THE WINDING ROAD TO THE GORGEOUS GORGE

We opted for an early start the next morning as we retrieved our car and headed out of Marrakech. Somehow we managed to find our third or fourth choice for an exit from the city and were smoothly on the road to Dades Gorge. This road winds its way high over the Tizi n’Tichka Pass through the High Atlas Mountains meandering, twisting, and curling through sharp hair pins without barriers, looking down over a thousand feet of cliffside. Each bend offers the opportunity for a new enticing view over ever changing terrain; also, the likelihood of an oncoming truck driving down the middle lane and forcing you onto the very edge of your life. I found this to be a fantastic and exciting driving experience. I also give a lot of credit to Cindy as the role of passenger is probably a lot scarier as you have time to look down at the abyss awaiting you after one wrong move. Locals will suddenly advance from the side of the road to sell you mushrooms, herbs, jewelry, fossils or meteorite shrapnel.

 We took a side road before Ouarzazate to view the ancient and remarkably picturesque Ait Benhaddou a ksar, or fortified city built into a hillside in the foothills of the Atlas. This town is a UNESCO World Heritage site and has been used as a period set in many Hollywood movies including: The Last Temptation of Christ, Gladiator, The Jewel of The Nile, Babel, and my own personal favorite, The Man Who Would Be King.

Ait Benhaddou

From there we followed the road along the Dades Valley through the Kasbah-rich towns of Skoura and El-Kelaa M’Gouna to Boumaine Dades and the start of the road leading up to the Dades Gorge. 

In the Dades Gorge

About 25 kms along this route we came to our destination for the night at what appeared from outside to be an unassuming auberge named Chez Pierre. Once inside, we were impressed by the warm welcome, the quality of the family built structure, the thoughtful design features, and the luxury of our room. All of this was however put to shame by the magnificence of the gourmet French multi-course dinner that was included in the stay.

LAST DAY IN MARRAKECH

It has been a whirlwind of driving, dealing with a congested head and sore throat, and trying to process all of the incredible images that we see. Every day there are a million views that I mental click without using a camera. I am mostly content to partake in the warmth of a person’s smile rather than to try to place a camera between us thereby changing the moment into something less fully interactional, in some way objectifying the person as “subject.” Nevertheless, I do realize that the photographic element is a major reason that I was drawn to this colorful country and its generous people.

On Sunday we visited with Ank, the proprietor of the Chambres d’Amis riad.

Next we visited the Marjorelle Gardens in Marrakesh; this was the home of French couturier Yves St. Laurent. The tropical gardens and brightly colored buildings, tilework, and decorative accessories are evocative of the bright style of the man. 

Yves St. Laurent's Jardin Marjorelle

Later that day Cindy had a shiatsu massage at our riad and then we then explored another part of the wonderfully beguiling, seemingly endless medina of Marrakech. 

Pastry seller in front of Koutoubia Mosque

Starting at the grand Koutoubia Mosque, we followed the narrow passageways with a vague intention of discovering the carpet souk. As we left behind any preconceptions of place or direction we became more open to that which appeared in front of our noses and were better able to engage with a few of the delightful characters selling their wide arrays of goods from tiny shop fronts.

Marrakech Medina

THE RIAD

The head starts to spin after a while in the souks and markets of Marrakech. The whirling colors, smells, people offering the best of everything, a million images lodging themselves in distant memory. One needs some quiet amidst the epic din. That is where the riad enters the fray. Riads are generally palatial homes converted into guest houses. The tradition is to build a quiet environment centered around a courtyard. Rooms thus face inward and encourage the guest to do the same. Hosts are available to assist with meeting the needs of the visitor and provide breakfast and other delights such as afternoon mint tea and pastries. The proprietor also arranges for tickets, massages, laundry, dinners, directions or other advice about the local area.

Today we spoke with Ank, our Dutch hostess at the Chambres d’Amis riad in Marrakech. She recommended a few places to visit this morning. We started by heading South from the main square along some slightly less intensely populated streets until we found the Musee Tiskiwin, a house that has been converted into a small museum of Berber art collected by an 83 year old Dutch man named Bert Flint. His artifacts include masks, textiles, carpets, carvings, headdresses, ritual objects, maps and photographs that he has gathered over many years of travel in the Saharan region.

From there we carried on to the El Badi Palace which dates back to the 16^th century. Nowadays one must imagine the grandeur of a place that once boasted 360 rooms and if you allow yourself to do so it is possible to conjure elephants and camels, bejeweled royalty, and lavish entertainment of the grandest standards in the world. Nowadays, the palace is inhabited by storks nesting on the walls. 

