Marrakech

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A city of high contrast. Flying into Marrakech we saw desert and snow-capped mountains . Then la ville nouvelle with wide, straight boulevards and the medina with narrow, twisting alleys. And women in head to toe flowing black robes, veils and gloves and others in skinny jeans and flowing black hair. Arabic and French heard everywhere. (I’m pleased and surprised at myself speaking French as well as I am.) Men in skinny jeans and cool sculpted haircuts and those in pointy hooded djellabas – Merlins and Gandalfs everywhere!

Our first three nights were spent in a Riad (B&B in ancient family homes) owned and run by a wee Scotswoman from Edinburgh! The good points: we were the only guests, there was no TV or radio to be heard anywhere, there was lots of hot water (once we figured out the settings), delicious strong coffee in the morning, and Valerie was happy to arrange a scrub, massage, wrap at a hammam for me and a cooking lesson for us.

The bad points: Valerie and Mohamed are smokers and the architecture of the riad (open courtyard surrounded by rooms on the upper level) meant lots of second hand smoke. The second negative was that the bed was on a platform that we had to step off to get to the bathroom. A significant falling hazard in the middle of the night!  I’m reading Left Neglected by Lisa Genova right now so ability/disability and traumatic brain injury are on my mind!

We’ve moved to another riad aptly called Riad Zituna which means Olive Tree. It has all the benefits of Valerie’s and no smoke, no platform and more elegance. The Riad brochure offers spa treatments including hair removal – armpits, lower leg, whole leg, back, chest, and ‘duvet’ – pray tell what is one’s duvet?!

After a vigorous massage (including a belly rub), during my hammam session, I was lying on a marble slab wrapped in mud and seaweed. I felt a little belly twinge. The next thing I knew I passed a POP, POP, POP, POP type of fart that echoed and bounced off the wet cavernous, arched ceiling tiles. I muttered a meek “Pardon, Mesdames.” No one said a word.

I’ve never been a fan of sweet mint tea (hot mouthwash, anyone?). Last night Saida, our cooking teacher, made a pot, no more than 12 oz. She crammed a huge bunch of fresh mint, unchopped, stems and all, into it plus about two tbsp of sugar. Despite the sugar we could still taste the bitter, green freshness of the mint.

Something we didn’t make but that Saida talked about is pastilla poulet. It sounded so delicious that I had it today at a restaurant. It’s savoury marzipan and chicken spiced with cinnamon then wrapped in phyllo pastry and baked. It has cinnamon and icing sugar sprinkled on top! I brushed off the icing sugar. I’m going to make it when I get home.

We made two tagine, one in a tagine and one in a pressure cooker. When all is said and done tagine is simply stew with an Arabic twist. They were both very tasty but I can do with less cilantro!!

All roads lead to the central square of the old town . It isn’t square and possibly not central but it’s certainly the place to be. Although we were dismayed by the snakes in baskets (cobras are becoming endangered by their charmers!), the monkeys and falcons on leashes and the poor women and children selling packets of tissues, we were happy to see that the story tellers still draw large crowds of locals.

When I asked a taxi driver to take us to an internet café he dropped us at “le par see-BEARGH”. It took a minute for me to translate – the cyber park! What an idea – a public garden, beautifully landscaped with benches and free wifi. It was Sunday and many families and courting couples were strolling through the park. Many nerds were clicking and linking!

Big tourist attraction – Le Jardin Majorelle is an exquisite cactus and succulent garden  reinvigorated by Yves St Laurent and Paul Berge. The well-financed Berber museum in the garden is wonderful and puts to shame the municipal Marrakesh museum with its broken tiles and burned out light bulbs. There is a memorial plinth to YSL in the garden that some tourists approached most reverently! I'll bet YSL's memorial gets more visitors than Mahatma Gandhi's outside of Durban.