Marrakesh, Morocco
/Marrakesh is a city filled with color. Bright blues, yellows, teals and pinks coupled with dizzying mosaics and symmetrical design make for lots of gorgeous photo opportunities. The city is modern, but at the same time packed with tradition, history and culture.
We spent the first few nights staying in the medina, which is the old Arab or non-European quarter of cities in much of North Africa. Our riad (which is a traditional Moroccan house with an interior courtyard) was in the middle of the souk, a busy, hot and dirty market selling all kinds of wares in narrow alleys. The souk is surprisingly cool, since awnings keep it out of the sun. Still, motorcycles buzzing past us and intense smells of all types made us happy to move to a hotel in the more modern part of the city after a few days.
As mentioned in previous posts, we needed some rest and relaxation after our busy time in Europe. Our hotel had a massive pool with a bar and plenty of space to hang out, so we spent several blissful days reading and sunning. We also visited Majorelle Garden, the botanical garden and artist's retreat for Yves Saint Laurent, which was an inspiration to the iconic designer. We visited Bahia Palace, which is a palace featuring beautiful Moroccan design. And, at Elena's advice had two incredible dinners while in the city. At Dar Rhizlane we had a traditional Moroccan starter which was 14 individual plates with all kinds of different foods. The good thing was that if you didn't like something, it's only a single bite. The bad things was that if you did like something....well you get the picture. Our final night in Marrakesh we ate at the Lotus Club, which had a live belly dancing show and magicians that come to your table to perform magic tricks. It was incredibly fun!
We also experienced a traditional Moroccan hammam. A hammam is a half sauna, half public bath, but weirder. We elected for the hammam in our hotel, since I wasn't quite brave enough to try one of the truly public ones. We went to the hammam and were told to get naked and get into robes. We were then led into a dark and oppressively hot steam room with a pool in the center. The decoration was beautiful and a serene glow came from the pool. After about 15 minutes, a woman came and led us into another room. This one was even hotter and steamier, and featured a waist-high marble slab in the center, marble benches along the marble walls, and a large cistern along one wall with a faucet pouring steaming water into it. The woman gestured for us to disrobe and started throwing buckets of water at us. The whole thing was very casual. I was a little embarrassed at being totally nude with a stranger for a few minutes, but she made it clear that she couldn't care less. A day in the life, for her.
She then directed Charles to hop up on the marble table and scrubbed him vigorously on both sides with an exfoliating glove. More water was tossed in his face and all over his body. Next, she shampooed his hair. This was doubly funny for me to witness, because as you might know, Chuck doesn't typically use shampoo when washing his hair. Next, it was my turn! The process was repeated and I was scrubbed all over and shampooed. After that, we spent another 30 minutes or so resting in the first room and sweating while dozing.
We really enjoyed our experience, and ended up deciding to continue with the traditional Moroccan activities and went on a two-day trip through the Atlas Mountains to the Sahara desert to ride camels and camp for a night. More on that in the next blog post!
