Morocco 2001

By Michael Bell

In the autumn of 2001 I was single and newly retired and I wondered what I should do next. I decided to put myself to the test. I would go to Morocco because it is not very far away, but a fairly alien culture. I took a big rucksack and stayed in cheap hotels, but mostly in youth hostels.

On my first day in Casablanca I was swindled. I am ashamed to tell you the simple trick he used. It wasn't a lot of money, but it overshadowed the whole of my trip and soured the first half. A European stands out, especially one of my colouring and build and maybe dress too. It wasn't too bad in Casablanca - you just attract a few swindlers - but in Fez and Meknes, hordes of children and touts of all kinds swarm round you like flies. You can't get rid of them. Well actually, there is a way, you hire a guide to shoo them off. But there are "faux guides" - "false guides"! It's a nightmare.

Casablanca is hardly "typical Morocco". It is a big modern city, women are unfettered and it is full of cafes, with the TV high on the wall. Here I got a nasty fright. There was an aircraft crash near New York. A second 9/11? For an hour or two people watched the TV tensely. Then relief. It was an accident! They don't want trouble. It was with sadness that I heard a few years later that there had been an Al Qaeda bombing in Casablanca.

But I had to see more of Morocco. I took the train to Rabat the capital and the most traditional of the large cities, and then I went on to Meknes and Fes. I saw the abandoned Roman city of Volubilis. It seemed very out of place here in North Africa, but on second thoughts maybe less out of place than Hadrian's Wall in my home city. I saw water being used to irrigate fields - surely there are better ways of doing it? I saw olives being harvested and the amazingly crude way they are crushed and the oil squeezed out. Despite all the praise-talk about the olive being the foundation of Mediterranean cooking and culture, really they are one of the few things that will grow in this climate and they have an unpleasant taste and all this praise is simply making the best of a bad job. I ate fresh dates, to Moroccans the equivalent of apples to us, and a very different experience from the dried dates we eat.

I saw museums where the buildings were as interesting as the things on show; the lines, curves and lighting lead the eye in a very seductive way to make you savour the space. I saw displays of Arabic writing, not just in museums but on workaday things like the lettering on the sides of buses. Their writing obviously give Arabs pleasure far more than ours does to us and second only to Chinese writing.

But the touts and urchins were like flies around all the tourist spots; I tended to avoid them. So, a different kind of doubtful person latched onto me. Mostly young they claimed to want to talk to a foreigner, and Morocco is not a totally free society so there might be some truth in that, or simply have a stroll with interesting conversation. But I was always in doubt as to their motives. By "pure chance" they might call in for a cup of tea at a carpet shop run by an old friend. Too damned obvious! But travelling with only a rucksack meant that I really could not buy their goods. I walked a long way talking to a chap I met in the street, then he asked me for the taxi-fare home! Had all that been to soften me up to give him that money? I felt dirtied. They weren't all like that, but I could never be sure. So, I never got to see the famous dyeing vats of Fes. I ran away!

I took the train from Fes to Marrakech. The trains are French '70s stock, super-fast for their day, but in Morocco they run at far below the speeds they are capable of. The train moved through the landscape with the dignity of a ship at sea. It took all day.

It took me too long to realise that Marrakech and whole of the south of the country is wholly different from the north of Morocco. There was none of that following me around, offering me this deal, that deal or simply wanting to walk with me, with very uncertain motivation. I had put up my guard against that kind of thing, and I probably missed some good opportunities before I learned that there was no need for it here. I got talking to a music-shop owner who was ashamed of that behaviour and was sadly aware of how harmful it is. The tourist guidebooks say that you should be willing to be overcharged a bit, it's not much loss to you, but a big gain to them. Is this saying somehow that they can get a free lunch? But there are no free lunches, somewhere somebody must be taking a loss, probably the country as a whole because tourists don't like to be swindled. Nor does anybody. No wonder Thailand has set up a special tourist police to stop this kind of misuse.

