The travels of Tim and Megan: Marrakech, Morocco

Sunday

Having finished work for at least five months, we set off for the first of many "funemployment" adventures on Sunday. We made our way out to Luton Airport (a first for us) and caught what we hope will be our last ever Ryanair flight, to Marrakech, Morocco.

The Kingdom of Morocco is located in the north-west "corner" of Africa, just 13km away from Spain across the Strait of Gibraltar! It borders Algeria to the east and Western Sahara to the south. Morocco is a constitutional monarchy with an elected parliament. However, the King of Morocco has vast executive powers, including the ability to dissolve parliament at will and he shares legislative powers with the parliament. Morocco has a population of around 34 million. Its capital city is Rabat. Marrakech is the fourth largest city by population with just under a million people, after Casablanca, Fes and Oujda. The official language is Arabic, but French is widely spoken.

We had an extremely smooth Ryanair experience, arriving in Marrakech early with all luggage present and accounted for. It was a cooler day in Marrakech apparently - just a lowly 31 degrees when we touched down on Sunday evening. We were greeted at the airport by a driver from the riad that we were staying at and he drove us through Marrakech and into the medina (the walled old town). We parked the car and walked the remaining five minutes through a rabbit warren of winding narrow alleyways to our riad - Riad Les Trois Palmiers.

It did not look like much from the outside and the surrounding dusty alleyways, but once we got inside the riad, we were delighted. It was amazing. It was like a little oasis amongst the hot and dirty old town - beautifully decorated (in Moroccan style obviously) open air courtyard with rooms around the sides on three storeys. We sat in the courtyard and had some cold water to drink before being shown to our room, which was awesome.

After getting settled in, we set off to find some dinner. Luckily one of the staff of the riad drew us a detailed map, otherwise we may not have found our way back through the maze to the main streets. We found a place called Terrasse des Epices, a French/Moroccan rooftop restaurant with views over the medina. As with many Moroccan eateries, there was no alcohol on the menu, but we ordered some traditional Moroccan tajines, which were delicious, and then we had an amazing dessert of chocolate gooey goodness and ice cream and a Moroccan favourite, mint tea.

We had a little walk through part of the medina after dinner but we were pretty tired and a little concerned about not being able to find our way back to the riad in the dark, so we headed back for a big night's sleep.

Monday

It had been a hot night, as the air conditioning unit in our room kept cutting out after 30 minutes, so we kept waking to sauna-like temperatures. Anyway, we had a brilliant breakfast on the rooftop of the riad in bright sunshine. We had freshly squeezed orange juice, little pancakes with honey, bread with butter and jam, marmalade or honey, fresh melon pieces, yogurt, pastries and coffee or mint tea.

After breakfast we went for a walk through the medina, exploring some of the souks (covered markets) until we arrived at Jemaa El Fna, Marrakech's main square and the heart of the city. The name Jemaa El Fna means "Assembly of the Dead", a reference to a time when the heads of executed criminals would be displayed there on spikes. Although nothing as gruesome is on view today, the square is still populated with some extraordinary sights such as snake charmers, monkey trainers, tooth pullers, herbalists and literally dozens of orange juice stalls.

As it was morning, the square was not very busy, but it was still fun. The outside of the square is lined with restaurants and market stalls, selling souvenirs just like those in the souks - glass lamps, carpets, handmade metal and wooden crafts, T-shirts, bags, scarves, leather slippers (known as babouches), spices and many other delights. We bought some orange juice from one of the stalls - it was really good - and we also bought a colourful stained-glass lamp from the market stalls before wandering back to the riad to meet Tim's brother, Brendan, who had flown in from France to join us in Marrakech.

Brendan was slightly delayed, as the talented TAP Airways of Portugal had managed to lose his luggage in Lisbon. So Brendan arrived in Marrakech with just his carry-on bag - not ideal. Once he arrived at the riad and got sorted, we walked through the medina (getting lost once or twice) to the Medersa Ben Youssef.

