I loved Marrakech- it was my favorite place from this whole trip. We stayed in the medina (Old City), the Muslim part of the French city, in a riad that was both beautiful and peaceful. The courtyard was filled with squishy, colorful couches and young trees that had small birds flitting in their upper branches. After arriving we sat in the soft afternoon sunshine in the small courtyard garden, surrounded by the tinkling sound of the fountain in the center, and enjoyed the best mint tea I've ever had. There were about four rooms in the whole riad, and the people running it were very helpful and kind. Each morning they served us fresh orange juice, crossaints and bread in the courtyard garden.
Leaving our riad and walking through the wide alleyways of the Medina backstreets, it only took us four minutes to get to the Djeema el-Fna square, where we spent most of our time. All day long there are rows and rows of juice stalls, selling freshly-squeezed orange and grapefruit juice for 3 dirham (about 30 cents) a glass. The refreshing and delicious juice was a welcome relief in the hottest part of the day. The sound of drums and instruments of the traditional Berber musicians always filled the square, quieter in the daytime and working up to a frenzy at night when the square is filled with thousands of locals and tourists alike. Snake charmers played whining songs to their cobras, who laid lazily in the sunshine or twined around their necks and hands as they walked around, trying to snare easy tourists into taking pictures with them for a few dirham. Veiled henna artists sat under their umbrellas during the day's heat, collecting into larger groups as the day progressed, calling out to all passerby to adorn their hands and feet with the swirling brown and black ink designs. Traditional dentists sat at tiny tables whose surfaces were covered with large piles of troublesome molars that they pulled from their clients' mouths with huge pliers. We ate dinner on one of the rooftop restaraunts that surrounded the square, watching the square beneath us fill with people as the evening dinner stands were erected, the smoke from their grills snaking up into the darkening sky. After dinner, local couscous with vegetables for me, we joined the crowds of people in the huge square. The benches of the dinner stalls were crowded with people enjoying all kinds of meats including snails that you slurped straight from the bowl. We stopped by the famous Ice Legend, on the south side of the squre, to test some of their homemade flavors of ice cream. After exploring the square thoroughly we returned to our riad to relax on the rooftop terrace which was filled with lounge chairs, couches, and potted palms. The night stars shone in the purple sky above us, the sound of beating drums from the square drifting to our ears on the warm night breeze.
I woke in the morning to the sound of birds chirping in the treetops directly out from our second floor room. The morning air was cool and quiet, the Medina around us silent except for the occasional rattle of a cart being driven or pulled through the alleys. The sweet smell of baking bread rose from somewhere and the far off hoots of owls could still be heard. The soft morning sun was beginning to rise while the half moon still hung in the sky opposite it. After breakfast we headed back to Djeema el-Fna square.
Back in the square we passed the busy juice stalls and plunged into the alleys north of the square, into the souks. The souks, traditional bazaars, were filled with hundreds of tiny shops filled with jewelry, lanterns, leather goods, metal teapots, and billowy clothing. We used our well-practiced haggling techniques to great success with the shop-keepers.
Before leaving Marrakech the next morning we stopped to visit Las Jardines Majorelle. The Majorelle Gardens are famous for their blue architecture and its calm interior is filled with palms and cacti. One of the pond's surfaces is covered with water lilies, their flowers opened wide in the afternoon sunshine, tiny turtles basking from their pads or swimming through the shallow water. Sitting under the shade of some of the palms that fill the gardens, I realized how weird it will be to go home and not be surrounded by palm trees wherever I go.
Our port city of Casablanca is the most important city in Morocco economically and has one of the most famous mosques in the world- the Hassan II Mosque. The mosque took six years to complete, 1987-1993, and was funded completely by donations; about one-third of the donations came from President Hassan II, thus its name. The estimated cost of the museum is over 800 million USD. Our first close up view of the mosque was of the turqouise-covered minaret piercing the midday sky with the pale moon hanging directly over it's tip. The minaret is the tallest in the world at 200 meters high. The mosque itself is 200m long, 100m wide, and 65m tall. The massive cedar ceiling weighs 1100 tons is opened electronically during summer prayers to cool down the mosque's interior. It only takes three minutes to open and two minutes to close. The interior of the mosque is constructed mainly of marble, of cedar to withstand the ocean air and for its pleasant smell, and the doors are of titanium. There are circular glass parts of the floor through which you can see down into the abolution rooms. Behind the niche facing Mecca are the King's private quarters, where a part of the floor over the Atlantic Ocean is glass so he can see the water while he prays. During Ramaddan 25,000 people pray inside the mosque while another 80,000 pray in the courtyard outside. The Islamic-styled scrollwork in the marble was so delicate that it looked as fragile as a seashell. It was so peaceful and beautiful inside; I enjoyed this the most of any monument I've seen on my trip.
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