Morocco Part 2: Team IRE On Tour - Day 1 and 2

I didn't write up my inaugural trip to Morocco, mostly because it was such a blur of activity, the likes of which my body had never known. My body has now known that level of activity at least once since, possibly twice. Less dawdling Myooran/Ron and more "day one..."

Day one

Arriving well early for the flight as the last time I flew I was literally the last one on the plane. Parking was a doddle, I did make eye contact with a lady and her mother whilst putting my belt back on, post having to take it off for the metal detectors, they had to throw away my sun cream! I grabbed a Guinness, a sandwich, and sat at gate 55, waiting for it to open. The gate was changed at the last minute, the priority boarding queue was longer than the regular queue!

Let's jump to landing in Marrakesh, it's warm, a balmy 20 something degrees celcius. I hop on the airport wifi, drop Issi a message about my whereabouts, and head for the exit. Badr is waiting for me, airport pickup/drop off, he compliments my pronunciation of his name and asks if I speak Arabic. I tell him I learnt three words/phrases. "Hello", "thank you", and "let's go", apparently the only three phrases you need in any language. He grabs the number of our Airbnb host and gives him a ring, there's some confusion between the one company knowing me as Ron and the other knowing me as Myooran, that old chestnut... We chat and before we know it arrive at the accommodation, a gated community, and are waved through by security. After some wrangling in Arabic by Badr.

Pulling up to block G5, Badr and I part ways. I message Issi, ignoring Badr's suggestion to call her, her reply reads "ok I'm here" I see a petite silhouette at the end of the row of front doors. Approaching we wave and I'm ushered inside, and informed Ed has headed to the gate to fetch me. It transpires that our Airbnb host had rang them immediately after speaking to Badr, near the airport, and told the Holdens that I was at the front gate, I wasn't even close.They'd sent Ed as it had been a bit of a kerfuffle to gain access to the gated community, but they didn't have Badr on their side!

We chat for a bit but it's past midnight and there's a lot on Ed's Marrakesh list, so Issi goes to bed and we follow suit.

Day Two

I noticed voices, the father daughter duo were up and I hopped in the shower, freezing, meditated, and joined them downstairs. The plan was breakfast, followed by a wander into the city, through the tanneries. We were well versed in the various scams etc that tourists were targeted by. This road's closed, follow me, etc. As we exit our riad Ed feeds the fish, we have fish! And then I'm introduced to one of several cats Ed has befriended.

Ladies and Gentlemen - Moped Cat

Over breakfast we discuss where to go, what to do, who to ignore, etc. Ed attracts more cats. Breakfast is quite the spread of tea, coffee, flat bread, omelettes, juice, pastries, jam, honey, oil, butter, and dairy lea style cheese. All for the low low price of 30 dirhams, about £2.50! Ed expounds his new found love of mint tea, but it has to be sweet aka mint honey. Turns out we are not all that skilled when it comes to keeping honey off our hands, legs, etc. So the executive decision is made to head back home, we're all calling home, and hose ourselves down.

Freshly hosed down we get this show on the road and head out to the tanneries.

That's vaguely what day two looked like, walking wise.

The southward line from Riad El Mamoune is how we began. Walking down we smell the unmistakable aroma of goat/sheep/lamb. A smell we all enjoy but this was in a concentration that almost made me grimace. Entering a tannery we are immediately taken in by a kindly local man, he hands us some mint, in case the smell becomes too much. I missed what the mint was for and thought it was a visual aid to reinforce the idea of mint being used to dye skins green. He explains a few things about how pigeon guano, mint, etc. are used to dye the skins, then we're led to another site. En-route we are shown how machines are used to process big skins. At the other site chemicals are used, dudes are knee deep in the stuff. Issi is led up to a balcony, so she can get a photo. Ed and I awkwardly wait downstairs.

