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‘A hundred and twenty dirham,’ growled the taxi driver. I glanced at the meter - it read sixteen - and offered him a fifty. He glared at the note as if it were poison and began to yell and pound the steering wheel like a five year old. ‘I asked you to take me to Djemma el Fna square,’ I said, putting the money on the dashboard and ignoring his childish antics, ‘where is it?’ He swore bitterly and ordered me out. I barely managed to get my backpack onto the pavement before he screeched away into the heaving traffic. The square’s snake charmers and drummers told me which direction to head in. Ten minutes later I was there. One brown toothed monster greeted me by throwing a limp snake over my shoulder and demanding money for the service; another jumped in my path, waggled the tassel on his fez hat, gargled like an angry camel then thrust his open palm into my chest and yelled ’Twenty dirham!’ I saw helpless mentally ill locals being hounded to tears by groups of jeering young men. I saw female tourists hounded to anger by sexually aggressive shopkeepers (as one German girl put it, ‘These men will stop at nothing to get into my wallet and my knickers, in that order!’). And I got hounded myself when I tried to take photos of a mosque. A circle of men wagged fingers at me as just ten metres away another local man openly went to toilet against a wall. It was apparently perfectly acceptable for him as a Muslim to piss in front of the mosque but not for me as an infidel to take photos of it… I remembered reading in the Lonely Planet that 96% of tourists who visit Marrakech never return there. It wasn’t difficult, even after just a few hours in this most ill-mannered of cities, to realise why. Travel writers love to say that Marrakech is the most exotic destination you can reach within four hours of At dawn I walked past hoards of beggars and homeless disabled people to the bus station and asked for a ticket into the mountains. ‘Does it go to Telouet?’ I asked. Yes, the old guy said. He charged me double fare because I was foreign but I thought he looked pretty poor so I didn’t complain. I did later though, when the bus dropped me in the middle of nowhere. The conductor pointed at a dirt track, said ‘Telouet, twenty kilometres,’ and left me standing alone, snowy mountains all around and no onward transport in sight. And so my journey continued, with the Moroccan landscapes proving to be outstandingly beautiful and the Moroccan people to be…well, not so great. After two weeks I decided that if I wanted to start to enjoy my holiday, which to me meant meeting some decent people, I’d have to change tack somehow. So far I’d been travelling on a budget, staying in the cheapest hotels - the places which attracted the most desperate and unscrupulous staff and touts. I couldn’t alter the actions of the people in the street but perhaps if I paid a bit more for my accommodation, the places where I spent nine or ten hours a day, at least half of my waking hours would improve? Arriving in the ancient city of Abdelkadir, the polite young manager, served me mint tea in a covered courtyard that was a paradise of intricately hand-carved Stucco plasterwork, Zelliji tiling and antique wooden furniture. To my left a walled garden was decorated with a pool and fruit trees; to my right cedarwood doors led to a salon where the music of Maria Callas echoed and an open fire kept the spring chill out. It was a house that you might expect a rich friend to have, a rich friend with very exquisite taste. What’s more there was a relaxed, normal feel about the place. Nobody tutted or wagged their fingers disapprovingly when I got my camera out, bullied me or generally acted like I had an ATM instead of a heart and sawdust instead of a brain. I returned to Marrakech eight days later and, planning to hang around a few weeks so that I could really try to get to understand and photograph the city properly, I moved into the Riad Noga, just ten minutes walk from the main square. A grey parrot whistling among the orange trees in one courtyard welcomed me whilst a drink was served beside a swimming pool in another. Every corner sheltered a piece of art or a rose in bloom. I spent my first afternoon lazing on the roof terrace listening to the snake-charmers’ pipes drift over the medina and watching kids play football in the narrow alleys below. They looked such a decent bunch when viewed from far away. Over the next few days I discovered some ploys that helped make Marrakech more pleasant. First, I tried not to walk around the souks alone. When I hooked up with fellow travellers the hassle was minimal, when I was alone I got aggressively bullied at every corner. Second, I didn’t venture off the beaten track after schools finished in the afternoon. The kids were ok if they were supervised but when I found myself on my own with them the stones began to fly. Third, I learnt not to be fooled into trying to save money by going to small