As the bus from Marrakech to Ouarzazate drove out a roll of tear-off bags such as you find in supermarkets was passed back along the seats and the passengers tore off a bag or two. What for? I soon realised. The bus was a modern vehicle in good order, the road had a reasonable surface, but it swung from left to right along the side of the valley and if anything went wrong it would be a long way down. These were local passengers on a service bus, and those bags were sick-bags and they used them! I just enjoyed the ride as a Valkyrie-ride.

On the Sahara side of the Atlas mountains, Ouarzazate looks as if it is there as an act of human will. It is hard to see what it makes a living out of. But it has a hotel which I stayed in. The hotel was in the form of a hollow rectangle but there was no roof, no need for one in a place with (almost) no rain. But one morning there was a little bit of water on the landings.
After the only bit of hustling I got in the south, I went all the way into the desert. Along the side of the road are the amazing oases, valleys where the water that has fallen on the Atlas comes to the surface and there is mile after mile of date-palms with sandy desert on both sides. What a sight! And onwards south to a camp specialising in nights in the desert and camel rides for the foreigner. The camp's GPS coordinates were printed on the owner's card; really sensible in the desert. All the way, and here as much as anywhere else, I was impressed by the local knowledge of geology and fossils, all discussed in purely European terms.

Taking care not to get lost and using compass bearings, I walked out on the sand. It's not just sand, this is a land which was green and fertile in historical times. The "sand" is soil with the dark organic matter oxidised away. The wind can only blow away the small particles, so in places I walked over gravel pavements, in other places the sand had gathered in great dunes, which move with the wind. There was just the sun, the wind, the sand and me. What is it that is so special about that? Is it the fact that you are the only living thing in sight, and you might kick sand or stones as much you like, but there is nothing that can make a response? The only thing you can get a response from is yourself.

On the way back I decided to stop at the town of Taddart. I ordered a tagine (stew) and ate it on a very pretty terrace beside a tumbling stream and asked about the hotel I was aiming for. Ah, there was a problem! That hotel was closed for Ramadan (mindful of the tourist trade the Moroccan government tries to insist that at least one hotel in every place stays open during Ramadan, but evidently its writ doesn't run to these parts) Ah! But they had an idea! I could stay with the restauranteur's family!

So they took me in. It was a fairly modern concrete house, it didn't look out of place set into the rock face, and like so much else in Morocco, it wasn't finished. I'm sure I was a financial windfall to them. They were the grown-up children of elderly parents who lived next door. Each grown-up child had a family, and lived with that family in one room and they locked the door of each room with a padlock. They provided me with the same for my room. They were the sweetest people, but the need to lock the doors like that stuck in my throat. I stayed a couple of days with them. In the evenings round the fire we talked. It was getting on to December and bitterly cold and they shivered. They didn't think of closing the door!

I walked out on the mountains, where the rock is poor quality crumbly stuff. I saw the base of something I couldn't understand and I asked the senior brother about it. It seems that just after the war German prisoners of war were made to build a Swiss-type cable-way which ran all the way from Marrakech to Ouarzazate, but it was scrapped in the 60s. What a shame, it would have been a huge asset to the tourist industry today. There were areas where trees had been planted, not too difficult because although the mountains seem to be bare rock, if you drive a pick into it, you can very soon turn it into pocket of shale which you can put a small tree into. But tree planting had come to a stop. There was a dam and irrigation canal, expensively built on the money of those who had gone to Marrakech for work, but hopelessly badly laid out and very wasteful: and a good job too because, if it had captured and used all the water, the city of Marrakech would have gone dry. I saw fields which had been planted in the hope of rain. If rain didn't fall, then the seed and work would have been wasted, but that's life in the Atlas.

I got talking to a man in his 40s, who said how life was so hard. There is very little for anybody in the Atlas, his family, parents, brothers and sisters and their children had all gone to Marrakech to try their luck in the big city, but he had to stay behind to keep a hold of the family lands now that the family had gone and not let others seize them. Not that the land had any real value. I didn't ask, but it seemed plain that he was the bachelor of the family - always put upon.

