Part V: Marrakech, Morroco, and back to the Gambia

December 30, 2006

An 8 hour train ride to Marrakesh. The train was packed from about before Casa to just before Marrakesh: people were sitting and smoking with their luggage packed in the hallways outside the train compartments. Another thought: as the toilets empty straight out of the train, it gives another reason not to play on train tracks.

The landscape was wonderful. By Fes there were rolling hills and farmlands. By Casa I saw the distant ocean. It then turned into more dull farmlands heading on, but became cool and desertish. The high, snow-covered Atlas mountains soon emerged, dwarfing and providing a background for Marrakesh down below.

I arrived in Marrakesh around supper. I couldn’t get a good taxi rate so I decided to walk. It was not far, but I couldn’t find the hotel as my scanned map provided little guidance. It was getting dark and cold, but I finally found it and got a nice feel for the streets in the process.

In Fes I was staying in the Medina. Here in Marrakesh, I was staying in the new town. The Hotel Toulousain was very much a change from the Riad in Fes. Everything in Marrakesh over new year’s was full when I was doing bookings a month ago, and this was the only hotel I could find. It was a very basic room with two beds, a stained floor, a barren toilet and shower with minimal heating. It was really one step above a hostel. But I just need a place to sleep, so it’s fine.

I walked around the Ville Nouvelle (also known as Gueliz). I found it to be disappointing: it was overwhelmingly crawling with tourists, was fully modern, and lacked even the charm and interesting architecture of Casa. It looked and felt a bit like Whyte Avenue. I am looking forward to throwing myself back into traditional surroundings by heading to the Marrakesh medina tomorrow, although I admittedly did enjoy sitting on a cold café patio sipping a hot chocolate and taking in my surroundings.

December 31, 2006

I awoke early with a head cold. Thankfully, there was hot water in the shower because emerging from my layers of blankets into the cold room was painful. Breakfast was included, and it was nice to see other worn trekkers like myself at breakfast, a very unpretentious gathering. I wanted to do as much today as possible not being sure what would be open tomorrow on New Year’s. It’s also a Muslim holiday now, further complicating touring matters.

I went to the Jardin Majorelle, a truly spectacular creation. Formerly a private garden created by artist Jacques Majorelle, it was opened to the public a few decades ago, and is now maintained in trust by fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent. You enter and walk past a fountain into the garden. If you go one way, you enter a shaded, secluded bamboo path with a quiet gazebo. You keep walking and the air opens up into a winding path through palm trees and cactus plants, a bit like walking through Kotu in the Gambia. You follow one of the paths and the imposing majorelle blue house (Majorelle’s former work studio) appears, with plants in colorful pots along the way. A large koi pond with floating plants was set off from one side of the house while the porch overlooked another pond that stretched like the Washington D.C Mall far into the bamboo wooded area, where another gazebo was situated from which the house would just be tantalizingly visible through the trees. There were various other paths, openings and resting places. The whole things was beautifully structured. With plants collected from 5 different continents, different areas in the garden seemed to evoke different emotions: open airiness, seclusion, and the dominance of the house and its pools overlooking it all. It was amazing to see what one man could create.

Marrakesh is the most pleasant, relaxing and idyllic place I’ve visited on this trip, but in many ways it is also the least interesting. The Ville Nouvelle lacks the French feel of Casablanca, and the Medina lacks the historic and authentic feel of Fes. The walk to the Medina was very pleasant but dull. Everything felt new. It felt like the suburbia of Calgary mixed with the mountain charm of Banff and an upscale Florida retirement community. It felt largely artificial. If Fes is historic Morocco, then Marrakesh felt like a Disneyland or Vegas Morocco, an artificial construction of the Moroccan experience for honeymooning couples and those looking for easy Morocco. Arriving at the Medina, it felt too new. It was picturesque, but again artificial. The place was also crawling with tourists, and there was even a prominent Club Med. There was, however, a romantic feel to it all: nice gardens, horse-drawn carriages, the slightly newer paths of the Medina, and the overall aura of Djemma el Fna.

The Djemma el Fna is a large, open square, framed by some cafes and shops. I walked through it, saw some fruit stalls and numerous snake charmers surrounded by the creatures and making cobras sway in front of them. I saw the Koutoubia Minaret, which dwarfs everything in the area and is nice, very old and imposing. The Koutoubia Gardens were also pleasant to walk through.

I waited in a long tourist line to see the Saadian Tombs. These were amazing, with very elaborate wood and plaster carvings and intricate mosaics. I then tried to find the Ben Youssef mosque but got lost in the Medina. It was not as claustrophobic as Fes. It seemed newer and was largely deserted. The same could be said for most of the streets around the Saadian tombs: was this because it was Sunday? Or New Year’s Eve? Or the Muslim Eid? Whatever the explanation, it felt like the Moroccans had closed up shop and gave the throngs of tourists the run of the place. I felt better walking through the Medina streets, as I felt a return of a more authentic feel, although it was newer, with seemingly wider and roomier streets. I popped by the Hotel la Mamounia, the most expensive hotel in the city and Winston Churchill’s former stomping grounds in Marrakech, but it was sadly closed for construction.