The medersa is one of the city's most impressive buildings and (bonus for us) it allows entry to non-Muslims, unlike most of the mosques. The medersa was an Islamic college, built by a Saadian sultan in 1565. The building consists of 130 student dormitory cells clustered around a central courtyard richly decorated in cedar, marble and stucco. Behind the main courtyard on the ground floor is a prayer room, also beautifully decorated. The carvings contain no representation of humans or animals, as this is forbidden by Islam, but instead they consist entirely of inscriptions and geometric patterns. The medersa is one of the largest theological colleges in North Africa and may have housed as many as 900 students. It was closed down in 1960 and was later refurbished and re-opened to the public in 1982.

Next to the medersa is the Musee de Marrakech (Marrakech museum). We grabbed a light lunch in the museum cafe - cheese and tomato sandwich and coke for all. It was very basic and over-priced, but it filled a gap. As we sat eating lunch, the Islamic call to prayer sounded over the speakers attached to the many mosques throughout the city. The call to prayer can be heard several times a day, between about 5am and 11pm. The museum was OK - it was mainly the impressive architecture and design of the building itself that interested us, rather than what was actually on show in the museum, which included some "interesting" modern art, pottery and traditional Moroccan clothing.

By mid-afternoon it was very hot. We wandered through the souks (partly because they are covered and shady). The souks sit on a maze of narrow alleys, which are crowded and busy at the best of times, but they are also made more difficult to navigate by loads of motorbikes that constantly whizz through them and by donkeys pulling huge carts! Megan bought a couple of pretty painted Moroccan bowls and Brendan bought a T-shirt and some shorts in case his luggage did not arrive in time! The main square was more lively when we passed through again in the afternoon - we saw the snake charmers and monkey trainers in full flight and we stopped for another freshly squeezed orange juice - so good.

We headed back to the riad to freshen up and then met on the rooftop of the riad for some tasty Moroccan beer. For dinner, we went to Cafe Arabe, which was recommended to us and was close to our riad. Cafe Arabe also had a rooftop restaurant. It was a beautiful hot evening and once the sun went down and it cooled slightly, it was perfect. We had some beers and shared a bottle of rose (which was quite refreshing on a hot night) and the food was really good. It was a little more pricey than most, but everything was great and there was a nice relaxed atmosphere.

After dinner we visited the Night Market in the main square. It was absolutely insane - the only word to describe it is chaos. For the night market, around 200 make-shift restaurants set up stalls in the square, selling all sorts of food including spicy snails, seafood, meat, Moroccan soups and more. So passers-by get harassed by the staff of each restaurant, who try to tempt you to eat at their stall. The square was packed with thousands of people, there was deafening noise from musicians and people yelling, there was smoke from the restaurants, lights flashing everywhere and all sorts of crazy acts at every turn. The story-tellers were out in force, drawing huge crowds, but sadly the ones we saw all seemed to be telling stories in Arabic, in which we are not exactly fluent.

After checking out the Night Market, we retired to our riad and had a drink on the rooftop before hitting the hay - we were all knackered after a very long and hot day.

Tuesday

Tuesday began with another superb breakfast on the rooftop of the riad. The staff of the riad were all very helpful and lovely, which made our stay even more enjoyable. We could already tell that Tuesday was even hotter than Monday had been - uh oh.

After breakfast we walked from the riad to the New City, outside of the walls of the medina. The staff in the riad had told us it was a 15-minute walk, but it was at least double that. Still, it gave us a chance to see another corner of the medina and a glimpse of the New City. There were some very interesting sights along the way - before we got out of the medina we walked down a long alley filled with mainly meat, fish and produce stalls. The meat was quite disgusting - raw chickens sitting on wooden benches in 30-something degree heat, covered in flies. Still, if I had to choose, I would eat that over the fish that we saw/smelled. There was a also a woman who appeared to be washing her dead pig (or some other animal).