And so onward to Marrakech on the Valkyrie-bus. My rucksack was put in the luggage compartment under the floor with the goats, front and back legs tied together, on their way to market and the goats piddled on it. A very authentic experience!

Marrakech is really a fun city. There are all sorts of cultural highlights, from high-brow museums and galleries to street musicians and jugglers, there are shops of all kinds, at night (during Ramadan, anyway) stalls are set up in Place Djemaa El Fnaa where you can eat any kind of food you want and watch all sorts of entertainments. Now that the bad impression of Moroccans that I had picked up in Northern Morocco had been cleared, I enjoyed Marrakech better. But you can't settle when you're on holiday. I took the bus to Essaouira.

Essaouira was the nicest place in the whole trip. All motor vehicles stop at bays outside the city walls and unload into hand carts which deliver or collect from the city. A very few building vehicles, diggers, forklift trucks and the like are allowed into the city, but apart from them, it is pedestrians only. The municipality is obviously in firm control. You can meander through fruit shops, cafes, fruit and vegetable shops, spice shops (always a splendid display), anything. Without the roar of traffic, people talk on the street. I found it easy to start and finish conversations. There is a fishing harbour and dunes and beaches and good hotels and shops selling interesting things. Tourists could safely bring young children here.

I stayed in a hotel in the old city. A young man, also staying there told me he was expecting a visit from his "father's wife". That's a strange way of putting it because normally you father's wife is your mother, and I wondered if I had got the words wrong, but then I realised: This is a Muslim country and this must be his father's other wife.

I also had a fright. I went to the hole in the wall to get out money. "Sorry, we cannot handle this transaction" came back the message in French. Oh dear. I went to another hole in the wall and got the same. And another! Something must be wrong with my account back home! A sick feeling arose in my belly. I was hundreds of miles from Casablanca airport and no way of getting back in a very foreign country. Then I saw a man walk away from another hole in the wall with a look of exasperation on his face. It was a general failure, not just mine. And in an hour, all the machines were working again. But it had been a nasty fright and a reminder of how thin a thread you hang by in a foreign country.

And by bus back to Casablanca. This being Ramadan, the bus loudspeakers were playing recitations from the Koran. The voices are very strange: one of the boys at Taddart had been like that; he looked 17 or 18 and his voice hadn't broken, giving his voice a not-child, not-man, not-woman quality we don't get in Europe From the youth hostel I went round the corner to cafe I had been to when I was first there. Some of these cafes are like French bistros, and like them, there can be good conversation or none, it's pot luck. A good evening in this case.
I must say I was impressed by some of the young people. So keen on their learning. Maths? Not my strong point alas! English? Ah yes, real English conversation. Geography? Where have you been? What did you think of it? Their thirst for knowledge was very impressive. But will their keenness do them any good or will it turn to frustration and sourness? I fear that the aim of many is to leave the country, and it is easy to see why. Morocco is not a desperately poor country, but it knows that very much better is possible, and not very far away, in Europe. For many years it has been the wish of some sections of Moroccan society for Morocco to join the EU. Many cars carry number plates with "EU" on them. Not only do they want European economic standards, they also want European standards of health, justice, culture. Several times it was aggressively put to me that Morocco was being denied the right to join the EU because it was a Muslim country. My answer that it was not being allowed to join because it is not a European but an African country was met with a lot of scepticism. Well, seeing that their view of Europe must mostly come from France, maybe that's not too surprising. 

I saw a market barrow, very like a market barrow in Britain, selling bananas. A crowd of men stood round it buying the bananas, in a city where women are not allowed out of the house, the men have to do the shopping. Half a dozen men bought their bananas and took them away. That was all. No more action! The other men drifted away. Their interest had been to watch other men buying bananas! They must have too little to do. Knowing nothing else, do they accept it? Or does it cause a deep inner frustration or anger?

