12 Flights 7 Weeks: Marrakech

I’ll preface my whole Morocco adventure with the fact that I choose it as a destination for a few reasons.

1- my ticket was £19 there and 18 back

2- Morocco would mean I’d be setting foot on a new continent!

3- My favourite book series (Daughter of Smoke and Bone) takes place in Marrakesh and the Atlas mountains and a Kasbah…. I wanted to see that… so I did!

Now I’d been doing some research on Morocco and what do and see and what cities to stop in because all I’d done was book my flight into Marrakesh and out of Fez and not much in between. I’d read a bit about the culture so I was mentally preparing myself for the stares besides I have blue hair, that’s always a stare factor. As you remember in my one post when I talked about what a hard time I had, my mental preparation just wasn’t enough. But I’ll do my best not to whine too much in this post since I whined back there. 

I had decided to couchsurf for the three days I was there. I did an extra intensive selection process for my hosts in Morocco because I couchsurfed Marrakesh, Azrou and attempted Fez. So I had a host in Marrakesh, Nait. And he was meeting me at the airport. I told him to look for the girl with blue hair as I figured I would be the only one with such a do… I was if you were interested.

So I caught my early flight down to Marrakesh. I exchanged money. And went out to wait for Nait. We met up easy peasy and off toward his house we went. First idea was to catch a taxi. Seemed smart to me. We couldn’t get one so we caught a bus to city centre then a taxi from there out to his house because despite what couchsurfing website said he wasn’t very close to the city…

Yes that blue dot was me. It was a 15 minute taxi ride and granted the taxi was super cheap $2 for the both of us one way. But god those taxi rides took years from my life. First off Taxi’s there aren’t the same as say a New York taxi. They jam you in. Nait and I usually sat in the front passenger seat together then there would be 3 or 4 people in the back seat! And they were crazy drivers. Between the other cars, pedestrians, tuk tuk, motor bikes and animals we were always swerving and accelerating and stopping and it was a bit nail biting. And I was honestly a little sleep deprived and nervous and having a little case of anxiety when suddenly on the radio comes none other the Taylor Swift. And the song Shake It Off will forever have a deep and profound meaning to me thanks to the taxi ride in Marrakesh.

We get to Nait’s place and it was an apartment complex legit in the middle of the desert…..

and he lived up on the third floor. Before hand I had known I would be staying with him and his family but it was still a bit of a shock. It was a 1 bedroom apartment with a main room, bedroom and bathroom. He had two little girls and his mum lived in with them. So there were 6 of us in this tiny ass apartment. And the first thing we do is have lunch.  We washed our hands and they prayed before and we all sit do to eat together. Lunch was served in the typical everyone eats from the same bowl and drinks from the same cup fashion. Thank goodness Nait’s girls were 5 and 3 because they ate messier then I did. But the mess wasn’t what shocked me the most. They set down the dish and I was like okay I recognize the lentils and bread… but there was something in the middle of the lentils that I had never seen. I was in Morocco less then 2 hours and I was eating lamb stomach and drinking mint tea! It was crazy and fantastic and epic. And surprisingly lamb stomach tasted good.

Nait had some business to do so I sat in the café by his house and let my parents know of my fun so far in Morocco. And the fact that there was a rather frustrating language barrier. On couchsurfing there’s an option where you can say there’s the possibility of a language barrier and there were a number of hosts that I politely turned down for this very reason. Turns out Nait was really handy with google translate and I had thought his English wouldn’t be a problem. My smattering of French that I remembered from living in Nancy helped on this trip but Nait didn’t speak French. It was really tough.

After work Nait and I went into Marrakesh city centre! And fuck was it overwhelming. I knew it would be. I’ve seen pictures of ‎Jemaa el-Fnaa (the main square) so I was expecting a lot of people. Nait took us through the souks (the markets)

and into Jemaa el-Fnaa where I had orange juice.

Seriously I don’t think I’ll ever get over how good the juice is in Morocco or how cheap the fruit for sale is. I also ate snails…

They were actually good. Whatever spice they had on them was spicy and salty and good. I also tried berber fruit…

It’s the fruit you see on cactuses. It had big seeds in it but it was good. Nait was actually really nice and took tons of pictures of me so that was cool because he doesn’t have a camera and all he asked was that he could copy the photos onto his computer before I left. I have an abundance of me photos!!

Koutoubia Mosque is the largest mosque in the city. It was completed under the reign of the Almohad Caliph Yaqub al-Mansur (1184-1199), and has inspired other buildings such as the Giralda of Seville (i've seen that! hehe) and the Hassan Tower of Rabat.The minaret was designed to prevent a person at the top of the tower from viewing activity within the king's harems. The Umayyad-style minaret is constructed from sandstone and stands 77 metres (253 ft) high. It was originally covered with Marrakshi pink plaster, but in the 1990s experts opted to remove the plaster to expose the original stone work. 

And then it was dark and time to head home for the night.

