Day 18: Evening - Marrakech at night

After a quick cup of tea we are off again. We are all so tired, but being their last night Jaime and Tom don't want to miss anything! So we head off into the city of Marrakech. As we draw nearer, the traffic becomes more and more heavy...and we are glad to be ushered into a parking space near to the Koutoubia mosque. The parking attendant is gesticulating wildly to us as we walk away having parked the car - we finally deduce from my broken French that he wants us to give him the keys and take the handbrake off! To prove a point he nudges the car parked next to ours and it rolls forward! He explains further that the reason for this is that if someone wants to get out of the car park but is hemmed in, he just rolls the cars forward to enable that person to get out! We tell him that the car isn't ours so we are not going to do anything he has suggested - Why would anyone do this anyway, we ask ourselves...so we return to the car and move further into the same car park to find another place to park. This time, we find a 'normal' space and park up. Mart tells the parking attendant here that we will stay for three hours, 'trois heures' he says a few times repeatedly...the lad replies 'What? No problem!' - so much for Mart's attempts at basic French!

Koutoubia mosque

We have a lovely view of the Koutoubia all lit up at night as we walk by, and the path is getting busier as we approach the main square. Suddenly Jaime notices a man has come running up behind us and is now sitting further along the path with his hand held out begging. We are amused at this but reckon he is just trying his luck with the foreign tourists; I'm further amused when I turn around and he is now walking back along the path in the opposite direction...doesn't look like a beggar now at all! You find all sorts of people in Marrakech.

The next obstacle is crossing the main road; Jaime clings to me as the traffic lights turn to red for traffic to stop - we don't want to be lulled into a false sense of security though...we know that traffic lights mean very little to motorbikes, push bikes, donkeys with carts, coaches, buses etc...so we negotiate those vehicles carefully and finally arrive safely on the road leading to the world-famous Djemma El Fna.

The Djemma El Fna is a square and market place in Marrakech's old city, its name meaning 'Assembly of the Dead'. In olden times apparently, the heads of people who had been beheaded after wrongdoings were brought to this very square on poles and paraded for all to see, hence the name. Now it is a place of heritage and is protected by UNESCO as a place of cultural expression. During the day, as described in a previous post, it is occupied mainly by orange juice sellers, young men with monkeys on chains, snake charmers and water sellers, but by night it becomes something else altogether. Now it is full of Berber dancers, musicians, old men surrounded by locals telling traditional stories in the Berber language with a great deal of animation, and peddlers of traditional medicines. We even see one man playing a Guembri to an appreciative crowd with a live chicken balanced on his head! Alongside this scene, however, are people selling 'Amazing helicopters' which when catapulted high into the night sky light it up in shades of blue before falling to the ground. Tom just has to buy one of those. Also for sale are individual packs of tissues sold by snotty-nosed young boys who can be no more than five years of age, as well as biscuits and balloons. Jaime is shocked at how young the children are who are wandering through the crowds selling things - and even more shocked when one little boy says 'F*** You' when she doesn't buy a pack of his tissues! The spectacle has to be seen to be believed.

Tom's Amazing Helicopter

After meandering through the crowds we decide it is time to have something to eat. Fortunately for us, another major part of the scene here at night are the mobile food stalls which set themselves up every evening at dusk, just as the sun sets, so we head through the crowds towards these. As we approach the stalls we are bombarded at each with the sales patter of the young men who work there...all are in competition with each other to attract custom. One shakes hands with us as he thrusts his menu under our noses, another asks where we are from and begins to quote authors such as Thomas Hardy, Charles Dickens and famous book titles. Yet another tells us that his name is Abdul Oliver, not Jamie Oliver, and he is a better chef than Jamie! Phrases such as 'We have a 3 year guarantee here', 'air-conditioning', 'bloody marvellous', '24/7 takes you to heaven' are cried out to us as we pass by to get our attention...we take it all in fun and partake in some banter with the young men before finally choosing the guidebook recommendation, stall no 1!!

Stall No 1

We are seated at a long bench with large sheets of paper as place mats, and served flat breads with a spicy sauce and a mild sauce, then we choose chicken brochettes and chips from the menu, along with four cokes. The food is brought to us on saucers - even though the quantity is small, it is very tasty and enough for us after our four course meal at the Kasbah earlier today. When talking to a Welsh couple who sit beside us, Jaime is thrilled to be asked if she is still at school...what a compliment :) She doesn't let us forget this in a hurry! In the midst of all the to-ing and fro-ing of waiters we notice a teenage boy is wandering through the diners holding out to them a flat loaf of bread which has been cut down the middle to open it out, and he is asking them to fill his bread with their food - At first we think he is poor, but then Tom spots his expensive trainers...the boys here are so used to begging that they now do it regardless of need! As we sit minding our own business, a fight breaks out behind us between two teenage boys - it is soon stopped though by the intervention of an adult who slaps both boys hard and sends them packing. If this was the UK, we ponder, the adult would most likely be stabbed or at least set upon by the lads...somehow, things seem the right way round over here!

A chef hard at work

A smiley Tom

A busy evening for the stall

Fully satiated for the second time today, we set off for a stroll through the souks (market place) where Jaime engages with me in some bartering for a beautiful scarf she has seen, and ends up one happy lady when she walks away with the scarf purchased at a good price and wrapped in a Tesco carrier bag!

Tom's attention is taken by a game of Hoopla in the square. Rows of bottles of pop are set out around a circle and people are given a fishing rod with a hoop at the end, the aim being to hoopla the pop within five minutes...for a small cost of course! This game is very popular with locals, though not many seem to win. The prize is your money back if you succeed. We watch as Tom has a go, but despite his and other's deep concentration, nobody seems to win tonight!

Hoopla

As we continue to stroll we notice that the shops are shutting and Mart suddenly remembers that the gates of the souks are locked by 9pm. There's nothing we can do except hurry along the narrow alleyways, weaving our way left and right, ignoring the shouts of some young lads who want to tell us the wrong way out. We've now left the crowds far behind and there is no-one else in sight - we feel like we are in a TV thriller as we walk faster and faster, following Mart's intuition to find our way out. Finally we reach the gate and civilisation again...nobody in their right mind would want to be locked in the souks overnight!

Where's the way out?

We make our way to the car park, laughing and joking about the various happenings of this evening...when we come across the same 'beggar' as earlier who is now sat on the pavement...Mart gives him some money - even if he isn't a real beggar, he has contributed in some small way to our enjoyable evening.