In my time in Morocco I was offered hash at least 6 times, a woman to marry 4 times, and I am fairly certain at least one attempted homosexual seduction. I brushed them off of course. All the women were all under 20 and the youngest surely only 14. Somehow the girl would appear and father and/or elder brothers would say "Would you like to marry her? Nice girl! What are you shy about?" and the girl would smile winningly and put her hand out to me. Of course I said "no". But in their eyes it would be a good deal. However "well" or "badly" the marriage worked out, on any calculation it would better than what she would get in Morocco - looked at coldly, that is probably a correct calculation - and I would die in her young middle age and she would be a free woman in a first world country. And the family would have a finger-hold in a first world country. They took no offence and showed no surprise when I said "no"; no doubt they'll get a taker in the end.

Does it hurt to view yourself and all you know as so much less than the foreigner?

First published in VISA issue 72A (April 2007)

Plus ça change

by Tim Grimes


“The children are both away; where can we go to get some sunshine for a few days?” asked my wife. Of several offers on lastminute.com, Marrakech was the cheapest. On the way out, she asked: “Did you buy a guidebook for Marrakech?” I had forgotten, so I grabbed a Cook’s Traveller’s Handbook to North Africa and answered that we already had one. That was the extent of our foreknowledge of Marrakech.


Aboard the plane, my wife asked to see the guide book. It wasn’t looking good for me as soon as I noticed the price was 7/6d. The publication date confirmed my fate. It would be interesting to see how much had changed since 1933.

I should have preferred to have left London at midday by Imperial Airways or Air France. The passenger reaches Paris in the afternoon and entrains in the early evening for Toulouse. Hence a machine of Air France departs early next morning for Casablanca (10 hours) for onward road transport to Marrakech. OK, our plane from Gatwick took only 3 1/2 hours, but I suspect Imperial Airways et al offered a less disgusting experience than the scruffy Atlas Blue flight (advertised as 'Royal Air Maroc') with slow service, stale food and no safety demonstration or seat instructions.


I was not well prepared: Cook’s recommends that quinine should be carried and taken on any suggestion of febrile disorder, although I had remembered my pair of tinted spectacles.


Once arrived, I was proud to negotiate the price of the taxi fare to the hotel down from 300% of the price recommended by lastminute.com, to a mere 200%, and negotiation was to be the order of the day with taxis, and I became more successful as time wore on. It is worth noting that, even though a lower price has been agreed, the drivers can still be reluctant to give all the change, so I would work out, in advance, what combination of coins I should expect back. But taxis are still cheap and the tour bus is a bit pointless (even at only £8 per head) as it doesn't go to the more interesting places, and the rest can be done more cheaply by taxi.


Marrakech is divided between Gueliz, the European (new) town built during the French protectorate (1912 to 1956); and the Medina or old town.

Gueliz is devoid of buildings of importance says Cook’s; even the French-inspired PTT and municipal buildings of the 1920s appear to have been replaced, in the past 20 years, with undistinguished modern terracotta-washed lowish-rise built from the Gueliz quarry up the road. That disposes of the new town, although the Theatre Royal is worth a quick look for free i.e. Dh10 each to the 'guide' who will emerge e.g. from a ladder, paint pot still in hand

Djemaa el Fna is the centre of the old town. It is a large open space just within the walls of the old town, where old and new civilisations meet; once a place of execution, it is now a market and playground. Rather nondescript by day, after the trade of the market is ended, a gala begins, with dancers, conjurers, snake charmers, native gymnasts and musicians, around whom is a mixed crowd which includes transient visitors from the hills, the Sahara and the north.

