Morocco: days seven and eight
We met in the morning for a walking tour of Marrakech led not by Abdou but by a local. (More on this below.) Our tourguide took us to Koutoubia Mosque (but not inside) and then the Bahia Palace, whose architecture is well-preserved but appreciation of which was somewhat distracted by installations of contemporary art (like this dumpster covered with mirrors). Next we went to a place full of second-hand everything called something like “Ali Baba’s Bazaar”.
Next was a tour of the souks, the innermost pedestrian-only streets of Marrakech, filled with stalls selling most anything. It was a maze but included areas of metalworkers, yarn dyers, and woodworkers.
I was pretty impressed by this guy:
It’s hard to see, but he’s using his right hand to move the pole forward and back, thereby moving the white cord, thereby turning the wooden dowel. With his right hand and left hand he guides his woodworking tool.
At some point, someone in our group asked Abdou why he hadn’t the lead the tour since he had gone to college in Marrakech (where he studied languages so he could lead tours like ours). He said that he once got completely lost in the souks and had to call someone to help him get out!
We visited a Berber pharmacy, where basically everyone got convinced to spend a bit more than they intended on various things, including shoulder massages.
The group split after the tour. Most of the women wanted to get a massage, and a couple of the guys wanted to do sightseeing. After a light lunch, armed with a photocopied map from Abdou and my reliable sense of direction, we set off for the Ben Youssef koranic school (recommended by Abdou as very interesting), taking a slightly roundabout path that looked direct. I actually managed to get us nearly all the way there. We got very close, and I didn’t see an entrance way for the road to continue. A couple of the others had an inkling that we needed to turn left, so I humored them. After a bit we stopped, people knew we were lost, and a guy on the street volunteered to take us to the Koranic school. We tipped him a bit.
I was frankly disappointed in the school: no English signage, and there was no included tour as far as we could tell. Maybe had Ben bought tickets in English and not French, they might have given us a self-guided brochure or something. However, you could appreciate the architecture without distractions.
Now, finding our way from the koranic school back to the hotel was a challenge. It became quite clear that not all road were on the map. Another guy on the street volunteered to take us where we needed to go. He did get us there, but I’m sure it wasn’t the most direct route. On the other hand, he probably didn’t know the most direct route: I think everyone navigates by landmarks, and you can only keep so many in your head! I made him demonstrate often that he was taking us in the right direction (and not to his friend’s place to sell us something or another), and I felt only slightly more or less okay since I knew we were headed in the right direction (based on the position of the sun). He wanted quite a lot for his services, but we gave him what we thought was fair for his time.
We visited the Jardin Majorelle, which includes a shrine to Yves Saint Laurent. Turns out he had a second home in Marrakech and had his ashes scattered in the gardens.
That evening we ate out yet again. The restaurant had two other tour groups in it and no locals, which furthered our disillusionment. I heard that the women had a nice visit to a spa, though some of them got ripped off by henna artists on the central square of the medina.
On our last morning, we woke up to fog. So we got a ride to the airport, checked in, and got to the gate to find the departures area overflowing with tourists whose flights had been delayed or canceled due to the fog. I think it only happens a few times a year there, so the airport’s landing systems aren’t capable of handling it. Luckily our flight left only an hour or two late.
I tried the chicken on the flight back and didn’t find it as bad as everyone said. However, the constant Royal Air Maroc video ads were just as annoying.
I had to get from Heathrow to City Airport for my flight to Dublin, and with having even less time than originally, I didn’t take any risks. So now only did I take the Heathrow Express to Paddington but I also took a taxi from there to City Airport. Nice expensive ride through London on an early Sunday evening, and I even made my connection. (Cheaper than an extra night’s stay, I think.) I returned to a Dublin that was just as frigid as the one I left. At least the water was still running then. (It’s back for now, but we do lose it periodically as they repair broken pipes.)