Monday the 12: Supposedly, Marrakesh was designed to be impossible to navigate in order to confuse invaders. The city is a mishmash of narrow streets, twisting and turning before branching off into derbs – even narrower residential streets full of twists and doublebacks and dead ends.
Locals are always willing to help you find your way, though – for a price.
After yesterday’s experience, though, I was determined to find my way to my new hostel by myself.
And that’s how I ended up wandering up and down the Rue Moussaine five times, dragging my suitcase and being laughed at by the locals until a shopkeeper finally took pity on me and pointed me to the right derb, at which point I still had to pay a 10-year old to lead me the last eighth of a mile to my hostel.
The Fodor’s guide book I had (which sucks, by the way – get the Rough Guide to Morocco instead) recommended one very specific map of Marrakesh. And so the afternoon was spent in search of that. However, my efforts to learn Moroccan Arabic (as opposed to Egyptian Arabic, or Eastern Arabic, or some other of the undoubtedly myriad variations) had fallen short, my French is barely existent, and I was still terrified of getting into a bargaining match with a local. So this was not such an easy task.
It was still a good afternoon, though. I wandered around completely clueless and got hopelessly lost. But Marrakech is full of great things to discover while lost.
I found a sandwich made of half a chicken shoved in a piece of bread. It was delicious. (And yes, my hand is already that dirty.)
Following local custom, I tried to eat without using my left hand, but failed miserably. Avoiding this whole “left hand unclean” thing through a combination of toilet paper and soap and water is something I really appreciate a lot more now.
I found a movie crew filming in Djemma el Fna.
Djemma el Fna, by the way, translates to something like “Plaza of Death” or “Place at the End of the World” and is where locals used to gather to see public executions and traitors heads on stakes. Less of that nowadays, but they do still have snake charmers. Snake charmers!
Nowadays snake charmers either remove the venom sacs from the snake’s mouth, or defang the snake, or simply stitch the mouth shut with just enough room for the tongue to come out. Obviously, the unfortunate snakes don’t last very long under these conditions. It really is a lost art.
I found four scoops of ice cream for 16 dirham ($2), including avocado, pistachio, cinnamon, and lemon that makes my mouth pucker with its sweet sourness.
I found the Katoumba mosque, one of the oldest mosques in Africa.
I found the El Bahia Palace, once a luxurious residence for the king’s harem.
And I FOUND THE MAP! This is me, relieved and happy that I finally have a map to this insane city.
A few minutes later, upon examining the map, I realize that even this map, the specific map recommended by my guidebook, has less than ten streets labeled in all of Marrakesh. There are square miles packed full of tiny derb streets without a single label or landmark.
What a great city.
I visited the ruins of El Badi Palace, built around sunken groves of orange trees and a 90 meter pool. Now its only inhabitants are the huge storks that nest in its walls. I spent a good part of the afternoon crawling on, over, and under the ruins, including long stretches of underground dungeons in which my only light was the red LED on my camera.
I found the Saadian Tombs, the only remaining example of Saadian architecture in the city because invading armies chose not to disturb the dead.
I found a tiny Moroccan marketplace. Then again, the entire city basically looks like this.
The high point of the day was finding a bakery near the Saadian tombs with a window display full of all kinds of tiny Moroccan pastries. I was a little reluctant to go in because of the language barrier and my experiences yesterday, but I managed to communicate that I wanted to try the things in the window. The shopkeeper gave me a bag and I went to town, taking one of every single pastry that looked good. The whole thing came to about $2.
There was an Marrakeshi woman in front of me doing the same thing, and generally squeezing and handling every pastry in the window as she decided which specific ones she wanted. As I sat at my table eating my sweets and looking at the sticky mess on my fingers, I realized that not only was everything I had touched all day coming off onto my food, I was likely also eating everything on her hands, and the hands of everyone who had come to this shop before. Three cheers for my immune system!
Everyone else in the bakery was drinking glasses of a bright neon green liquid. Some people had gone through four or five already. So of course I got one of those, too. It was delicious. Sweet and creamy, I think it was an avocado milkshake, though considering my French ability, you never know.
I really like being in a country without a tradition of alcohol. All the creativity goes instead into making ridiculously sweet drinks.
In the evening, I headed back to Djemma el Fna for the evening festivities. I met an unlicensed guide about my age who told me about all the acts in the square. I tipped him and afterwards we spent a pleasant evening drinking mint tea and talking about dating. He told me about dating Arabic girls: “It is important that you not be devil, but you also cannot be angel. You also must say you like how she is ‘open’. Open mind, open sense of style, it does not matter, but you must check to see if she is ‘open’.”
He explained to me exactly how to start a relationship with a girl, which was particularly hilarious because he’d basically invented an entire collection of tactics. From picking lint off of her burkha to having her meet you on a date somewhere you’re already surrounded by girls, it was very thorough. “It is the oldest story. So often love springs from hate.”
He also knew his restaurants, and afterwards I had my first taste of tangine (meat and veggies slowcooked for hours in a clay pot over hot embers) from a nearby restaurant with more locals than tourists.
