Marrakesh - 28 April 2008

Marrakesh - April 27, 2008

That was an amazing exciting and ultimately frustrating day. Not enough time to find out how it really feels to travel there. I was glad for the long coach trip from Casablanca to Marrakesh on the new highway and some quiet time to just see and absorb the surroundings. Lots to be seen, modern cities and older villages, lovely estates and small hovels. Many people using donkeys and other farm animals for farming and transportation.

On the road, however, modern cars and trucks and motorcycles, enjoying a lovely drive out in the countryside. The earth changes its colors and at points is very red, other times a more yellow color, and the colors of the buildings change accordingly.

Marrakesh is very modern in parts, with lovely new apartment buildings, although a certain sensibility to the traditional forms and colors, perhaps by imperial decree.

Inside the walls of the old city and inside the Medina, a different story. Narrow and wonderfully confusing passageways with lots of shops and riads and arches and doorways.

It would be so much fun to just wander around and not worry about the constraints of time or of the group. A much too short time for shopping and to pick out a few little but colorful spice dishes. No time really to search for treasures, despite the many interesting shops. A taste of the exotic in the many colorful spices on display, and of course, the square, the marvelous Djemaa-el-F'na, with its snake charmers even in the bright light of day. I wonder what it is like to be there in the magic evening time and to have your fortune told in the middle of the Night Market of Marrakesh.

Would you like my mask,
Would you like my mirror,
Cries the man in the shadowing hood.

You can look at yourself,
You can look at each other,
You can look at the face, the face of your God.

-- Loreena McKcKennitt, lyrics from Marrakesh Night Market

I do not need the fortuneteller to tell me that I will be back.