Morocco Part 2: Team IRE On Tour - Day 3

This is the second time I am writing this so forgive me if I'm a little... filled with annoyance.

The day began early, around 0730, giving us enough time to get to Jardin Majorelle before it was brimming with... tourists. We headed out, sans breakfast, to get our garden on. Issi leading the charge, with Ed and I enthusiastically cheer leading.

That's vaguely the route we took that day, if that suffices as narrative then no need to read on. Otherwise, do the thing. The Jardin Majorelle is in the top left corner of the map with our accommodation at Riad El Mamoune to the right. It was a fairly uneventful walk, folk beginning their days. Off to school, work, etc. Waiting for a lift or catching the bus. The last leg of the journey was navigated by spotting a small smattering of tourists heading down a side street, a sure indication of a tourist attraction! We overtake and duly join the back of a short queue, mmm the British in their element. A few folks go rogue and form their own queue, I stare fiercely, the buckle under the pressure of my gaze/realise there's a queue that they'd overlooked. I would later learn that we'd all stared disapprovingly, so alike.

Ed hops forth and gets us tickets, we move off, only to be called back by the ticket lady. She'd mistakenly sold us two tickets when Ed had asked for three. Why? Have a guess! I suspect because one of these things is not like the others, or I was stood slightly further back and she made an assumption based on... reasons.

Once we're in and it's cool, and immediately darker. Again I feel that total disconnect between the city and what's happening here. Ed had told me the previous night how Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Berge had restored the gardens. There's a monument to the former, that we saw. Lots of big ol' trees and a surprising amount of leaf graffiti!

There's a koi pond, I tell the Holdens how koi are quite gullible and if you wriggle your fingers in the water they'll come and have a nibble. Issi enthusiastically whispers "Do it, do it, do it!" I acquiesce to her request and flap my hand in the water, not before checking to see if the coast was clear. No dice, ignored, rejected, crestfallen, I notice there are small food pellets floating in the water... let's move on.

We find our new favourite game, it's called match the silhouette of the plant on this sign to the plant you can see. I don't have a picture of the silhouette sign so here's an approximation using an actual photo:

Like this but not...

So the sign looked like the pic above, but in line silhouette, with the plants, often, in the exact same place, if you look up from the sign. But sometimes things had changed, plants grew, died, were moved, etc. We got totally confused from time to time till one of us spotted a detail, flower colour, leaves, etc. It also took us much too long to realise that big flowers that appeared to be growing close to the ground were water based lily things, we know what we're doing. Issi declared such and such was here favourite, only for that favourite to be usurped moments later by another favourite. My personal fave was a funky mutant cactus that looked like it had gone all sorts of wrong.

Funktacular right? All sorts of wrong but all sorts of beautiful too. If you get the chance, hit this garden, it's well worth it, take your time, drink it in, wander why you're taking so many photos. Ed came to this realisation and said something along the lines of "in three months, these won't matter". Super emo right? And on holiday. Issi brings up comments against photos, in an album perhaps. A picture speaks a thousand words, but with a little context to get the ball rolling, maybe there's more to be seen, remembered etc.

As we cycle through there's a giant fountain that is solely occupied by pigeons.

I count eight pigeons, you?

Moving round we spot a family on their Tuesday morning get the perfect photos with the kids at this garden trip. They're all impeccably dressed, dad is getting a photo of mum and their daughter, overly elaborate camera rig. I suspect Ed is impressed by the setup and troubled by the intent. The kids look totally nonplussed, they are accessories in their parent's "perfect" online world. Ho hum we move on, or at least we tried to! There are a lot of school kids in the way, Issi surlily pushes past them. Ed and I wait, lose patience, try and push past, only to have the group move in unison in the opposite direction to which we wanted to head.

Party on the left, business on the right?

One more highlight before we exit the garden, the picture on the left was physically to the right of the picture on the right. Does that make sense? We build a little story about the smaller more orderly cacti are kids pretending to behave, whilst the more wayward cacti are teens cutting loose. Or adults indulging in some next level cactus orgy, the likes of which should totally be blurred out before the watershed. We exit and hit the street. As we do there is a massive queue waiting to get in, turns out our intel was right, arriving mid morning as a basic chump move. A wave of smugness washes over us, ha tourists!

We're on a breakfast mission, we check out a few spots, nothing is really breakfasty so we walk towards the main square. If you go back to the map it's the big straight line from Jardin Majorelle to Medina, probably not quite that straight but close. En-route we see a few likely places, but none are quite right. Then we come across the somewhere that claims to have the highest rooftop in the area, no brainer. The hefty staircase backs up this venue's claim to being the highest rooftop in the area! At the top there's some seating and a few dudes behind the bar. They see us but don't make any move to engage, so we sit down. Shortly afterwards a couple walk in, grab menus, and sit at the opposite side of the roof. I follow suit and deftly grab two food and one drinks menu, smooth af. I get an avocado juice, and we go for two khlea omelettes, and a cheese omelette. Khlea I would later find out is also knows as Morocco's mystery meat...

A gaggle of older ladies huff, puff, and stumble their way in. Ed laughs loudly, outrageous flirt that he is. I forgot to bring up an archaic law of Morocco, no building can be taller than the palm tree. Except mosques, for... reasons. I spotted a fair few palm trees that were taller than the rooftop we were on, they could totally go up another foot. Now that we're fed we feel up to the challenge of touristing that lay before us.

Like father like daughter...

Just like that we are hurtling into the centre of Marrakesh yet again, passing through the square was less of an ordeal this time. Either they recognised us, or we got a little accustomed to it. We're heading straight for El Badii Palace. As we approach I recognise the colour of the stone and the walls, this is stork country. I leap forth and buy tickets and hand them out, only to realise the ticket check guy is right there, and I had just trebled his ticket tearing workload. I apologise, he smiles and waves us on. We haphazardly walk towards this:

Stork central right?