After getting slightly disorientated and thinking we were going the wrong way, we eventually found our target, the Majorelle Gardens. The Majorelle Garden is a botanic garden designed by expatriate French artist Jacques Majorelle in 1924, during the colonial period when Morocco was a protectorate of France. The garden contains many fountains, a lily pond and a huge collection of cacti. The garden has been open to the public since 1947. Since 1980, the garden has been owned by Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Berge. After he died in 2008, Yves Saint Laurent's ashes were scattered in the garden and there is now also a memorial to him there. The striking blue building in the garden now houses an Islamic art museum, although this was closed when we visited.

On leaving the garden, we walked through the new City in searing heat until we reached the main street of Marrakech, Avenue Muhammed V. We stopped for a coke at a cafe on the corner and then continued to walk back to medina. On the way we passed a temperature gauge that informed us the temperature was 46 degrees Celsius. That's quite warm. We were starting to struggle by the time we passed back through the huge gates in the massive walls surrounding the medina. We made it back to the riad (just) and relaxed in the shade there for a while, sinking a few litres of water. Brendan got his things together and headed off to the airport to continue his world tour - 30 hours in Africa is better than no hours in Africa.

Once we had cooled down enough, Tim and Megan walked down to the Koutoubia Mosque to take a couple of photos. The Koutoubia Mosque (completed late 12th century) is the largest and most famous mosque in Marrakech and its 70m high minaret (tower) is the dominant symbol of the city. Like most mosques in Marrakech, it is closed to non-Muslims, so after we took some snaps, we grabbed some lunch at a restaurant across the road - excellent cheese burgers. With bellies re-stocked, we walked down to the main square and got a photo of two black cobras, which were being charmed by the not-so-charming snake charmers. The theory goes that the extreme heat makes the snakes too sleepy to be dangerous, so the snake charmers drape them around the necks of tourists for photos (and a hefty fee!). We did not care much for the theory - a cobra is a nasty piece of work, sleepy or not - so we took photos from a distance (and paid for the privilege) and carried on our merry way.

Tim found a nice decorative Moroccan dagger in the souks for a good price, then we ventured back to the riad to rest in the shade. It was just too hot to be walking around outside. We had changed rooms due to the dodgy air conditioning and the new room was awesome - air con that ran 24/7 and kept our room at 18 degrees, a mere 28 degrees cooler than outside. Nice. At around 6.30pm we went out for drinks at Cafe Arabe and it was still incredibly hot. The heat gets trapped in the stone walls of the medina and continues to radiate out into the night after the sun goes down. Cafe Arabe had a brilliant "irrigation system" tied to their ceiling beams - tiny hose pipes with nozzles that sprayed cold mist out above us intermittently, much like the supermarkets do in the produce section! Genius.

Our next stop was to a big cafe in the main square with a rooftop terrace (rooftop terraces are very popular in Marrakech) which overlooked the square. We had a fanta up there (no alcohol while watching the square, thank you very much) and took some photos before moving on again. We toyed with the idea of eating at one of the makeshift restaurant stalls in the centre of the square, but in the end we opted for the "safer" Les Terrasses de l'Alhambra - one of the restaurants on the outskirts of the main square.

We had wanted to try the Argana Cafe, also in the main square, which was highly recommended in guide books etc. However, that was the target of a terrorist attack on 28 April 2011, which killed at least 17 people and injured 25, mainly tourists, so it was understandably closed for business. The blast, from a bomb left in a bag, was believed to have been carried out by a division of al-Qaeda operating in North Africa.

Les Terrasses de l'Alhambra was really good. We had a good view from the outdoor balcony down to the Night Market in the main square. Tim had a beef pizza and Megan had pasta and we had more soft drinks, as there was no alcohol. After dinner we walked back back to the riad a different way, through some more souks we had not yet discovered - which were still very busy and lively.