Marakech.

I will spare you the more general geographical, historical and demographic details about Marakech and will attempt not to crib the guide book. It will suffice to say that Marakech is an old imperial city, with grand walls and palace ruins. Its old town is a warren of little red streets, still with recognisable zones of trades (blacksmiths, weavers etc. etc.) working in tiny worshops in the souks (or markets), some opening out onto the Djemaa el fna, the great square of Marakech. This great square as a public forum, a feature dissapeared from the other cities, is where street entertainers, monkey keepers, snake charmers, orange vendors, and others perform for the sake of the local populace and to the large tourist groups which come there. The old city is brim-full with hassle, either the intentional hand-upon-the-shoulder and the grasping of apparent friendship, or the unintentional colliding force of over-laden donkeys or carreering motorbikes. The motorbikes are the worst of all. They wind in and out of spaces, as bycicles do in Cambridge lanes. Thank God that most cannot afford to have too great a horsepower.

The unwanted attention from many Moroccans in the old town is unrelenting. My defences immediately went up & did not really come down for the whole journey. I got lost several times because I refused in any way to be party to the guidance of a small child running beside me, taking the opposite turnings to the ones that he suggested that I needed to take. I distrusted many acts of seeming kindness, and those to which I relented, or was forced to accept, I considered traps to be sprung days later in towns hundreds of miles distant, when I least expected to be snared. Alone, and without the language (either Moroccan Arabic, Berber or French), I was especially guarded.

There are masses of tourists who come to Marakech. They do not come secretly, but dressed as caricature of western visitors. Yet the brashness of some of these types succeeded where my own quietness failed. I hated the culture of persuasion and physical negotiation which I was met with, as totally alien to my way of life, whereas many of these less discrete tourists seemed better able to healthily enter into negotiation for what they wanted from thier holidays.

Musical performers in the Djemma. Taking this picture was an early mistake, necessarily involving the consequent payment of dihram.















One of the Muslim cemeteries outside the city walls. Nearby men were shovelling plastic waste into large skips set on fire, and the smouldering, acrid fumes drifted overhead.



















The Koutoubia Mosque built in the twelfth century. The footprints of the previous mosque, torn down because it did not face Mecca, stand by it. The area around the Koutoubia was my favourite retreat whilst in Marakech, with several rose gardens adjoining it. Although most of these roses were dead and the gardens rather parched, it was pleasant, if rather melancholy, to sit on one of the benches during the dusk and watch young couples meet and sit together. Marakech is quite young and liberal in terms of the mixing of the sexes, the fashions on display and its liberality, but without the chique and wealth of cosmopolitan Cassablanca or Rabat.



















Sufficient proof of an occupying power.















This gentleman in the Djemaa was positing some relationship between a lady and a primate.