The Adventures of a Rally Roadie

The ride to Marrakesh is just a slog on the multi-lane autostrada. Complete with tolls, fast food and expensive fuel. The road is so like every other toll road in the world that you have almost no idea that you are in Morocco.

To make matters even more universal, when the autostrada dumps us into Marrakesh the streets are wide multi-lane boulevards with speed bumps and stoplights. Not what I expected Marrakesh to be. That ends as the GPS tries to find the Ibis hotel that we are considering staying in for the night.

The GPS takes us off the boulevard and sends us through an archway in a rabbit warren of side streets. Turn right then left then right. (“Didn’t we just cross this street?”) Then we’re spit back out of the other side of the arch back onto a boulevard and on lour way again. Clemo and I are certainly that the GPSA is just playing with us, probably proving to another “inanimate” GPS that humans will follow GPS route instructions to the bitter end. Inanimate object, my ass!

We eventually arrive at the Ibis hotel near the train station, not the one by the airport. We chose the Ibis hotel which may or may not ber a good place to stay. The good part is part is that Booking.com says that they have rooms available, they have a restaurant, they have a bar, the have secure parking, they have a swimming pool and they are cheap.

The bad news is they are cheap and we are going to find out why. Booking also fails to mention that checking in may be the most disorganized process in Africa. If not the most definitely right up near the top.

Ibis is a very weird hotel chain. Their hotels run from brand new, modern glitzy hotels (Santiago, Chile) to old worn-out, desperately needing a renovation (Marrakesh, Morocco) to candidate for detention center complete with built-in beds, chairs and table (The old Formula I chain.)

We do get checked in sometime after the sun goes down. Up to the room to dump the bags and clean up. Then out to the Medina or, rather, to start the negotiation for a couple of taxis. Negotiations follow the Israeli/Palestinian model: lots of talk, no action. Eventually, we get two small vans and head for the Medina just as it’s getting dark.

The Medina is a huge open air market that comes alive as the sun goes down. It’s built around enormous square the contains open air stalls with food and shops. Trinkets, clothes, food, spices, henna tattoos. Everything and anything can be found.

Alan leads us around the various stalls and then heads into the rabbit warren casbah on that forms one end of the Medina. There are shops for every imaginable item. Clothing seems to make up a lot of the small shops. And, since this is a Muslim country, the shops are segregated by gender.

Alan is looking for the spice shops to get a specific type of spice. I don’t know the name but the general idea is to put a very small crystal of the spice in hot water and breathe the resulting aromas that come off. He swears that the aromas will cure what ails you.

While he’s negotiating his purchase, I look around the small shop. The are literally mounds of curry spaces of all flavors, powders of all colors and smells. Blocks of indigo for making dyes. All alongside beautiful geodes, crystals, incenses, burners, etc. And this only one of the first shops into the casbah.

An hour or so later, after everyone has fought off the urge to buy something that we won’t be able to carry or won’t be able to import, we make our way to the open air square again to get some food.

There might be as many as 100 small stalls serving almost any type of food that you might want. From traditional Moroccan tajine to pizza to grilled kabobs to fruits and juices. I walk past one stall the is surrounded by small seats with people eating in front of a shelf of goats heads. The obvious source of inspiration for the Rolling Stones Goat’s Head Soup album. (I’m not kidding.)

We finish our food and start back across the square to the taxi stand. The main part of the square is dominated by small music groups some with traditional female dancers. All of the music has a very strong percussion background, some with traditional instruments, others with more modern instruments. Some have singers, other just to almost drone-like percussion music.

We get to the taxi stand and break up into smaller groups after talking to a van driver who wanted twice as much to take back to the hotel than the van drivers charged us to get to the Medina. We opt for normal taxis the taxis can only hold 3 people.

Soon everyone is back to the hotel and a few of us move into the bar for a beer nightcap. The Premiership Tottenham v Man City match is on the telly and Tottenham is having it’s head handed to it.

Back to the room and bed. Tomorrow, the Atlas Mountains if the weather is good though it doesn’t look that way.

Obi