I was sleeping in the main room with the kids and grandma. We slept on pallets on the floor. Essentially it was a very authentic slice of Moroccan life. A wee bit uncomfortable in the fact that it was out of my comfort zone but I did my best to shake that off the next day.

If you read my Morocco post I did while on the road you’ll know that I had a very tough first day and felt so out of my depth in all the stares and things men were saying to me on the street. After a very whiny message to my mum and a kick in the ass from her I was ready to deal with the next day. She reminded me of why I had chosen to go to Marrakesh. So I resolved to walk around the city the next day pretending to be Karou because she’s a hardcore character and strong in the mental department. So yes at 24 years old I walked around pretending to be a fictional character to cope with my surroundings. It did wonders for my mood though.

I woke up to on of his daughters playing with my hair. It was a big entertainer to them. That and American money. I gave them each a dollar and they legitimately went insane.

That second day I spent the time with the family while Nait worked. We went to the park with the girls. It was a little awkward since they spoke no English and very little French.

We had lunch and it was over lunch that I had my first run in with conversations about being single. Turns out Nait’s wife is my age 24. Now the conversation went close to this…

Nait: How old are you?

Me: 24

Nait: Are you married?

Me: No. I’m single.

Nait: What’s wrong with you that you’re not married?

Me: Nothing. I was going to school and I like traveling. What’s the typical age a girl gets married here.

Nait: 18. What’s the typical age in America?

I then explained that it just depended on people’s circumstances. And he was floored by the fact that I wasn’t looking to get married any time soon. I’ve got some great stories for later about what men had to say about me being single at 24. After that very awkward conversation we went into the city centre again because I wanted to do a bit of shopping. We stopped for an avocado juice. To be honest it was just avocado with sugar and milk but damn was it good!

I hunted out postcards and Nait took me to his friend’s apothecary.

I learned about traditional medicine in Morocco. How to tell if Aragon oil is pure. How to make mint tea.

Then I got to pretend to be looking for food for my chimaera!

And then we went to his friend who was a cloth merchant so I could get my head wrap for my excursion into the desert in 2 days.

A bit more walking around in the Spice markets

and it was time to call it a night. So we went back to his flat and I hung out with his girls. They wanted me to brush their hair, it was just an excuse for them to then brush my hair. They were honestly the cutest thing!

My last day with Nait was an easy peasy day. We woke up late, hung out till lunch time when we had couscous. I learned the secret to eating couscous with your hands. I was still a messy eater but I ate all the meals with my hands. And they were so good! Even the ones that I had no clue what I was eating because of the language barrier. I decided to spend my last night in Marrakesh in a riad (a hostel that’s in an old manor house kind place) because my bus left at 8 the next morning.

I said my thanks and goody byes to Nait. Despite the barrier and the frustration I really did have a nice stay. It was just a whole new level of all things new.

I got lost on my way to my riad but asked for directions in French thank you very much! And ended up having a guy walk me there and he gave me his number and was like hey hit me up and we can go out for drinks tonight, since you’re single. My single-ness was always the first thing someone asked me. I was just like maybe, I’m really tired. That was the end of that though.

I checked in and it put me out a whole $6 for the night. That was the cheapest I’ve ever stayed somewhere. And it was also one of the prettiest!

Like seriously! And that front door!! The blue made it hard to miss! How heavenly! But I wanted to go out on the town and get wonderfully lost in the souks! So I did. I bought a pair of comfy pants. I had to haggle and I hate haggling but I did a decent job… I think. I only paid about $7 for them when he was asking about $20.

I wandered for about an hour before I made it to Jemaa el-Fnaa. And shit was it bustling so late in the night!

So Jemaa el-Fnaa roughly means "the assembly of trespassers". Jemaa el-Fnaa was renovated along with much of the Marrakech city, whose walls were extended by Abu Yaqub Yusuf and particularly by Yaqub al-Mansur in 1147-1158. Historically this square was used for public decapitations by rulers who sought to maintain their power by frightening the public. The square attracted dwellers from the surrounding desert and mountains to trade here, and stalls were raised in the square from early in its history. The square attracted tradesmen, snake charmers ("wild, dark, frenzied men with long disheveled hair falling over their naked shoulders"), dancing boys of the Chleuh Atlas tribe, and musicians playing pipes, tambourines and African drums. Today though it’s where most people find dinner. There are hundreds of stalls with food and they are all vying for your business and will offer low prices.

After seeing the Mosque again (the tower features in the Daughter of Smoke and Bone books and I had a silent fangirl moment each time I saw it) 

I was ready to head back to my riad. I figured I’d have a tough time getting back… nope turns out it’s actually easy to get to and from Jemaa el-Fnaa. On my way back I decided I wanted cake so I stopped and the guy there was so excited to practice his English and I got some tasty things to eat for about a dollar!

Don’t they just look yummy (they totally were)! The next day I was off to Merzouga! I had a 12 hour bus ride ahead of me! but I was prepared! And I had the allure of my fancy Kasbah!

Cheers,