Roads and alleyways radiate from the Djemaa el Fna, particularly becoming an extensive, and really scruffy, souk to the north east. The market traders irritate by approaching with remarks like "Asda price" to describe their wares; the sales pitch is in French or English and we soon learned to tell them that we were Polish. (That also works for the irritating 'guides' who appear from the shadows whenever the tourist slows to a reasonable walking pace, or consults a map.) There was some quite attractive leather luggage on offer, in the souk, but I just couldn't be bothered, so their approach proved counterproductive. Unsurprisingly therefore, the stalls seemed to sell about as much stuff as an antique shop in Warwick, leaving us to wonder how the stallholders fed their children.


In 1933 it was impossible for non-Moslems to enter mosques in Marrakech; that remains so today, and there was little point in trying. But beyond the souks, further north, is the Ben Yussef madrassa, rebuilt in the 1560s by the Saadian dynasty and which is open. The mosaics and plasterwork are notable and the courtyard is a beautifully modelled fountain - well, pond, now. The architecture in the madrassa, which was renovated in 2000, is very attractive, interestingly using a lot of cedar wood both ornamentally and structurally.


We avoided the Bad Doukkala, a massive square gate of note, like the plague, as it was adjacent (without the walls) to the leper colony.


There are 19 gates in the integral city walls, up to 6 feet thick. In the south of the Medina, the Bad Aguenaou (the Portuguese Gate) is of particular merit. A massive arched gateway, wrongly attributed to the Portuguese and carrying very good inscriptions. Perhaps whilst renovating the adjacent walls, with what appears to be a plentiful supply of labour, they will make the inscriptions even better, to more accurately describe who built the thing.


The tower at the Koutoubia Mosque (the mosque of writings), had been massive but rather dilapidated, at one time completely decorated with blue tiling and mosaics. The tower, one of the great monuments of Morocco, and now symbol of Marrakech, stands 230 ft high and was built in the 12th century for the Almohad sultan El Mansur by Spanish prisoners. The place has just been renovated - probably without the aid of Spanish prisoners, and the tower now looks magnificent.


I read that Summer is very hot. July, August and September being particularly exacting. We went in July and it was very exacting - temperatures were consistently above 45C (hot even for Marrakech) and one day soared above 50C. After the first day, we left the mid-day sun to the mad dogs and departed our hotel at 8.30am to see as many sights as possible before the heat became unbearable. This gave us most of the afternoon to laze at the hotel pool and bar. Visiting graves sounded a rather specialised pursuit, but the 16th century Saadian Tombs are supposed to be seen.


The approach is though a narrow and uninviting alleyway to a small but beautiful courtyard, beyond which is the Hall of the Tombs. Here the slender marble columns, the gilded cedarwood roof and the fine stone- and plasterwork should be carefully inspected; workmanship and general effect are splendid.

Well, fine, if tombs turn you on. I was rather underwhelmed, especially by the tombs of the, presumably lesser, immortals lying outside in rough grass. Apparently the tombs had been concealed by Sultan Moulay of the subsequent Alaouite dynasty and were walled off to prevent their discovery by intruders; they were located by accident, in 1917 by an aerial French archaeological survey.


We then saw the remains of the nearby Al Badi Palace, built by the Saadian sultan Ahmed al Mansour in the 16th century and based on the Alhambra Palace in Granada. It was ‘destructed’ only 100 years later, by the subsequent Alaouites, when the Moroccan capital moved to Meknes – together with the building materials used in the Al Badi. Like many other buildings in the city, the ruins had now been covered in a terracotta render. Ponds built into the ruins were all empty or stagnant, but it didn't put off the storks whose nests offered a bit of a photo opportunity, perched on the ruined walls.


Next door (more or less) is the rather more impressive Bahia Palace with its traditional riad courtyards (the palace of the Resident-General, in whose absence it may be visited, by permission, in company with an official guide). This is a rambling modern building, whose grounds include a Botanical Garden 1/4 mile square. The Court of Ceremonies is a splendid example of Moorish architecture and decoration, and the Rooms of the Favourite are noteworthy.

Built in the 1860s, for the then chief minister, it was extended 30 years later by his son and regent and subsequently looted. The wooden ceilings are particularly attractive, providing a chance to take pictures of the place without having to wait for the other tourists to get out of the way.


