Souk Secrets in Marrakech

‘In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order.’ – Carl Jung.

This is the first of a three part series of blogs about my trip to Morocco in June 2014.

Yeah, this time last year I was in Morocco, and it was awesome. It was
boiling hot, I was with one of my best friends, it was a whole week off work
and we were (judging by what my Timehop is throwing up) halfway through our
trip.

H and I have a love of holidays at the more random end of the
spectrum. As well as Morocco, we’ve also volunteered in Ghana and spent a long
weekend hiking up Snowdon in North Wales. When we’re holidaying together, we tend
to prefer something a little more out of the ordinary and adventurous than the
average beach holiday in a Spanish resort. Not that there’s anything wrong with
that – just isn’t our thing when we go away somewhere.

Above: rooftop oasis at Ryad Laarouss

So we wanted a week off work in the sunshine. And we didn’t want to go
someplace where we’d be lounging around by a pool all day every day, broken by
an all-you-can-eat buffet and occasional trips to the beach, with sand so hot
it’d burn the soles of your feet. We wanted somewhere a bit more exotic, a bit
out of the ordinary, somewhere with a bit more adventure involved.

We chose Morocco, specifically Marrakech for five nights and a two night trip out into the Atlas Mountains and the Sahara Desert. Whilst those two night’s were utterly amazing, I’m going to focus on Marrakesh for the sake of today’s blog and save our excursion for another #tbt blog in the future. Keeping you on tenterhooks, I’m sure… 

Marrakech is a short three hour flight from the UK and bonus – you can fly from Bristol (our nearest international airport after Cardiff) and fly EasyJet, so it was super cheap and easy to get to the airport too. Win! I booked us two riads in Marrakech, one cheaper one for three nights before our mid-week trip and one more expensive one (a treat) for two nights after our trip. 

We arrived in the evening, after dark, and Marrakech was, at first glance, a little intimidating. Most riads in the medina (centre) look like nothing special from the street and it’s very easy to walk straight past without noticing any signage – it’s therefore incredibly easy to get lost in a warren of side streets and alleyways. Luckily, we’d booked a shuttle from the airport and were dropped off outside our first riad – Ryad Laarouss. Unimpressive from the outside, the riad inside was decorated beautifully, with a pool in the middle of the courtyard. We were greeted inside with a pot of freshly brewed mint tea (Moroccan hospitality for you) which was absolutely delicious. 

Above: mint tea – the best welcome

Marrakech’s medina is effectively a giant maze. It’s busy, noisy, hectic, loud, sleepless, smelly, dusty, hot and crowded. It’s also colourful, vibrant, exciting and beautiful, with some great architecture. We spent our first morning finding our way to the central square through the labyrinthine streets.

One of Marrakech’s biggest attractions is its main square – Jemaa el-Fnaa. It is a UNESCO Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity and absolutely massive. As you cross it during the day, beware of stopping to take photos. I made that mistake and was promptly surrounded by hawkers demanding money for the photo I had taken of them, despite the fact my camera had been pointing in the opposite direction! The square is quite tame in daylight – there are snake charmers, monkeys, stalls selling freshly squeezed orange juice and a few food stands and, besides the tourists, that’s about it. The real experience is to be had as the sun goes down and night falls.

Above: blue is a predominant colour in Morocco – like this blue door.

H and I went to the square on our second night, having been a little underwhelmed by it during the day. We decided to take the square in from above to begin with and grabbed a drink at one of the bars surrounding the square. We sat out on the terrace, overlooking the square, and watched as the action unfolded before our eyes. 

As the sun sank lower and lower in the sky, the square came to life, a cacophony of sound, sights and smells. Above the music echoed shouting and laughter, the sizzle as food was thrown onto hot plates. Wood smoke filled the air, drifting higher, creating a pall over the scene. Monkeys dressed in kids clothes perched on stands and their owners shoulders. Bells tinkled as horses, hooves clopping, pulled colourful carriages brimful of tourists through the disorganised crowds. Story tellers kept groups of people enthralled with their tales, snakes swayed as pipes played, cameras clicked everywhere, flashes exploding as darkness fell. Everywhere you looked there was something new to see – it was wonderful. We sipped our drinks and chatted to some fellow bar goers, took photos, sat and watched the sun dip below the horizon, took it all in. There was so much going on it was difficult to process, and we sat there for a good hour or so, just watching, listening, enjoying the scene from the relative peace of our balcony.

Above: the main square gradually coming to life as night falls.

Hunger drove us to leave the balcony and brave the square for ourselves. You have to be very resilient to the vast numbers of stallholders and hawkers, all trying to make a quick buck from hapless and innocent tourists. We ducked and wove, keeping our eyes peeled for potential threats and changing direction quickly as they arose – a snake charmer heading our way, turn left, want to hold a monkey?, no thanks, turn around… It went a bit like that. 