We viewed a magnificent photographic exhibit of the work of Don McCullin. I was looking at one photograph, which happened to be of a homeless man in the seventies in the East End of London, and recognized the location as being quite close to where I grew up. At that moment the man next to me was viewing anther photograph and identified that he grew up very close to the place pictured in that photo, also in London’s East End.

It is now that I relax at the riad drinking tea and resting my tired feet. I am able to reflect on the journey so far and to allow myself to more fully feel the loss of the presence of my friend Jonathan as he is currently heading back to England. It was a sad goodbye but a wondrous warm time spent together. As Cindy remarked: “Jonathan is really a part of our family.” Thank you Jonathan for flying a thousand miles to see us, and for being such a lovely, flexible travel companion as well as a true friend.

MARRAKECH MEDINA AND MEDERSA

The medina in Marrakech is made up of snaking alleyways full of clamoring locals mixed with tourist looking for a good deal. The medina is divided into souks or tradesmen’s areas. As one wanders around it is best to allow oneself to just get lost. Lost in the streets, but also in the smells, the sights, the flow of the crowds and the draw of whatever seems most fascinating at the time. Marrakech is a city of over a million people and I swear they are all in the medina at the same time. At the South of the markets is the Jemaa El-Fna Square which is watched-over by Marrakech’s tallest minaret at the nearby Koutoubia Mosque.

Today we roamed through the inviting medina allowing ourselves to be pulled into some of the shops along the way to view the alluring merchandise. It is said that when a shopkeeper quotes a price to a tourist it is a good idea to divide by four in order to assess an accurate aiming point for the cost of the transaction. And yes, this is truly a long, drawn out process that includes the seller smoothly transitioning between bartering, becoming friends, taking delight in your very presence just prior to affecting displeasure and being insulted, going through a making-up period and then letting you know that you got a really good price at the end which will inevitably make the buyer feel okay despite the fact that the next shop keeper says that he would have sold you the same item for less.

We made our way to the Ben Youssef Medersa, what was once one of the largest Islamic colleges in Africa. Intricate tilework and carving adorn this magnificent edifice.

We had a lunch at the picturesque Bougainvilliers Café where we shared a delightful Orange Soup and vegetable tagine. We continued down to the main square where we took a perch high up to drink mint tea and watch the goings-on in the bustling square below.

The call to prayer in Marrakech at a little after eight pm is an amazing conglomeration of sound emanating from many different mosques around the city at the same time and interweaving to produce an amalgam of buzzing, soaring, disharmonic waves of sound that both ground and inspire a person.

THE MARRAKESH EXPRESS

Okay, we drove, but that didn’t stop us from singing the song. It’s about a three hour drive from Essaouira to Marrakesh. The guidebook describes it as “a boring road” which was not our experience. In fact our drive was filled with serendipitous surprises. We stopped at a goat-filled argane tree. 

Goats in an Argane tree

Traditionally, goats climbed up the argane tree to eat the fruit and later “expelled” the nuts, which were then gathered for their seed content, which was in turn ground into argane oil. There are now several women’s cooperatives in the area East of Essa producing and selling this precious oil.

Further along the road I noticed crowds gathered in a fun fair-like atmosphere in a small town. As I looked more closely I saw several horsemen lined up for the Fantasia, a contest of desert riders who work as teams to coordinate a canter into a gallop aimed straight toward the crowd. At the height of the intensity of the run, the horsemen raise their rifles in unison and let off a loud musket fire into the air before grinding to a sudden halt rather than stampeding into the appreciative crowd of dignitaries. Opportunities to view the Fantasia in non-tourist settings are rare and we were very appreciative of the good fortune we experienced.

The Fantasia

Once again, finding our hotel, and even the designated parking area gave us more than we bargained for. Roads are not well sign posted, traffic patterns are random at best, and map directions make no sense. We arrived at our riad eventually and had dinner. Later Jonathan and I ventured out into the crazy, over-stimulating, brightly lit, colorful, character-filled streets and alleyways leading to the main square. The Jamaa El-Fna is a huge open space near the Koutoubia Mosque. The square is teeming with life at night. Open restaurants serve freshly cooked meats and vegetables to crowds of people. Orange juice stands abound. Nearby street musicians share space in the dark with calligraphers, magicians, snake charmers, monkey-handlers, vendors, beggars, tourists and locals. 

We wandered through some of the nearby souks in the medina amidst the bustle of people, bicycles, carts, motor scooters, donkeys, devotees headed to prayer, shoppers looking for late night bargains and even a man getting a midnight shave. I think the correct word is “overstimulating.”

Children playing at night in the Medina in Marrakech