Marrakech

Marrakech was amazing, an unforgettable experience and unlike anywhere I've been before. Apologies if Bagging Area becomes a bit of a travel blog over the next few days. I'll try to supply music to go along with the photos and writing and see where things go- this blog has never really planned more than a few days ahead. We landed at Marrakech airport last Sunday morning having flown out of Manchester at 6.30 am straight into the hustle and bustle of Marrakech. My nice had booked our accommodation for the five of us, a four bedroom house (a riad) in the centre of the city. 

The riad was in the medina, down a long, twisting back alley which if we hadn't had a guide to meet us when we got to the top of the alleyway, we'd have thought twice about going all the way to the end of. Once down at the end, past the permanent group of young men hanging out on one of the corners, dodging the scooters and motorcycles that pepper the streets, roads and passageways, we went through a set of grilled gates and to our front door which led us into this...

The riad was central, a ten minute walk from the souk but inside it was another world, an oasis of calm with a roof terrace. Five times a day the sound of the muezzin calling people to prayer echoed out over the city, one of the muezzin starting it and then others joining in, harmonising- an unearthly and very moving sound. 

The souk is a maze of streets and alleyways filled with shops and market stalls selling all the Moroccan goods you can think of- tea pots and glasses for drinking mint tin, spices, leather goods, slippers, scarves, ceremonial daggers, bracelets and bangles, kaftans, earrings, rugs, hats, meat- as well as more modern goods- iPhones, headphones, football shirts- with the vendors constantly offering you prices and telling you to come and have a look. 

Haggling is part of the process for every transaction in the souk- they offer you a price, then drop it slightly, you offer a lower one, they counter, you get a note out which you're happy to pay- it takes some getting used to. The streets are jam packed in places. If you stop for a moment to glance at an item or make any eye contact, you get an offer to buy something. Wandering round the souk was amazing and with no real street names or sings, very easy to get lost in. We managed to track our way back to the riad but got hopelessly lost one evening looking for the main square (Jemaa el-Fnaa). 

We had five days, spending several of them exploring Marrakech- the main square during the day and at night is a world in itself. During the day it's filled with fruit and spice stalls, snake charmers with cobras, men with sad looking monkeys on chains available for photos and women painting henna tattoos. At night, the square has a different energy, rammed with locals and tourists, scores of local bands of musicians and dancers playing Berber music- percussionists with qraqebs (large castanet like instruments) and hand drums surrounding a single guitarist playing a gnawa or gimbri and men chanting and singing. The music was incredible, very rootsy and funky, the riffs played by the guitarists sounding like the basis for so much 20th century guitar music, the blues and the 60s bands onward, with North African percussion and rhythms.

Everyone's looking for money, everyone expects to be tipped. It takes a little getting used to but was a joy to experience and the scare stories you can find on the internet about pickpockets, abusive comments to western women and rip off merchants were unfounded in our experience, and apart from one meal which left me sidelined for a day, the food was incredible. The Moroccan specialty is tagine, chicken and lemon or mince and eggs cooked in tagine pots and served with rice or couscous, lots of spices and flavours. Mint tea and strong coffee. Nutty biscuits and pastries. 

We had a load of other adventures- a day in the Atlas Mountains climbing to a waterfall with dinner on cushions by a river, a day at a pool in the desert and a night seeing the sunset in the Western Sahara which blew my mind- but I'll come to them over the next few days. 

In our several taxi rides to and from places the radio stations were almost always playing Moroccan or African music. Some on the spot Googling and use of Shazam took place. One of the artists that we heard several times and who sounded great while driving out of Marrakech, swerving across lanes and dodging motorcyclists, scooterists and pedestrians, through the suburbs with blocks of flats and corner cafes, petrol stations with queues of scooters and roadside sellers of fruit and mint, was Bombino, a Tuareg singer and guitarist from Niger. This song is Mahegagh (What Shall I Do?), a track from (I think) 2012- eleven minutes of Saharan desert blues.