Ok so this little about Marrakech and......travel guides!
Yes, that’s right, the travel guide; what most of us have our noses stuck in for at least 1 week before we go somewhere new… You have to love the travel guides – especially those city itinerary suggestion or ‘things to see and do’ they have at the beginning ….well I love them. I feel the same way about those city itinerary suggestions as I do recipe books , with those recipes I’ll never make. But in particular it's those elaborate descriptions! A tangle of adjectives with lots of flowery sentences ... oh boy…they do capture the imagination;
In fact one of my favourite relaxation activities is to read recipe books whilst eating my dinner…to my friends who have never seen me cook this is really true. I secretly love cooking but I mainly prepare all my best meals in my head…I love to imagine myself cooking it; serving it …looks so amazing seems so easy when written on the page…ok I digress, but it’s for similar reasons that I love those travel itinerary's.
I love they way they write them, they make a place sound so beautiful, even better than you imagined. Itinerary’s that are so easy to achieve, this wondrous itinerary…you feel a pang of fear at the thought of NOT seeing the Marrakech they are describing…especially as it’s just so easy (!?)… “I’ll be the biggest loser in the world if I don’t see this!!! What was the point of coming? Quick, quick everyone, let’s get going!”
“Start your day at the action-packed Djemaa el-Fna, and if you can tear yourself away from the castanet-clanging water-sellers and turbaned potion-sellers, head into Marrakesh’s maze of covered market streets. Marrakesh’s souqs are like a cold riad plunge pool on a scorching July day….."
See what I mean…that is an excerpt from a well known and reputable travel guide...and here is another..
“Lose yourself in the fairy-tale souq scenes: potion sellers trading concoctions straight out of Harry Potter, old tins being hammered into Aladdin-esque lamps, cupboard-sized shops packed with spangled slippers worthy of Cinderella… Dive in headfirst at any street headed north off the Djemaa el-Fna, and you’ll emerge exhilarated and triumphant some hours later, carpet in tow… While you’re in the heart of the Medina, you may come upon a palace museum, stay in a riad guest-house, and venture a dish of piping-hot snails. But its worth leaving the charms of the old city occasionally for dinner, drinks, art galleries and fixed-price boutique shopping in the ville nouvelle (the new town)”
Don’t get me wrong this is true and an apt description in many ways but is it me or does that all sound just a tad easy to execute such an experience?
Especially the ‘things to do with 2 days in wherever the place’ it’s all just all bit too … ‘Oh just skip over to the market on blah-blah street, then visit the ancient ruins of la-la-la, followed by a quick bite of snail tangine at the something-something café, then take a donkey over to the so and so gardens, then sip cocktails with the Marrakech cool crowd at sunset on the roof top of the hippest bar in town…’ and I just know that the ‘cool crowd’ are simply dying to have drink with me and I’d feel right at home there with my rolled up trousers splattered with today’s lunch, dusty walking shoes, backpack and dog eared travel guide. Yes just like that, you’ve lived it, experienced it…easy peasy!
But that’s not all, it’s those full and descriptive prose used to describe a particular place; when they say ‘get lost’ in the souqs’ you might think they are just waxing lyrical …’oh yes lose oneself in the colour, the smells, the noise…"
No…wrong! They actually mean it’s lose yourself...literally…lose your bearings, lose your way…lose your patience…lose your mind?
It is certainly an experience to be stood at the noisy mouth of a 3 way road full of cars, bikes, people and cats, in the middle of the souqs after sunset with only the flickering candles in the few shops that were still open to ‘light’ the way... But we are intrepid…we can find our way home with our map (which is essentially just a maze of lines that have no names)… ..WE ARE RESOURCEFUL! WE ARE TRAVELLERS ..DARN IT…"Oooh look a street sign.. (I think)…what does it say…hmmm can’t read it as there are no street lamps! ….…bah! Street lamps! Who needs them....now who amongst the group has a spotlight in their pocket or has eaten a lot of carrots and can now see in the dark ...please raise your hand...."
So as you have gathered, when wandering this city, mainly the souqs, you’ll find yourself walking ..alot. You'll walk this way... then that way...back to this way.. You will also have many men calling out to you ( no, not like that!) ‘closed! closed’... they are trying to tell you is that the direction you are walking is a dead end - even though it isn't at all- so turn around and go their way ...and then you give them some money because they stopped you from getting lost!…hmmmm, well it’s a living I suppose.
But by day two we were getting wise to it, so on this particular day we were on our way to the main square ( Djemaa el-Fna ) and we took the directions we had been given earlier, believing to have been following them we turned and walked down a road. As we walked by a hotel a man who was standing in the doorway called out to us “closed closed”…We looked at each other smugly, we weren't falling for that old chestnut! “Thanks we are ok” we called back and off we padded off along the dusty path for a minute or two with purpose...with confidence..only to find …a dead end!!
But that is part of the fun...that’s why ( I can only assume) I keep buying those travel books, so I can try to not be a ‘tourist’ (which I clearly am) ..yes, that is why I love it!!...and as for Marrakech? Well I can’t wait to go back and get lost all over again!
Oh by the way, if you are wondering what the significance of the title is then you should get yourself over to Marrakech to find out…..Don’t forget your travel guide....
