As mentioned yesterday we are halfway through our trip and the cumulative effects of time zones, food, road travel takes its toll. Our second day in Marrakesh has no agenda, so Amanda and Burked decided to forgo any activities after breakfast and relax at the Riad for a few hours. I took the opportunity to grab my smaller camera and a light shoulder bag and headed out on foot into the medina. I had a map with me, however the plan was to just keep taking turns and find interesting things to look at. My plan quickly worked a within 30 minutes I was hopelessly lost and like any good male navigator, steadfastly refused to look at a map. In fairness I will try to share a copy of the Riad map sometime as I am not certain navigation with it is really possible. I passed through several Souks (artist districts e.g., weavers) along the way I was discreetly taking pictures of things and people I found interesting. As I had mentioned before, Moroccan people do not like to be photographed and through discussions with a few people I am finding out why. The first thing is everybody who visits Marrakesh has a camera with them. The colours are outstanding and it feels like there is constantly a perfect level of light. Second it appears to be a cultural bend against pictures. One of the main reasons seems to be that they are tired of other people making money off of their image. Everyone seems to know someone who had their picture taken and it ended up in a magazine. How true this is I have no way of finding out, but these are stories that tend to grow legs over time. Back to the medina, walking around is to be transported back in time. While the area is filled with tourists, this remains a centuries old downtown market. People continue to live in the area, and many of the shopkeepers cater to ‘locals’ rather than tourists. In the alleys surrounding the Jemaa el Fna the shopkeepers cater to the easy tourist, fake handbags, cheap scarves, cell phones etc.. As one wanders deeper into the recesses of the medina, the outside wall is 17 kilometres long so there can be a great deal of wandering, you start to find more locally made goods along with shopkeepers whose purpose is to serve the people of Marrakesh. The butcher has fresh cuts of meat ready to be sliced to order, including a dromedary head I saw for sale at one location. Along my morning walk I saw people visiting their friends with the ubiquitous cup of mint tea (more like hot water and sugar) and a bun for breakfast. It appeared that many Moroccans only purchase enough food for one day and head into the medina to purchase that days groceries. There are also numerous beggars lining the alleys who are crouched in the catchers position and simply hold their hand out, palm up 6-8 inches away from their body. Everytime I walked by they would, what I believe, ask for a few Dirham’s in either Burber or Arabic. If you did not provide them with a few coins, they still said thank-you and acknowledged eye contact. I stood and watched one older man who obviously had some type of physical disability that most likely prevented him from working and it struck me how easy it was for most people to simply ignore these unfortunate few. The vast number of people walked by avoiding eye contact, not stopping their conversation and definitely not providing and money. Later in the day Amanda, Burke and I were having lunch in the square and noticed that there was an elderly man carrying a plastic bag strolling back and forth in front of the “restaurant” (I use the word restaurant loosely). We quickly learned his purpose as one of the tables beside us became vacant, the man darted over with the quickness of a seagull diving for a french fry, his arm shot out from his Djalaba scooping up the tattered remains of a chicken putting it in his plastic bag and moved on before most people even knew what was going on. I truly enjoy visiting this country and most of the people are wonderful and caring, but the distance between rich and poor is enormous with no social assistance programs to help those less fortunate. This is not a statement on social welfare, just an observation how different much of the world is on this issue as compared to Canada. After I had finally wandered around for close to three hours I was back to a location that I had some certainty I could return to my Riad. This was pure luck as most of the morning I truly had not idea where I was, I just kept walking and making random turns, finding something new around every corner. I returned to our Riad and Amanda and Burke were up for a bit of an adventure so we once again began walking the medina. As previously mentioned the medina is a difficult place for the uninitiated and Burke is certainly not prepared for both the hazards of the walkway nor the style of the shopkeepers. The mopeds brazenly zip past and several times Burke was caught looking the wrong direction or zigging when he should have zagged, each time either myself or Amanda would grab him and remind ‘eyes forward and listen’ only to have him repeat the close call within 10 minutes. Then there are the shopkeepers, if you make eye contact, touch something in their shop, look at something in their shop or if they hear you talk about anything they immediately start their sales pitch. The pitch usually starts with the giving me the best price and their goods being the best quality and just come in and look you do not need to buy. If you do not stop they will follow you for 1-2 booths and you need to be slightly rude (by Canadian standards) to get rid of them. Of course Burke found everything fascinating and touched everything, waved to every shopkeeper and entered every third shop meaning that Amanda and I were constantly saying no and walking away. This seems quite simple, however Canadian mores makes this emotionally taxing so after a couple of hours of this, and some purchases, we found our way back to the main square. Burke wanted to go on a horse and carriage ride so we negotiated with one of the drivers and headed off for what ended up being a 90-minute ride and a 30 minute nap for Burke. This was an interesting way to see other parts of the city as the horses simply walked, showing us the sights at a leisurely and comfortable pace. While I mentioned the poverty we also saw examples of extreme wealth in some of the more affluent areas of the city. We called it an early night, picked up food from a local vendor ate in our room and attempted to get to bed at a reasonable time. Tomorrow we are once again on the road, leaving the large cities and heading to the mountains and desert for most of the balance of our trip. Tomorrow is a 350 kilometre drive to Tinghir via crossing the High Atlas Mountains with stops in Skoura, Kelaat MaGouna and Dades following the route of 1001 Kasbahs.
Posted on: Mon, 29 Dec 2014 05:26:57 +0000
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