It's big, imposing, defo gives off the vibe that someone was compensating for something... Ed steps over a collapsed chain that a man is trying to repair, get's called back, almost falls, recovers. We walk around, up some stairs and are a little winded. The consensus is that it's hotter than yesterday. We read the smattering of boards, sit in a little cinema room, perhaps, or I'm getting mixed up with another day. Then I spot some red dragonflies! The Holdens are not on board with my insectoid enthusiasm.

Not great but I did almost get down on my knees to get this shot...

A hop, skip, and jump, and we're out of El Badii. We need lunch, well we need a sit down. So we find a likely restaurant and head upstairs, it's opposite Kozybar, where I had celebratory last night beers post Toubkal in May! Once we arrive we are lead to the terrace and settle for some juice, veggie tagine, and a traditional chicken and noodle dish. I forgot to mention last time that the terraced restaurants in Marrakesh have a misting sprinkler system to cool you down. This one had a particularly erratic, jazz rhythm to their delivery. This led to us hanging out for the next spritz... I started doing some chair based, shoulder only chair dancing, Issi bursts out laughing, not at my dancing, but at her being so out of it she joined in on the shoulder dance trend I was trying to start.

Orange trees, kicking it in the El Badii courtyard

The food took a while to arrive but we got some freebies while waiting, very nice. The staff were great, the portions generous and generally a good time. We eat up, settle up, and ship out. Onwards to Bahia, but it's a little late to see the whole palace so we try the Jewish cemetary.

That may sound odd but the city is famous for having two populations of strongly religious communities living in close proximity, with no enmity. The old fellow at the admission desk glances at his watch as we hand him our donation. And we're off, Issi and I one way, with Ed forging his own path. It's jarring, a place of such peace in the centre of the city. Similar to the other places we've visited in it's separateness but totally different too. Two dogs give me a brief uplift from how heavy the atmosphere is, they are very chill and don't really want anything to do with me. The graves towards the entrance are unmarked, but as we walk through there are some with names, dates, details. One with a photo, the children's section is another level of sombre. Walking through we meet back up Ed, he'd done a perimeter sweep. We saw a large building, perhaps Rabbi's resting place. Circling back round, we spot some graves have small stones placed on them, we wander what the significance is. Before long we are back at the entrance. Time to leave, the old fellow is no where to be seen, we are the last people there.

The plan is to head back home, refresh, perhaps a swim, then hit town for a nice dinner. Swift walk back, easy peasy. We see some kids playing after school sport, very nostalgic. Once back we grab some water, shoot the breeze a bit, before deciding to split up, freshen up, and re-converge. I hand washed some clothes, stretched, showered, changed, laid down, and sprung down stairs. We're looking sharp, especially Issi's stripy trousers. And we're off into the night, with no water bottles, radical. En-route we see people gathering on the grass verges on the side of a main road, odd but also very picnic-ish. We see an old fella lovingly holding onto a small tree, so gentle.

It get's a little twisty, through some less well to do areas. I occasionally spot slim young man transporting larger middle aged ladies on scooters, boys giving their mother's a lift! We pass a homeless fellow, struggling with some issues, onward. Then there's something I've never seen before, at the side of a busy road a lady is spinning thread from thinner threads!

It's attached near where we're standing and she's towards where the motorbike is! Before long we're at Naranj, a friendly man asks if we have a reservation, we do not, he says we'll have to wait 45 minutes, I'm game but the Holdens eat at normal times, and have a concept of time, it's already a little later than we'd hoped to be out for. Walking back Issi spots a likely dinner venue, Un Dejeuner a Marrakech, we walk in and ask if we can sit upstairs. The smiley lady behind the counter asks us if we can wait whilst she makes a call. We chill as she's speaking with the terrace, a group walk in, a family by the looks of it with their guide. Once she's done with the call she shakes the guides hand, they chat, laugh, and are dealt with. We feel a little left out, but she apologises and says we can sit downstairs if we like. We do but not before awkwardly moving two tables together.

The menu looks good, we decide on a shared starter, burger for the lady, two variations on candied beef for the gents. The front of house boss lady returns to tell us we can sit on the terrace if we like, and apologises for moving us! We are very happy to be outside, up high, in the breeze, and thank her. Once sat down I spot a noteworthy cactus structure.

Any guesses why I had to take a picture?

We order, a little confusion about the shared starter but it's sorted. All rather tasty, smoky thing is my fave, Ed loves the sweet thing:

One that's right at the top. Sounds rather tasty right?

We demolish it and our mains arrive. The star situation is not great but it's a city, light pollution kills the night's sky. There's a brief quiz about which mosque is which, I'm confident we got nothing right. The mains are good, we mention how we're a little out of place here. Fine dining-ish establishment. We all stick with our mains, offering options to try with zero takers. Issi is struggling to finish as they've been very generous with her "homemade potatoes". Once we'd finished I spotted a waiter beelining for our table to clear it, as he did so Ed and I both reached for Issi's plate to help with the "homemade potato" situation. He stopped, heel turned and went about his business. The "homemade potatoes" were good! We grab some teas and coffees before settling up and heading home.

The walk back is more or less the walk there, but in reverse. Issi's navigating is on point. Lots of people still chilling on the grass near the main road. A young man is wearing almost identical stripy trousers to Issi. We are back home, chilling like some villains. We hang for a bit, I eat my last Kind bar, decide to get up a little later, and head to bed.

Team IRE on tour, day 2/3 complete!

Feel the fury!