LISBON- MARRAKECH- BARCELONA 2004 PORTUGAL: Tides and Tiles MOROCCO: Into Interzone Medina Medina O Let Me Sleep Like Prozac in the Desert The Chicken Thieves 1001 Guides through Fès Chilling in Chaouen SPAIN: Ruining of the Bulls MOROCCO (video) color, 4'22" June/July 04 View/Download: Quicktime- 240x180, 8.8 MB [ PHOTO ARCHIVE ]

Marrakech / Morocco 30 June - 02 July 2004 Overlooking Djeema el-Fna, from Hotel Ali rooftop. Marrakech. In the morning I head to the train station. I buy water, snacks. Drink a coffee at the counter café and then head to a bench downstairs, outside, to wait for my train to Marrakech. We will pass Casablanca after two hours and if it looks interesting enough I'll get out and go downtown for a few hours before going back to the train. Layers of slums approaching Casablanca, and no sign of anything outstanding from the downtown, as the train sits stopped, loading at Casablanca's main train terminal. It's hot, and the air-conditioning on this train also seems to have stopped working. In getting on the train I sat in the first compartment that had more than one empty seat it in. And in that compartment I had seen two other foreigners. We rode for more than an hour before starting to talk. By time we get to Marrakech, we're pleased to find we are heading to the same part of town, in fact to the same hotel. And we've made some plans to meet for dinner or at least breakfast in the morning. It's been four days since I had a conversation with someone that wasn't about a room or food. She is from Madrid and he is from Milan, a couple, about my age, and both speak exceptional English, largely on account of having lived and worked in Dublin for some years. Moroccan Mopeds and Cooks. Djeema el-Fna. Marrakech. Upon arriving in Marrakech and seeing the activity, flurry of curious commotion, and combined with meeting Teresa and Sebastiano, I'm feeling markedly more optimistic about my two planned weeks in Morocco. The Medina is more intense and interesting than Rabat and Tangier. And in the evening the large square at Djeema el-Fna comes alive. The fifty or so wagons serving fresh squeezed orange juice are met by the arrival of snake charmers, medicine merchants, junk traders, performers, henna painters, fortune-tellers ...and about forty stalls and benches of impromptu nightly grill and fry gasoline-powered eateries. Approaching the vendors, the white uniformed mercenaries stream out to verbally tackle you. First the debate over what country you come from and what language to attempt. And the ritual of courtship, wooing you to sit at their tables, eat of their fleeting restaurants' food, and bask under their incandescent-bulb strings of flights strung up from pole to pole. I saw the exercise in many languages. Arabic, French, Spanish, German, Italian, even Japanese. Damn, I don't know how to say 'Squid' or 'Eggplant' in six languages! Mustapha and his Snails. Djeema el-Fna. Marrakech. Every One claims to be the Best. Djeema el-Fna. Marrakech. Breakfast is at the hotel, lunch off the square somewhere, dinner on the square at the aforementioned stalls. Cheap olives in the Medina. Fresh orange juice for twenty-cents from the stalls. Ice cream if you can manage the frantic queues. Hey, I'm into Marrakech. This is more what I came here to Morocco to see, to feel. I'm starting to meet or at least chat with a few of the other tourists. Apparently Marrakech is - compared to the other cities I've seen thus far - much more of a tourist magnet, mecca, and hub. The heat is somehow more manageable. Well, especially with an in-room air-conditioner. Usually I hate the things and the stale air they make you breathe all night. But after four nearly sleepless nights starting with the night bus out of Lisbon, I take the room with A.C. with a nod and sleep through the nights like a fat, happy eskimo baby. When the A.C. automatically cuts-off at 7:30 a.m. the room starts to get warm in 20 minutes. Time to get up and rinse under the cold shower again and start another day in the hot sun. I spend a few hours in the afternoon under the circling fans in the tiled, high-ceiling lobby dining-room area. There are couches with many pillows to lay back on and read. So many choices. Marrakech. Somewhere in the Medina. Marrakech. Hiding from the Relentless Sun. Medina opening. Marrakech. I meet two Australians, also a couple, who are renting a medium-sized car to drive south and then east, around and through the bottom of the High Atlas mountains. They want to see some canyons, gorges, desert landscape. Kasbahs and sights on the ways, a few smaller towns. Prior to leaving for Morocco I'd told myself I wasn't going to stray from major areas, particularly to go into the desert or into the mountains. But the lure is too great of three empty seats and a cheap share of the costs and go somewhere adventurous for two days. I manage to talk Sebastiano into coming along with us, but it's not until at breakfast, just before walking the following morning to the car rental place that he gives us a final decision. Teresa must leave to head back to Madrid, she has to get back to work. So it's the four of us, Steve and Suse from Sydney, Sebastiano, and I who get into the Renault and head out of the city in baffling Marrakech traffic at 8:30 on that already hot morning. The Chicken Thieves >> REDHAUS • DESIGN • PRINTMAKING • PAINTING • TRAVEL • ABOUT • CONTACT ©2008 JPM / Redhaus