El-Jadida to Marrakesh: the Jemaa el-Fnaa

In the morning, a last excellent breakfast, tipped Hachim 600 Dh for his special care of us, and he hailed us a petit taxi for the train station. At the station I bought two tickets to Marrakesh via Casablanca, first class, and we waited about an hour for the train.

First class to Casablanca was virtually indistinguishable from second class – hot and stifling with no air conditioning and inoperable windows. To our relief though, the train came in to Casa Voyageurs station, so we didn’t have to transfer via taxi to another station as we were expecting to have to do. Casa Voyageurs was a modern, clean station where we waited on the platform for another hour or so.

The train to Marrakesh was a vast improvement – a compartment with six comfortable seats and air con. We were joined in our compartment by an Australian couple from Melbourne, just arrived, whom we chatted happily with for an about an hour until, unfortunately, the guy was waylaid in the corridor by some slick English-speaking tout (‘Melbourne! I have a friend in Melbourne!”) who used ye olde “I work for Contiki Tours” gambit and soon had all manner of information about his gullible Australian target. He then came into our compartment with some crap about it being his seat (the seats weren’t allocated) and plonked himself down between Carol and the Australian’s wife.

Carol immediately put on her dark glasses and curled up against the window, I grunted at him and retreated into the Lonely Planet, and the tout sat there, frozen out, for half an hour. Finally he got up and left and we told the others he was a scam; but to our surprise he returned to sit with us in an uncomfortable silence another half hour.

Finally he got the message, gave up and left, and the atmosphere in the cabin thawed again. If there’s one thing that really annoys me it’s the offensive brand of long-winded, pre-planned fakery in an attempt to get you into their hotel or shop or whatever. What a crappy way to make a living.

Anyway, outside the window the passing country had been turning more desert-like as the miles passed; and thankfully less like country NSW in the middle of a drought. Eucalyptus trees gave way to palm trees, and endless rows of salmon-coloured concrete apartment blocks, looking like a scene from some post-apocalyptic science fiction film, heralded the approach of Marrakesh.

We said goodbye to the Australian couple, and waited for a while in the very modern and clean Marrakesh train station for our driver from Riad Magi, where we’d booked 3 nights acommodation.

A short, round-faced Moroccan man arrived and took us to a van, and we drove along a wide boulevard lined with international hotels and through the medina walls into the old city. And suddenly, there were tourists everywhere.

Stopping at the far end of the Jemaa el-Fnaa, the famous ancient square that is the heart of the medina, to wait for some other guests, I was astonished by the streams of tourists wandering about, fat fish swimming blindly in a stream to be plucked out by hundreds of enterprising Moroccans. As usual, the lack of respect that some tourists – especially female tourists in their 20s – show when travelling in countries with different cultures is hard to believe. Does anyone really think that tiny hot pants and tank tops are appropriate attire for a wander through an Islamic city?

The other guests didn’t appear, so our bags were transferred to a hand cart and a man pushed it across the huge Jemaa el-Fnaa with us in tow. Even in the late afternoon it was a scene of absolute chaos. People, horse-drawn carriages, stalls, performers and especially motorbikes covered the square.

For the moment we were focussed on getting to our room however, and after one stop to transfer all his money to his boss, and another to move our bags into a smaller hand cart, our guide eventually took us down a crowded, covered alley at the far end of the square, then left into a narrow passage, right, then right again, and finally to an ancient-looking low door behind which was our haven in Marrakesh.

Riad Magi is just right – authentic, clean, and still retaining an original charm. Our smiling host Ibrahim gave us the choice of 3 rooms, and after much indecision we chose a turquoise- painted one on the second level at the end of a narrow veranda. The riad, unlike the dars where we stayed in Fez which were townhouses with a central interior courtyard, has a courtyard in the middle open to the sky, with a (dry) fountain in its centre and 4 lemon trees whose leaves fill the space. It’s quiet except for the songs of little birds who flit through the trees and roost under the eaves.

After resting for a bit and drinking mint tea, we headed out to the Jemaa el-Fnaa. Night was falling and the plaza was now full of brightly-lit food stalls – not the dodgy local stalls I was expecting, but ones manned by waiters and cooks in white, with beautiful display of fresh food and big smoking grills. Around them were scores of stalls, restaurants with terraces full of people, people squatting in their little spaces on the cobblestones selling fortunes or henna painting or plastic trinkets, large carts whose sides had been converted into stunning displays of nuts and figs and fruits, musicians, performers (including cross-dressing belly dancers), endless touts, and tourists, thousands of tourists.

Dodging the ever-present motorcycles and motor scooters, we chose a restaurant on the edge of the square and had a simple dinner and then wandered through the madness for a while.

We had one annoying tout who called me a ‘jackass’ when I didn’t respond to him, but apart from that, the hassling was good-natured and minimal, and certainly far, far less than we’d been led to believe.

Tired and worn out, we got a relatively early night, leaving the Jemaa el-Fnaa to continue its endless rituals, as it has every night for hundreds of years.