An impressive modern hotel now commands the Mamounia Gardens, The hotel may be visited and a particularly fine view is to be and from the balcony. Sadly, however, Marrakech's ‘Raffles’ and its gardens were closed for renovation on our visit.


We learned that native cooking is original and as a rule not distasteful to the European palate. Whilst that remained so, the heated-up pizzas and pastas were so distasteful that they didn't get near my palate. For safety (and some of the stuff offered in restaurants looked very dodgy), we ate largely in our 2 1/2 star hotel (i.e. where the rep sells tours on Tuesdays and the lady bathers wear tattoos just above the bikini line) not recommended here.


Cook’s suggests that at least two days are needed in which to visit the various points of interest, and a guide is advisable. I should say two days was enough; guides are superfluous, but appeared, unsummoned, wherever we went. We learned not to give money to anyone, especially children, offering to guide us – it simply attracted more of the same and I had no ambition to become the pied piper of Marrakech.


So, old Marrakech hasn't changed a lot in the past 74 years; the ancient stuff has just got a bit more ancient. The new town is even more devoid of buildings of note and the old town is probably even scruffier. I would say the pictures in today’s guide books are selective and flattering.


On our last day, we took the obligatory trip to the Atlas Mountains - obligatory inter alia because the temperature, now in the 50s, and not previously experienced by our young driver, drove us out of the city.


We were taken to the verdant Ourika Valley, through Oulmes to Aghbalou which had all the charm and traffic congestion of Cheddar Gorge on a bank holiday (except there are fewer buckets full of bleeding goats' heads outside Somerset butchers) and on to a mountain climb at Sti Fadma (the guide wanted Dh400; we settled on Dh100) where the riverside had an element of the Ganges on washing day. On that Sunday (Morocco keeps the western weekend), Marrakech was on holiday.


On the way, the incongruity of the dung-built walls and TV of the Berber house which we visited reminded us again that we were in underdeveloped Africa. Our embarrassment at taking photographs of someone's private hovel was relieved by an overpayment to the tenant because of the perennial shortage of small change.


We were taken to a hut where exceptionally versatile argan nut oil (cures heart failure and diabetes, can be washed with and keeps flies away etc.) was produced by a co-operative of single women. None could read or write. Apparently these automata passed the time in gossip and song as they cracked open argan nuts by hand and piled the kernels into a can. We were told that the fruit grows on high branches and is eaten by co-operative tree-climbing goats which spit out the nuts for collection by co-operative peasants and shelling by the co-operative women. Good story, but we wondered whether the versatility of the argan nut included hallucinatory properties.


At the next stop, a carpet warehouse, I was offered some quite impressive carpets for £80. Probably the best value of the trip, and I am sure there was still room to negotiate, but the cabin baggage restrictions saved me from an impulse purchase.


Our previous short break was to Istanbul. For a putative islamist, as my wife now thinks I am, would I recommend Marrakech? No. For general and historical interest and moslem architecture, try Istanbul instead: you can get in to see all their fabulous mosques, the people are less surly and avaricious, and their economic development is already a couple of notches above Athens.


First published in VISA issue 78 (Apr 2008)

Marrakech Expressed

by Helen Matthews

The inflatable Santas struck a slightly discordant note among the monkey-tamers, snake charmers and henna-painters of the Djemaa el Fna. This 'square' is described in one of my guidebooks as the heart of traditional Marrakech, and certainly it is the place to which tourists endlessly return to get their bearings. There is always plenty of local colour. Admittedly it rather resembles a car park in which a rather half-hearted car boot sale-cum-fete is taking place by day, but it comes alive particularly at night, when the numbers of performers increases, and food stalls selling all sorts of Moroccan delicacies are set up. We were at something of a disadvantage on our first visit to the Djemma el Fna, as a constant supply of small change is needed to reward the entertainers or to purchase orange juice from one of the many stalls. Having sufficient small change was to be a constant problem during our trip, particularly as tipping is widespread and expected. Banks and hotels (there is a fixed exchange rate wherever money is changed) tend to issue only larger denomination notes (100 or 200 dirhams) and as prices are quite low, it can be difficult to get change for, say, two tickets to a museum costing 15 dirhams each (just under £1).

