A Relaxing Day in North Africa

I was woken up by the local mosques playing some prayers over their loud speakers, which pleasantly reminded me of being woken up by the bellringers on a Sunday when I lived on the Bailey in Durham. It’s funny how Abrahamic religions are so similar.

I began the day by the side of a fairly busy road, where I stopped at a cafe for a coffee.

It’s interesting how many of the really busy coffee shops here are right by or at the junction of really busy roads. I wonder what’s going on there.

It felt quite a lot like a bazaar in Pakistan actually. The cafe was full of middle aged or old men, sat around smoking and drinking coffee. There was a lot of noise. Car horns beeping and people talking and yelling. Cities like this really make you appreciate the clean air zones we have in Britain - I’ve taken in a lot of fumes in the last 48 hours!

I got a coffee and settled down to read my Bellingcat book. As I did, I heard a scream as a woman was hit by a motorbike. She didn’t fall over, but was very angry at the driver and stopped him from leaving. They both then stood there in the middle of the road yelling at each other for a good 10/15 minutes.

Eventually a police officer showed up, shooed the motorcyclist away and brought the woman to the side of the road to sit down and have some water. A crowd gathered round her, which she seemed to quite enjoy, and the police officer wandered off to get his shoes polished by a man on the side of the road! The lady walked off shortly afterwards.

I enjoyed the coffee - it’s called coffee cream nesnes and is half coffee and half foamy milk. It doesn’t leave much to be desired on its own, but the sugar made it nice. I’m not sure you’d want to drink it on its own, but then sometimes I’m not sure you want to drink most espresso on its own either…

As I wandered down the street, I saw a man go straight into the back of another woman, this time on her own motorbike!! He tried driving off, but this woman wasn’t having it and grabbed onto him. He tried knocking her over but she dragged him onto the street and very quickly a large crowd assembled. I figured that that was probably a good point for me to slip away rather than get caught up in it.

I was heading down to the business district, Gueliz, and the train station. I always think you can learn a lot about the feel of a city from those. There was a strong French element here that was much more obvious than in other parts of the city. Very Parisian street design, and the station itself is called Gare du Marrakech (à la Gare du Nord in Paris and across France).

It was cool though, and there were two McDonalds and a surprising amount of East Asian food! I had a McDonalds to try the Big Tasty and because I’ve only ever had one halal McDonald’s but this was pretty underwhelming to be honest. This is interesting because the Big Mac I had in Istanbul last year was quite good. Maybe it’s different from country to country.

After this, I wandered over to Jardin Majorelle and the YSL museum since they were the next nearest landmark. The gardens had a huge queue which I didn’t fancy waiting in, so I hopped on over to the YSL museum which had no queue. I got myself a £10 ticket and had a nice wander round. It wasn’t huge, but interesting to learn more about Yves Saint Laurent and his connection to Marrakesh. I’d spent a lot of the morning listening to the Acquired podcast episode on LVMH, where Yves started after Christian Dior died, so I had a fairly good idea of what was going on.

After that, I decided to wander back towards the old city, and sat in another busy roadside cafe for a can of Coke and to finish my Bellingcat book. The walking here is good fun, but it doesn’t help that they’ve dug half of the place up and some of the buildings look like they’ve been bombed. I think the former is because they’re trying to build the country up ahead of the 2030 World Cup which Morocco is hosting (Editor’s Note: stay tuned for a fun update on this in tomorrow’s edition…), but I can’t quite work out what’s happening with the latter. There was an earthquake here a few years ago but these destroyed buildings seem far too isolated for that.

I popped back into the Airbnb for a bathroom break and sat up on the terrace for a bit, reading this NLP book I’ve been holding onto for months. It isn’t very good, so I skimmed through it at a fairly rapid pace.

I then left and got some mint tea in one of the markets in the Medina. I wonder if they call them souks here (Editor’s Note: yes, they do). It was good tea and I got through more of my book here.

I wandered through the souks for a good while after that. I’d done it a bit last night, but they were closing around then. It was a good wander and there were some interesting things like wooden sweet boxes that only opened when you twisted them a certain way. It was very impressive and a merchant told me a very elaborate story about how his dad hand made them all. I did then see three other shops with the exact same things though, so I’m somewhat suspicious.

Eventually I ended up at a cafe just off the main square where I got a tagine and a cheese omelette. A weird combo, but they had it recommended in the menu so I figured there was some rationale, although I’m not sure what. The tagine was good, a bit like a chicken curry that my mum makes but with fewer spices. It’s a very good problem to have, but having grown up eating Pakistani food which I’d argue is the most seasoned in the world, most other food does feel a bit bland. Nonetheless, a very good dinner and national dish!

I spent dinner sat next to an old French guy who was also alone so we got chatting. He’s from Paris, lives in the 12th near his son and daughter, a retired hospital bureaucrat who’s been to Morocco three times this year and once drove his car here from Paris! He also dislikes Macron because he protects Europe but not France, whereas Trump protects the US first. He doesn’t know much about Yves Saint Laurent. We had a nice chat, he was good company and he ordered lamb chops which came with chips and a salad that included eggs and mayo.

Afterwards, I ventured down to the Bahia Palace and tried to head west but very quickly realised that there was nothing to see there. The Palace itself was just tall, imposing walls, and when I got round it, there was just a road leading into darkness. Satellite mapping shows that it follows along the edge of a cemetery and then basically into the dessert, so I figured probably not one to wander down.

Instead, I kept going round the Palace and eventually found myself back into the midst of some shops. I bought some tropical juice, and began to wander back to the Airbnb. I had a fairly good idea of where I was going, and got myself to the main square and off the main square, and then I took a wrong turn and ended up down a few dead ends which wasn’t helpful, but eventually I found my way. I got some Milka biscuity things on the way back and had those whilst I finished my book on the terrace!