Djemâa el Fna
Part of our planned itinerary was to take an inexpensive flight from Madrid to Marrakech—not even as far as Seattle to Los Angeles. But culturally, it's about as far as the distance between Tokyo and Atlanta.
On the day of our arrival, our first outing was to Marrakech's town plaza, the place where everyone meets, the Djemâa el Fna. No, I can't pronounce it either.
Here, we have the Koutoubia Mosque, the city's largest.
It was built in the 12th century, when most Europeans were still living in wattle and daub houses and almost none could read and write. From our hotel, maybe five times a day, we can hear the muezzin calls that emanate from the tower—a powerful, eerie ululation.
As we walked the streets, Jean remarked "We're not in Kansas anymore." You better believe it.
While we saw some people in western dress, by far the majority wore traditional Muslim costume.
Check out the shoes these girls are wearing.
This man is waiting vainly to cross the street. Nobody yields right-of-way; it's all a bluffing game. How you cross is you step out in front of the speeding cars, mopeds and bicycles. Now that you're in the road, it's yours, and drivers either swerve to miss you (their preferred approach) or they screech to a halt, blowing their horns. It's unnerving.
Mules are still used for hauling, much more here than in Mexico. Many streets are just too narrow for trucks. But some things are the same as in San Miguel: this man demanded money when I took his photo. Note his traditional Muslim sport coat and baseball hat.
At any time of day, thousands of people are milling around the Djemâa el Fna. Many are tourists, and scores of jugglers, fire-eaters, snake charmers and other characters are out to separate them from their money. They are incredibly aggressive.
But ordinary citizens form the bulk of the crowds. The snake charmers don't bother with them. The people are here to buy fruit and vegetables at the open-air stalls or to catch a cheap meal of kefka (meatballs), couscous or harira (tomato soup with chickpeas and lentils).
Smoke from the grills fills the air and smells wonderful. I was ready to sit down at a stall for a nice plate of barbecued goat, but Jean said, "John, I don't want you going into that crowd carrying your wallet."
Fair enough, given that I seem to have trouble protecting it. But I pointed out to her that a major reason we were in Marrakech was to experience markets like this one.
Jean said, "Oh yeah. Right."
She screwed up her courage enough to enter the street food stalls, but opted to wait another night before consuming any actual food.
For those with a hankering for mollusks, we have here a man selling big fat snails. He's scooping some yummy broth in to a bowl of escargot for the customer in the foreground.
There were four of these guys, all in a row, each with a mountain of snails in a huge bowl.
If garden pests don't appeal for dinner, you can always fall back on something ovine. This woman is eating... I don't want to know... while sitting in front of a pair of roasted sheep heads. I would have chosen a different seat, myself.
Our hotel provided us with this lovely basket of dried fruit and nuts in our room. Figs, almonds, dates—biblical food. All we lacked was milk and honey.
The hotel may have bought their supply from this man. (The things on the left that look like intestines are strings of figs.)
All kinds of other stuff can be bought on the Djemâa el Fna. What better time to shop for lamps than after dark. The pierced metal lamps we buy in San Miguel de Allende probably have their origins here in northern Africa.
We did not manage to escape the guys targeting tourists. These guys beat drums and clang cymbals. But musicians they're not. Their entire raison d'être is to pose with you for a photograph. Here Jean wears the hat of the guy kneeling in front.
Click. Whirr. Then the haggling started. They'd like some money for posing. We offered 20 dirhams (about $2.40). They were offended. A hundred at least. After all, there are three of them. We stuck to our guns. One of the guys handed Jean a 50-dirham note. "Here. Take this. It's nothing. Keep it. Now, maybe you'll give us a hundred."
I was proud of Jean. She tried to hand the note back. The guy wouldn't take it. Jean dropped it on the ground along with her 20 dirhams. We walked away to a chorus of insults.
That's how we knew the price was right.