End of the line for Morocco. Here I am in Marrakech, the fabled and legendary city where hopes and dreams are made… wait a second, I think I’m describing Hollywood. But, actually, that’s not a bad description. The Ville Nouvelle of Marrakech, with its European boutiques, wide tree-lined streets and Spanish-style architecture, might as well be Southern California as opposed to Morocco. It’s very pretty, and, oddly, very un-Moroccan, at least in my impression of the city. Here, there’s a cosmopolitan feel that I was expecting and didn’t feel in Casa. The well-heeled and the young and trendy – of both genders, not only men – were out and about in the evenings, in restaurants, cafes and even nightclubs. It’s certainly a switch from the Sahara or even from the other Imperial Cities.
We arrived here last night and checked into our hotel – very nice, well-located, though unfortunately without WiFi, which made things complicated given the volcano and the resulting flight situation that had everyone more than a bit concerned. Would we be able to get home? It wasn’t looking likely.
Meanwhile, it was my last day in Morocco and – possibly – my only day in Marrakech (unless I get stranded here), so I meant to make the most of it. After breakfast, we set out to discover the city on foot. First, we headed to les Jardins de Majorelle, which are gardens in the centre of the city that were owned by Yves Saint-Laurent. They were very pretty, and had more kinds of cactus than I knew existed.
After walking around the gardens – and stopping for massively overpriced tea in the cafe – we headed into the Medina. Instantly, we were transported back in time, as the now familiar array of souks and touts and donkey carts surrounded us once again. We visited the restored Ben Youssef Madersa (Islamic school), which looked much like the Madersa we’d seen in Fes except that in this one, we could see the students’ rooms. Next door, the Marrakech Museum was quite a bit more interesting. It’s housed in an old palace, spectacular in and of itself, and has a collection of art, pottery, coins and weapons. It also had an art exhibit by a modern artist in the front area, which was pretty cool.
We wandered through the souks and a few people did some last-minute shopping – we’ve gotten quite adept at the whole bargaining thing by now. We had lunch at a little cafe, and then made our way to Place Jemaa el-Fna, the famous main square in the Medina. During the day it was pretty subdued, but at night it’s a different story, so we planned to come back.
Back to the hotel in the afternoon for a break and an attempt to get an update on the airline situation. Easier said than done. My flight home to Montreal was meant to go through Paris. Bad luck there. I took my laptop to a cafe that had WiFi and settled down over some tea to learn what I could. All I managed to do was to connect to my insurance company via Skype. None of the airline call centres were reachable, and the websites were of no use. Very frustrating, though I’m hardly the only one in this situation – thousands of people all over the world are stranded. Unfortunately, since I had separate bookings from Marrakech to Paris and from Paris to Montreal, neither airline was going to take the responsibility of rebooking me, leaving me pretty much on my own to sort out alternate arrangements. I knew that Royal Air Maroc has direct flights from Casa to Montreal, but according to their website none were available until next Friday, and I couldn’t reach their call centre either. I wasted an entire phone card on busy signals before finally giving up and deciding to simply head to the airport in the morning and try to sort out what I could.
For dinner, we went back to the Medina to find Place Jemaa el-Fna transformed. Against a backdrop of a spectacular sunset, the food vendors set up their stalls, the fortune-tellers, snake-charmers, jugglers and fire-breathers set up their acts, and thousands of people crowded into the square. We had our “last supper” as a group on the square, eating an assortment of salads, fish and meats that nobody asked about in too much detail for fear of the answer (we saw people eating sheep’s heads in the next stall). After dinner, we walked around a little before heading back to the hotel for a few drinks at the bar before an early night.
So, that’s it for Morocco. Maybe. There’s a very good chance I’ll be stuck here in Marrakech for a few days, as the flight situation shows no sign of clearing up anytime soon. The good news is, it’s a pretty good place to get stuck, as there seems to be lots to see and do here. One thing’s for certain: this trip has definitely been interesting.