djemaa during the day and you are entering the covered souks, where shafts of sunlight slash through the slats of wood and corrugated iron that make up the ceiling, where the shopkeepers attack you like hungry wolves if you are too ill to stop them, or so I have read, and hassle you like shopkeepers if you are fit and well, and where, if looking for a bargain, all but the most competent haggler would do well to avoid. Purely as a sight to see, though, a few circuits are certainly worthwhile, in order to soak up the scent and colour of the medina, as potent a spirit here as anywhere else.

All this can be read in the most basic and traditional of tourist guides, though, and what’s the point of sending a correspondent if all they’re going to give you is old material? Some of the best things about Marrakesh, for me anyway, cannot be discovered in the pages of any book I have read. I have already mentioned the macaroons (oy vey) and some of the interesting characters who filter down from the North, oh, and the weather (it rained like hell all day yesterday, but it’s back to glorious again today), but the one thing I have failed to mention, despite the definite impact it has made on me since I first arrived, is the call to prayer. Most of you will know what I am referring to, the call made from a minaret atop a mosque, calling the faithful to worship Allah. What you probably won’t know, though, unless you yourself have travelled to a Muslim city like Marrakesh, is the truly amazing effect that the call to prayer has when there are a large number of mosques in the area. The sound echoes from minaret to minaret, and the musical, mystic intonations of the words, rising and falling at different times, give the druggy, intimidating, frightening, cinematic, glorious effect of a whirling cacophony of sound. It lasts for a few minutes at most, but it will be one of the things I remember, and never stop telling people, about Marrakesh.

Pascoe

P.S. Read “The Hashmark”, our more widely-read partner blog, at www.thehashmark.wordpress.com