Of snake charmers and charming men.
The Riad is beautiful, my room feels like I'm swimming in a turquoise sea. I eat at the restaurant upstairs, overlooking the city and sleep like a princess on a huge bed.
Next day I breakfast next to a fountain, on different thin rounds of bread, thick apricot jam and a soft homemade cheese. The pottery here is beautiful.
They have found me a guide and we're off through the maze to the Secret Garden, a 16th century formal garden that had impressive irrigation for it's time and which still works and then we go to the souks where we have mint tea with the locals as I watch the donkeys pass by, laden with goods. It's as if time has slowed, no one rushes around. The shopkeepers don't harass me to buy. They call out "Madam" but then go back to their mobile phones and the donkeys trot at a leisurely pace no matter how much they are egged on by their owners. The young boys are very charming: Madam, you are beautiful. You buy? But they too lose interest quickly.
We eat at a tourist restaurant and I wish I had said no to it. The food is dry and tasteless and even he is embarrassed. And then I am left in the main square alone to wander. This is the madding crowd space, full of tourists; where the fabled snake charmers do their thing; where men with monkeys wander and it's full of amazing stalls of herbs, with every available remedy and spices that you burn to stop the evil eye.
I make my way back slowly for a rest and then out again for dinner on a terrace, listening to the muezzin calling men to prayer. I have the most amazing octopus with fennel and leaks and go home to discover I've got the dreaded Moroccan stomach bug. Luckily the bathroom is beautiful and that I have no pain. I suspect it was the lunch restaurant and I batten down fir the evening's activity.the ne
The next day I go and speak to the woman downstairs and she says she'll take me to a chemist after breakfast which she sends up to me. The appetite is still good and I'm taken to get all that's required to end the situation and I enjoy a quiet morning in my beautiful room. I open the windows and listen to the kids playing in the streets and by lunchtime I feel cured so I venture out. The antique shops are wonderful, the doors, the colours, the woodwork!
Marrakesh feels more laidback than Fez. I wander the tiny streets and the vendors either ignore me or mistake my hesitancy at buying things as bargaining and the price drops exponentially. They seem to love Australians, when they hear my accent they chat and the prices drop. I buy a few things today as it's my last day in Morocco. They must struggle here as there are so many shops. I buy a beautiful little tajine spice container which he reduces dramatically as it will be his first sale of the day and it'll bring him luck. It's 2 pm! I also find a beautiful piece of Berber jewellery which I hum and hah about and I feel bad when he drops the price to where I can afford it because I know the work involved but I acquiesce and we settle on cash. He takes me to an ATM and then asks me what else I'm interested in. I tell him I'd like to buy powdered paint and he takes me out of his way and tells the owner to look after me.
And then I find a square of food shops. There's a place where they cook sheep heads slowly over open fires in pottery jars with leather on top and there is a huge line up of locals for this delicacy. The herbs shops are amazing, the colours and scents of the fresh herbs are distilled in the heat of the afternoon sun. I buy some dried rosebuds. So far, the stomach has behaved and I've been using my rosewater spray to keep it at bay.
I wander through the spice alleys and the homemade makeup shops, the tiny exquisite coloured glass jars for the kohl that is used for the eyes and mascara, the powdered hues for eyeshadow. No plastic here.
The stomach holds out and I dine at last night's restaurant as I sit on high, staring out over the rooftops, warmed by the soft, late afternoon sun, swallows dining mid flight. Oh Morocco, how you have enraptured me, made me feel apart of an ancient history.I can feel a different rhythm here that somewhere deep within me, has been called forth and merges with this wonderful place.
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