Rachel Sarah Thurston portrait, events, travel and wedding photography and travel/lifestyle writing

Tales From Morocco 4: "'Slow Travel' in Marrakesh"

January 22nd
Marrakesh, Central Morocco

We've taken an eight hour train to the center of Morocco, the famed city of Marrakesh where Morrocans, Africans, and European foreigner mingle at dusk throughout the Djemaa El Fna, or central plaza in the Old Medina....it's a whirlwind for the senses, a mixture of Africa, Arabia, and a little bit of Las Vegas.....a central plaza filled with thousands of people wandering among stalls offering lamb, beef, and chicken kebabs hot off the grill, bowls of tomato-based 'harira' soup (a specialty soup traditionally drunk to break Ramadaan), loaves of fresh bread, cured and spiced olives, dried apricots, raisins, dates, and nuts, and fresh-squeezed glasses of orange juice and grapefruit (for fifty cents).

Throughout the plaza are crowds (almost all men) gathered around acrobats, musicians playing drums and flutes, monkey trainers, storytellers (where even the men dress up in the female roles) and snake charmers. Meanwhile, young boys walk donkeys by loaded up with goods and both locals 'and visitors alike pay to be taken throughout the plaza by horse-drawn carriage.

Taking On 'Slow Travel'

We've found an incredibly reasonable restaurant that looks out over the Djemaa El Fna and you can sit for hours just watching the theatre unfold. Between Mom and I both getting each other sick on and off with a flu/cold and all the incredible action unfolding around us, we've found little need to hurry ourselves to see a bunch of tourist sights. We've been quite content going to bed around 1 or 2 am (the medina really seems to come alive late at night...probably because most of the year it's so dang hot here...January is the perfect month to come!) and getting out and about by noon or after just to wander through the streets and enjoy all the moments which magically seem to present themselves to us at any moment (sharing soup with a cool Belgian couple, drinking fresh-squeezed orange juice from a vendor), warding off beggars, watching the variety of jellabas and Western dress worn by Moroccan woman as the sun descend over the Djemaa).

We've met some great travelers (only one American so far in over ten days!) and met an especially charming young Dutch couple from Den Hague. The past two nights we've been having great fun eating dinners of baked chicken, soup, and couscous, the strolling through the medina to our favorite gelato shop and feasting on small bowls of the most divine pistachio and chocolate flavored ice cream you could imagine....in addition to visiting the french pastry shops where we order all sorts of strange little cookies covered in sesame seeds and confectioners sugar. Travel can be rough sometimes. Then we end the night with pots of mint tea (that only seems to be caffeinated when you order it late at night!) and have great in-depth talks about Islam and the changing role of women, all the places we want to travel to, our favorite ice cream flavors, gun control in the US, and so on....

Most of the foreigners we've seen are couples and it is rare that we see two women traveling together. I was harassed twice as much in the plaza when I walked with Sophie (who is in her twenties and closer to my age) than when I walk with my mother. We've run into one sweet English girl who came here by herself for a week and has found it to be a quite draining experience. You get constant attention as a woman but if you're with someone, you seem to find a way to deal with it and ignore people at the right times. I can't imagine being here by myself, not fun at all.

We've been researching trips out into the desert on camel back and to a couple of world heritage sites but transport in those rural areas is either really tough and slow or incredibly expensive by private guide. We've found a local agency that takes small groups of backpackers to some of the places we'd like to see (riding on camels and visiting Berber villages) and will be heading out for a three-day trip tomorrow that doesn't break the pocketbook. Morocco can be incredibly expensive but we've managed to keep our costs down by haggling and taking our time to decide on transport and ward off faux guides.

And so, we head to the Sahara tomorrow! A long-awaited dream for me! I have a feeling, like Morocco, it will be very different from what I've imagined-

Thank you to all of you for your emails, I'm slowly reading them and it may take a while to respond but I am elated to know so many people are following our travels from home- Thankyou so much for your messages!

much love and Hamdolillah!,
Rachel and Karen



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