Reunited we are led to a shop, we browse but buy nothing. The energy of the shop was great, no fast talking salesmen, no pressure, no muss, no fuss. Our "guide" directs towards the square and then asks for a some money, I give him exactly how much he asked for. Not the frugal move the Holdens were going to make...

Onwards, I think we wandered for a bit before stopping to grab a juice, perhaps a snack. Heading straight for the terrace we are greeted by a friendly fellow who asks if we're American, and tells me I remind him of a certain William "Fresh Prince" Smith. I shrug it off as I do not do well when complimented. Issi and I opt for fruity snacks and juices, Ed goes for a caramel crepe, and I want to say another mint tea. I also befriend a tiny spider.

Tiny spider, about the size of three money spiders.

This social butterfly would visit all of us before disappearing in the Moroccan ether. We finish up, settle the bill, forget to grab another bottle of water, and head out. There was also a welcome, if brief, interaction with some fellow British travellers. After some good natured chat one of them issued a threat to all would be muggers, tricksters, "guides", informing them to come and have a go if they think they're hard enough, she's from Scotland! I should mention that we've all got those metal flask bottle thingies. But we're buying bottled water to refill them thus not having that environmental impact that we so crave. Also Ed's has House Stark direwolf heads adorning it, Eddard Holden!

We are rather close to the Ben Youssef mosque and madrasa, we somehow manage to miss the school and the mosque. We stumble upon Le Jardin Secret, and head in. They hand us some information leaflets post ticket purchase.

Like father like daughter, two peas in a pod!

Picking ourselves up before we slump till the end of time, we walk on, a short was. Before Ed and I stare up at the nuts from a particular tree. We play ball and keep our identical postures whilst Issi takes a picture. I erroneously identify the tree as a young baobab, and riff on the idea that that could be here after all current civilisation crumbles, they have been observed to live for 2,500 years. We wander, read, stare, snap.

It's all rather lovely and peaceful. The discussion goes that if we did live in a bustling city like Marrakesh then we'd want to do it somewhere like here. Spacious, peaceful, personal turtle pond. But it does bring back idea that wealth buys you distance from poverty. There are people struggling to get by outside these walls but once you're inside you'd never know. Predictable move on my part I know, bringing it to a heavy place. We move on.

Why's this here?

We loop round but not before we see this rather interesting fountain:

We swing by the turtles once more and make our way to the exit. I should mention that we did a fair bit of Souk wandering throughout the day. They are not mapped well and once you're in one up is down, left is right, but not always, sometimes left is north west. But Issi makes it look easy and we get out and stumble into the main square. Where we set about the serious business of purchasing some juice. There are a lot of juice stands, practically identical, next to each other. The only thing separating them is the razzmatazz of the sales folk. We settle on one at the end but not before the guy next to it tries to split our group. We decline. He then goes on to shout abuse at us, an interesting sales gambit that proved unfruitful #CallingSomeoneHitlerRepeatedlyDoesNotMakeThemWantToBuyFromYou

I opt for kiwi juice and our juice salesman has to borrow a kiwi from the shouty one we didn't pick.

Copy and paste Feat Ed Holden

With our juice in hand we wander over to one of Ed's favourite mosques, it definitely made his top five. Koutoubia, it's hefty, imposing, impressive, there's a digital sign explaining how many kwh of power have been produced by the cities solar array. Circling left we spot a construction site, expansion perhaps. There are lots of holes in the walls, I posit they are for pigeons, like dovecots back in the UK. The Holdens are not convinced.

Disposing of our empty juice cups in an overflowing bin, we head across the road to a restaurant with a terrace. Issi and I opt  for a beer Ed's on the juice wagon. I wanted a speciale flag, but they were all out, so we doubled up on Casablanca. We would sit there for a few hours where I felt I talked a little too much. We go through 3 big bottles of water and may've sat through the gap between their lunch and evening service. Thoroughly conversationed out Issi suggests we hit the square before Sky bar to catch the sunset. Square wandering becomes quite fraught, the food stalls are up and with them come salesmen of next level aggression. Right up in your face pushing menus, chatting nonsense. One stood out as my favourite. A young slim lad, leans in and tells me I look good, but too skinny, I need to eat something quick.