The food stalls were the same – we must have been approached by about fifty guys (all guys!) encouraging us, cajoling us, telling us to go to their food stall, eat their food, it was the best, it had good Trip Adviser reviews, it was delicious, we would be foolish to go elsewhere. Eventually, we were worn down and opted for a a sit-down stall. My food was very average – catering for vegetarian tourists at the square clearly means providing whole root vegetables in a bland, tasteless sauce and passing it off as a vegetarian tagine. It wasn’t. In a fit of bad vegetarianism (I do it because I don’t like the taste anyway, not for ethical reasons) and food envy, I tried a piece of H’s chicken – it was delicious. The olives were good too. And the bread. I discarded my vegetables and went for the bread and olives instead.

Daylight hours in Marrakech meant only one thing for us – shopping at the souks. Marrakech is a shopaholic’s paradise, with the maze of passages that make up the undercover souks in the medina just begging to be explored, colourful wares beckoning you ever deeper into the shade. 

H and I both agreed that the best part of Marrakech was the souks. Although
they were busy and full of tourists haggling for bargains, they protected us
from the worst of the heat and it’s quite exciting bartering with the shop
owners to get a good deal on the wares. We were really bad to begin with – both
of us (I think) just accepted the first price that came out of the shop keeper’s
mouth and paid it. But by the end of the week, we were becoming pros at the
whole thing – beginning to walk away to get a better price, explaining that we
had very little money, the whole shebang. It worked too – most of the time we
managed to get the item price down to something we felt was reasonable. It was
quite empowering!

Above: time to shop!!

And everything was so beautiful. Colourful pots and plates, huge mounds of olives, row upon row of tan leather bags hanging one on top of the other, the rich smell causing me to steer clear of those shops on most occasions. The waft of intriguing perfume, baskets of dried rosebuds, lavender and other unidentifiable flowers. The stalls all a dizzying array of patterns, colours, shapes, textures – people selling everything from jewellery to bags to food to crockery to baskets to slippers to scarves to wooden boxes to belts to rugs to paintings to perfume and much much more besides. We took hundreds of pounds with us and came home with hardly a penny, but with suitcases full to bursting with Moroccan treats.

Above: souk shopping

When we weren’t shopping, exploring the city or eating (we found better places to eat, and had some delicious meals), we were sunbathing and relaxing in our riads. Ryad Laarouss had a rooftop spa pool and deck chairs, where we spent many hours reading, listening to music and relaxing. We enjoyed amazing Moroccan salads nearly every lunchtime without having to stray from the riad and totally vegged out. From our vantage point, we could see across the city rooftops, beyond the mosque towers that called people to prayer every few hours with a haunting, wailing cry and towards the hazy Atlas Mountains in the distance. 

Above: delicious Moroccan salad at Ryad Laarouss

Those mountains were beckoning. We were going beyond Marrakech, deep into the heart of Morocco. We would soon be among those hazy peaks, driving the twisted, windy mountain road through the narrow mountain passes, to the Sahara Desert beyond. We would soon be exploring tiny country villages, marveling at Todgha Gorge and the vastness of the desert, from scrub and wasteland to the rolling desert sand dunes. We would soon be trekking on camels across those sand dunes, to spend a night under the stars in the heart of the Sahara. But that’s all for another #tbt post in the future… 

Above: across the rooftops, see those hazy mountains in the distance…?

The Logistics

Stayed: Ryad Laarouss and Riad Smara. Both were beautifully decorated and our rooms (both twin) were very comfortable. Riad Smara was a bit more expensive but not budget blowing. Both provided breakfast included in the price and free WiFi. At Ryad Laarouss, you could order amazing Moroccan salads for lunch – highly recommended!

Ate: We ate a lot of Moroccan salads at our riad. As well as this, we also ate out at the main square one night, at one of the food stalls. I did not enjoy my food, but H’s chicken was great. There are heaps of cafes in the city for drinks and snacks (sandwiches, salads etc). Around the main square there are also lots of international restaurants, some of which are poor and others okay. We had a nice pizza one night in a restaurant, sat on their balcony overlooking the square, and had a really great evening. Just shop around and try a few places out. Try their famous mint tea, it’s great!!

Visited: We visited Jemaa el-Fnaa and the medina, and didn’t stray much further. You can also visit the tanneries, and the Jardin Marjorelle is supposed to be very beautiful and a respite from the noise and bustle of the medina. 

Traveled: We flew to Marrakesh from Bristol using EasyJet. The flight cost approximately one hundred pounds return and was direct. We arranged for a shuttle to pick us up from the airport and take us back at the end of the week before we arrived in the country.

Last Thoughts: Despite the bustle of the city and the high likelihood that you’ll get lost at least once, we felt very safe in Marrakesh. You have to be a bit street wise and avoid hawkers and anyone who may accost you and demand money from you (think snake charmers, people putting monkeys on you, women grabbing you to paint henna tattoos on you). We were bitten once (henna tattoos) and shied away from all of that from then on, and had a great time. In hindsight, we could have perhaps fitted another city in, as five nights felt like quite a long time in Marrakesh, but we can always go back!