Marrakesh Please

I’m not going to go into great detail about how I tore a ligament in my ankle. This website is for travel editorials, not general discussions about my life. Suffice to say it was a sports injury (12 hour drinking marathon) and happened one week before my weekend trip in Marrakesh with the Z-Man and one of the ‘lads’.

I diligently prepared for the trip, acquiring a suitable Moroccan-Arabic phrase book that instantly proved worthless as every local assumed I spoke French. We took the lazy decision to use our GCSE level modern language skills mixed with the odd word of Arabic and Loud English to make ourselves understood. The flight was brief, but early, leaving us with the decision to either take a nap as soon as we got to the hotel or head out as soon as we’d checked in to establish the ‘lay of the land’. We opted to check out where the old town market was in the medina.

We circled this minarete twice without getting anywhere near it.

Anyone who suggests that the souks are easy to get lost in are totally not kidding. We went in, we checked out some bags and coats for the Z-Man and left by a completely different exit on the other side. Luckily this brought us out next to three important landmarks, the Ben Youssef School, Museum and what appeared to be an ancient yet sophisticated latrine. We inspected all three sites since we were there anyway, then decided to find our way back through the souks, back to the hotel. This proved to be a little difficult as many of the riads were selling similar products making reference points hard to remember. We eventually left via a nearby exit to make use of my well established tracking and navigation skills. We knew we were walking the wrong way by the way the satellite dishes were facing, but I was just trying to get us away from the souks so we could try to get south of them, then circle back. Turns out the road we were on was knows for it’s length and lack of side roads leading to the path back. Ultimately, we got to see another historic Mosque that we might not have bothered trying to see on the trip since it was far away from everything else. Plus there was a bigger more famous Mosque practically next to the hotel (not pictured).

So after walking an estimated 6 miles, we finally made it back to the hotel, where in our tired state we booked a trip to the mountains [dramatic hand gesture]. A drive there stopping at a few sights, then the option of climbing up a waterfall when we ran out of road. Yeah, we totally showed that waterfall who was boss. We’d been past a few others that looked more like flash floods, but this was a big, rocky, cold one with partial foot path. We spent a certain amount of time balancing on tiny stones just barely above the water. Got soaked, but loved it and that’s why I still have ankle pain 4 weeks later.

Having seen a large portion of the sights in the first day and a half, we spent the rest of the time relaxing and wandering. The Z-Man employed his brutal haggling techniques to acquire a nice bag, though it smelt a bit funny. We sought out the tourist information centre that was on the tourist map the hotel had given us, to see if there was anything else we’d missed. The centre turned out to be the most disappointing part of the trip, consisting of a room with a giant version of the map we already had and a bored looking guy.

Finished it all up with a go around the old palaces and walked another 2 miles looking for an entrance to the royal gardens before finding out it was closed. Marrakesh: it’s all walkable, but don’t bring inferior footwear like the lad or tear any ligaments. Take care of your feet and joints!

This pattern was presumably part of the floor somewhere before being mounted on a board and displayed in the Ben Youssef Museum.