The holiday had been booked in an attempt to escape from Christmas, which so far had seemed to be succeeding. I was enjoying a café au lait at one of the many cafes adjoining the square when I noticed the aforementioned Santas being carried past. However, there were only two of them, and so there seemed no need for panic yet. I finished my coffee and set out to explore the medina.

 Marrakech is very much a city of two halves. The old town, or medina, situated within the red city walls, is characterised by narrow streets, traditional buildings, and endless hassle from locals who want to act as guides or show you to their brother/cousin/uncle's shop "just to look, not to buy". In contrast, Gueliz, the new town, has wide tree-lined avenues, gardens and modern hotels. The two are linked by the Avenue Mohammed V, which runs from Gueliz down to the Kotoubia Mosque in the old town. My guidebook describes this as Marrakech's answer to the Eiffel Tower, which it is not, but it is certainly a useful landmark, or so I thought. The three golden balls on the top of the minaret were supposedly made from gold donated by a sultan's wife who melted down her jewellery as a penance for eating three grapes during Ramadan. It is a double mosque, as the first one built did not quite face in the direction of Mecca and so they built a second one to correct this error.

Wandering through the medina, we came to the Kasbah mosque, and realised that the Kotoubia minaret is not quite such a striking landmark as we had thought - the minaret of the Kasbah mosque is superficially similar in appearance from a distance, though not so tall. Not far from here is the El Badi Palace. Built in the sixteenth century, it is now a ruin, with all the marble and tiling gone, but the thick walls remain, providing a useful nesting site for storks. The contrast between the noise in the streets outside, and the calm of the courtyard within is striking.

We found a more intact version of a Moroccan palace, though dating from the nineteenth century, at the Dar Si Said Museum of Moroccan Arts. There are a few interesting exhibits, including a primitive wooden ancestor of the ferris wheel, but the building itself is beautiful, especially the reception room on the upper floor. The custodian was very assiduous and helpful in showing us round, and we were very happy to give him the customary tip at the end of our visit. The nearby Bahia Palace is built in the same style of decorative tiles and cool courtyards, and is home to a large number of cats.
Venturing to the north of the Djemaa el Fna, we eventually found the Marrakech Museum, housed in yet another palace. Exhibits included a display of traditional musical instruments and a temporary exhibition of modern photography. Also in the northern medina is the Medersa Ben Yousef, the old 'university'. The building, dating from the sixteenth century is also in the traditional style, but instead of palatial chambers, the courtyard is surrounded by cells where students used to study, three to a cell. The route to the museum and the Medersa lies through the souqs. These display a fascinating range of leather, metalwork and spices, amongst other things, but anyone wishing merely to pass through without buying should look straight ahead and keep going, as displaying momentary interest can initiate a bargaining ritual in which protestations of "just looking" are taken as tactics rather than the literal truth. Actually capitulating and buying something is also hazardous, as it can lead to an invitation to see the stallholder's brother's house - a beautiful house, admittedly, but full of items for sale.

One of the highlights of the new town, Gueliz, is the Majorelle garden. Created by the artist Jacques Majorelle in the first half of the twentieth century, the garden has now been bought and restored by Yves Saint Laurent. The garden is not large, but contains botanical specimens and cacti, wonderfully set off by the deep blue paint of the architecture. A pavilion in the centre of the garden contains a small exhibition of Islamic art. A very different garden is the Menara, adjacent to the airport, which consists of a large olive grove with a huge pool in the centre, overlooked by a pavilion. This pavilion also had a custodian who was very happy to show us around in exchange for the usual acknowledgement.