cheaper cafes. By the time they’d viciously overcharged me they were the same price as the larger places. And finally, I’ve spent over a year in Arabic speaking countries and have always considered theirs to be the friendliest culture in the world. I was expecting to find more of the same in Marrakech, hence my initial dismay, but after I realised that the people of the cities' central souks are just like those of Paris, except with less money or opportunities, and nothing like the Arabs of the east, I ceased to expect nice conversation or civilised bargaining sessions, and thus days became less disappointing. After two days of the Riad Noga’s gentle peace, soft bed and a walk-in shower that was so large I could’ve held a party in it I moved to the Riad Sahara Nour, away from the centre out by Doukala Mosque. Whilst the atmosphere around the Noga hadn’t been bad this new part of town was a step up. There was zero hassle from locals so I was allowed to be interested in the nearby food market, which boasts the best fish stalls in the city, and there was also a welcome lack of glue sniffing lads lounging in the darker alleys (a problem that affects the areas of Kaat Ben Nahid and Zitoun el Kedim, where most of the budget hotels are located), kids ready to pelt me with rocks or shopkeepers handing out ridicule and abuse. The Riad Sahara Nour’s French owners have a genuine passion for Moroccan culture. There were beautiful coffee table art books and musical instruments left in the salons for my use and frequent events planned that brought together local creatives and those from overseas. It’s also an authentic Riad - a house that less than a century ago sheltered a Turkish princess and a Pasha’s son – which was refreshing as so many of the Riads I investigated were fake, modern structures devoid of any real charm or feeling. From the Sahara Nour I moved even further out from the centre to the Riad Leila whose massive patio – centred on a large pool surrounded by many orange and palm trees - is for me one of the great sights of Marrakech. Two friendly cats lounged among the orange blossom and joined me for breakfast on the roof every day and for drinks in the evening, when I relaxed in the peaceful shadows of great doors and alcoves that had been in place since early last century when this house was owned by a judge. The surrounding streets were busy and photographer friendly and I was sad to leave but leave I did after five days as I wanted to experience life right in the heart of the souk, next to the Ben Youssef Mederssa. I wish I hadn’t bothered. On my way to the Riad Lala F’Dila, which was once the home of jazz singer Josephine Baker and part of the palace that now contains the Marrakech museum, a young boy cycled in front of me, stopped three metres away, threw himself into the dirt with a scream and then proceeded to tell everybody that it was I who had floored him. A crowd gathered and some older lads, many of whom had seen the boy throw himself down, started pushing me around and demanding money. It threatened to get really ugly but I managed to escape behind the Riad door, where I sat panting in the hallway, listening for some minutes as the bullies cursed and hammered away outside, baying for my blood. It’s a shame. The Riad Lala F’Dila has great roof terrace views of the Marrakech often wasn’t kind to me during my stay. But I’ll fly there again very soon just to stay in one of the cities beautiful Riads. I’ll lay on the terrace, read ‘The Sheltering Sky’, listen to the beautiful call to prayer floating over the roof tops and dream of what ‘exotic’ treasures await me outside my door. Of course, they won’t be there. But, in NOTE; How to tell if a Riad is authentic or not Riads are renovated merchants houses, often 2 or 300 years old. But there are also many new fake Riads built purely with tourists in mind which have no history and little charm. An authentic Riad should have… 1/ Walls at least 18 inches thick, to keep the rooms cool in summer and warm in winter. The walls of a new riad will only be about 6 inches thick. 2/ Old Riads are at original street level, which means you should step down half a metre or more when you walk in the front door. With new Riads you just walk straight in. 3/ Old Riads will have a central courtyard where there will be a fountain (traditionally to wash the desert from the merchants hands after he returns from a long journey) and four little gardens surrounding it, each with fruit trees. If the trees don’t reach the Riad’s second floor then they’re not very old and neither is the Riad. 4/ Old Riads will not be perfect. There may be cracks in the walls, etc. RIAD NOGA - riadnoga@menara.ma - www.riadnoga.com RIAD RIAD LEILA - riadomaroc@menara.ma - www.riadomaroc.com RIAD LALA F’DILA - riadomaroc@menara.ma - www.riadomaroc.com And if you’re in
To purchase 'Carnet de Stenope Vol I - Morocco', Dave's book of writing and pinhole photos of Morocco, click Here
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