We push through and hit the street that should be a straight shot to Sky bar at the Renaissance hotel. If you go back to the map it's the big north westerly line that ends at the hotel. Sunset is in about 45 minutes, it should take 35 minutes to walk there. So we saunter along at quite a brisk but leisurely pace. As the sun dips in the sky, hitting the top of the buildings, throwing shadows, we realise that we may have cut this a little too fine. Issi increases the pace, we keep up, I push on a little faster, then faster still. The road just seems to keep on going. Issi spots a cafe called Les Negociants. Crossing the street we burst into the hotel and I think we must've stared at the staff super intensely. We are instructed to use the lift through some saloon doors. A couple is exiting the lift as are entering, we write a brief fictional history for them that they had just watched the sunset and were off to gallivant around town. Up we go and there's a set of stairs before we get to the top, there's a table in the corner with a view of the setting sun. Mission accomplished.

I get a round in, mostly because this was my idea and I'd made the Holdens all but run here in 30 degree heat. I opt for a speciale flag again, only to be told it's sold out! One day... We sit sip, I grab photos of the setting sun. A couple of Aussie girls come stand too close to our table so they can watch the sun set. Once it'd set we sit and chat, partly because it's a nice location, partly so we can recover a little after the speed walk.

Not bad eh? We drink up, settle our tab, and head out. I had mentioned that I'd pinned a restaurant last time. Lots of good reviews, I had no further details. For all the power of my uber memory, it doesn't do requests. We arbitrarily decide to go there, the Marjorelle district. It's getting darker and apparently I didn't slow down, keeping a similar breakneck pace all the way there. We passed a lot of street food vendors, and we end up where Dar Yacout should be. It's not there. We are approached by a young man, who tells us they always close on Mondays and Tuesdays. Even if they were open you can only go in with a reservation, and even then the average cost is 700 dirhams per person, about £60.

He tells us there is a nice place to eat nearby, I can see it on the map, and just like that we have another "guide". Less than five minutes and we are at Riad Amina. We've picked up one of our "guide's" friends, they want payment, I hand Ed a 20 to give them. They tell us it's too much, I get all heartened, it turns out they meant it's not enough. The boss lady at the Riad looks ready to shut the door on them, an old fellow appears and starts arguing on their behalf. Ed settles it, like the elder statesman he is. And we are ushered in to the dining room. It's a classic courtyard but this one has a glass domed roof. We are given menus Ed goes for a lemon chicken tagine, Issi goes for a chicken pastilla, and I opt for the sweet chicken tagine.

We chat and realise that the glass roof is greenhousing the rooms temp right up. I arbitrarily mention I want to do a half marathon. Issi says I could run with here on the one she's doing next September, I shrug it off as I don't think I'll ever be able to keep pace with the long distance powerhouse that is Issi Holden. I've set myself the deadline of April 2020, and now it's in writing. A little more long distance talk and Ed regales us with how Nephew Oliver once ate three dinners: Mcdonalds, Pizza, and then fish and chips!

The food arrives and it's outstanding, sweet savoury, seasoned well, tender chicken, my compliments to the chef and even the "guide" who brought us there. We chat, sip water, see some residents of a riad arrive etc. We settle up and head out but not before planning a route. The loose idea is to hit a main road then taxi it back. It's a little twisty, dark, and the area whilst not run down was not the shiny face that the city presents. I apparently maintained my killer pace, unintentionally. And we find a taxi! But it's already got customers. We walk on and before we know it we're at the Pizzorno depot, close to home. Spirits lifted I intentionally slow down and we saunter back.

Tired we buy some water and hit the hay, a classic holiday, Team IRE on tour.