We took a couple of trips out of Marrakech during our stay. The first was to Essaouria, on the Atlantic coast. Our journey took us through different types of terrain, from the olive and orange groves on the outskirts of Marrakech, through an area of infertile, stony soil, to plantations of argan trees, a distant relative of the olive. This area is home to goats that climb trees (allegedly). A goat may well have climbed an argan tree in the past in order to escape from some perceived threat, but the tree-climbing goats are now so famous, they have no need to go to the effort of actually climbing. I am not sure who is the more exploited - the goats, who are unceremoniously thrust up into the trees by the goatherds, or the tourists, who present a captive market for the lucrative photo-opportunities as their tour buses halt by the roadside. I do not think that the goats suffer as a result of the practice. They just looked very bored. Argan trees eventually gave way to a 'forest' of Thuja trees, whose wood is used for carving by craftsmen in the town.

We strolled through the medina of Essaouria and were struck by the relative lack of hassle we experienced. It was even possible to go into a shop, look around and leave without buying anything, something that is virtually impossible in Marrakech. Orson Welles came to Essaouria to film Othello. We saw a small park that commemorates this fact, and went up to one of the gun batteries that were used in the film. Nowadays, Essaouria is particularly popular with surfers, because of the perpetual wind that blows off the Atlantic, but it was not particularly strong on the day we visited. Just outside the wall of the medina, I noticed some more, but smaller, inflatable Santas, but there still seemed no need for alarm.

Our other trip was into the Atlas mountains, to the Ourika valley. We went on Christmas Eve, which was a Monday, the day of the weekly Berber souk. Approaching the souk, we first noticed the parking provision - a field for the donkeys. Parking for four-wheeled transport was in shorter supply, as there were a number of tourist minibuses and cars. On leaving, our driver had great difficulty in reversing among the vehicles, donkeys and sheep. As well as providing a weekly retail opportunity, the souk includes refreshment stalls, necessary because of the long journey to and from the villages in the mountains, and Berber barbers. From the goods on sale and the majority of those attending, it was an authentic Berber market, but it is also popular with tourists, and some of the stall holders were keen to be photographed in exchange for dirhams. 

Later, driving through the valley, we noticed that the Berber villages are built to blend into the mountainside on which they are situated. The guide told us that this was for camouflage purposes, but it seems just as likely that it is simply the result of using local materials. We also saw a number of ruined houses. In recent years, people from the city of Marrakech had been buying land in the valley to build summer residences, but the land they had bought was in the river valley, unlike the Berber villages, which clung to the sides of the mountains. A flood in 1995 washed most of these houses away, and of those that remained, many were rather optimistically offered for sale.

After a traditional lunch accompanied by Berber musicians we were taken round a traditional Berber house. It used to be the case that no visitors were allowed inside a Berber house until the man of the house came home, and that if he arrived home and found visitors inside he would kill them, or so we were told, but times have changed. I felt rather uncomfortable about looking around someone's home in this way, but our guide insisted that the family had decided to open their house to visitors in order to supplement the declining income from their milling business following the death of the head of the family. The house had a central courtyard, on one side of which and open to the courtyard, was the kitchen, where couscous would slowly cook all day over the fire. On the other side of the courtyard was a narrow rectangular room with thick stone walls, that served as the larder/refrigerator. I cannot say how effective this is in summer, but it certainly kept food cool in December and I have felt the tomatoes to prove it.

Returning to the hotel after the Atlas mountain trip, we were perturbed to discover that two slices of what must have been the world's largest yule log had been left in our room. Downstairs in the dining room, the blackboard proudly announced that the day's special was roast turkey, a delicacy that we managed to resist. Until then the nearest we had come to Christmas fayre was the traditional Moroccan pastilla, a filo pie filled with pigeon meat and spices and topped with sugar and cinnamon that was perhaps a little like the original mince pies. Oh well, at least the inflatable Santas had not established a bridgehead in reception.

First published in VISA issue 45 (spring 2002)