I returned to the Djemma el Fna in the evening. It was still full of tourists but more and more Moroccans were making their way there. It was quite an experience. Throngs of food stands were filling the air with steam, there were countless orange juice vendors, cafes filled with tourists, numerous shops selling merchandise, stalls of shoe polishers. The dusk air was lit with hundreds of bulbs from the food stands and the Minaret was lit in the background like the Empire State Building. Circles of people surrounded musical performers. Thousands of people made their way and wandered amidst old men animatedly telling stories, old men sitting on the ground selling herbal remedies. There were simple carnival type games, and two young men boxing. The air was filled with the smell of food, the sounds of music and the calls of the mosques. The steam, the light: it was all very atmospheric and fun. It was a nightlife public gathering (which I couldn’t find in Fes). It was a mixture of the Fringe, the Street Performers Festival, Klondike Days, Whyte Avenue and a market all rolled into one. After a few hours, I grew tired of walking around the square, and enjoyed the walk amidst busy foottraffic on the main thoroughfare to return to Gueliz.

Unfortunately, there didn’t appear to be much by way of New Year’s celebrations. I saw various people dressed up and heading off to places unknown, and saw some tourists having fancy dinners. However, I wasn’t sure where celebrations were taking place. I asked around but couldn’t find anything out, and the hotel staff implied that the Muslim holiday was all to be had. There really was more of a café than a club culture, so I hung around outside for a while, enjoying some espresso and the street traffic. At this point of the trip, I wished my hotel was more comfortable, because I was largely tired of touring.

Marrakech grew on me. It was not as intense as the other places I had been, but it was a nice, relaxing place to visit. I worked to try to enjoy it for what it was: a more modern, smaller-town, atmospheric place. I returned to my chilly hotel room and went to sleep as some distant group in the hotel did the final New Year’s countdown in French. Welcome 2007.

January 1, 2007

I looked to spend a more leisurely day today. Much of the city and the Medina was shut down, but the touristy things seemed to stay open.

I took a different path into the Medina from the new town and managed this time to find the Ben Youssef Medersa. It had intricately carved surfaces, gorgeous corridors, a wonderful courtyard and attached prayer hall. It was like the one I saw in Fes, but this was better because we could walk around the place. It was interesting to see the student cells, which were like small, prison cells.

Next I went to the Marrakesh museum next door, saw Fes pottery, some fabrics and jewelry. I enjoyed the art displays, as I hadn’t seen any art up to this point. It was a very nicely restored building, including an elaborate inner courtyard. Walking through the art displays in the more low key hammam areas was cool.

Finally, I saw the Almoravid Koubba. It was cool, a below-ground-level excavated building, the only intact surviving Almoravid building and the root of all Moroccan architecture. The dome structure was amazing. It was interesting to see the carving motifs and the windows, which were more simple here than in the Medersa because they were done here for the first time and spawned everything else I had seen. Unfortunately, I didn’t understand the various latrine and other attached water-transfer areas from the French descriptions.

I walked casually through the Medina looking for Djemma el Fna using the tried-and-true method of occasionally asking for a direction and assuming I’d be on the right track if the number of tourists increased or the path seemed busier or had more kiosks open. Eventually I found the square, relaxed for a bit there with cheap fresh orange juice, relaxed in the park by the minaret, then finally made my way back to Gueliz. I spent the evening walking around and relaxing at various cafes drinking espressos, banana-milk juice, and having supper. I enjoyed taking in the nighttime atmosphere, seeing the crazy traffic of cars, scooters and horse-drawn carriages, as well as the lights of the new town.

I am tired of touring. There are only so many examples of Moroccan carvings that you can see. But I enjoyed relaxing today and just appreciating the Marrakech ambiance.

Nightlife in a Muslim country is pretty nice. People are more laid back and level-headed when the streets aren’t filled with drunks. I appreciated Marrakech as the kind of city it would be best to live in: relaxed, clean, picturesque, a comfortable night life, and a safe feeling.

January 2, 2007

Today was going to be the start of the two-day trek to get home to the Gambia. I woke in Marrakech and took the just-over 3hr train to Casablanca (Casa to Fes takes just over 4 hours, while Fes to Marrakesh is around 8). I rather enjoy the time I spend traveling: it is relaxing and gives one the opportunity to enjoy the scenery outside the train, but the packing and moving every few days, and back-of-the-mind worry the night before of things going wrong is less fun.

I spent the afternoon killing time in Casa. I enjoyed seeing the old (decaying) buildings once more, but it was a bit like the morning after a party, or returning to the scene of a past good time, or the bittersweet end of a vacation: I was just killing time, the fun and excitement weren’t there anymore. I am in return-home mode.

After taking a train to the airport, I had an uneventful 3.5hr evening flight back to Dakar. On the flight, I found myself dreading the return to Gambia tomorrow. The travel in West Africa is certainly tiring and tedious, but I don’t so much mind the travel itself as the constant haggling over prices and the informality and uncertainty of the entire process. If I was just booking a bus ticket, I wouldn’t give it a second thought.

Coming from the airport late in Dakar, I got a ride with a man who said he was a taxi driver in an unmarked car. This was probably not the smartest thing given all my other precautions taken for safety on the trip. But it’s something of a reality in west Africa in the informal economy, as even the cars I took to get to Dakar could have been something entirely untrustworthy for all I knew.

I enjoyed the experience of feeling the brisk, evening cold air boarding the plane on the runway in Casablanca, and then feeling the warm, humid and tropical nighttime air getting off in Senegal.

January 3, 2007

Finally got to bed at 3am last night, up at 8am to head home. Dakar didn’t feel as foreign and imposing the second time around, but still very much a city of urban decay. I grabbed a taxi to the Gare Routier, found out that there was a bus headed to Banjul, so I boarded it to get to the border. I sat waiting for probably one and half hours as departure proceeded in true west African fashion. People meandered on and off board, sellers of everything from bread, watches, belts, dissonant toys playing demonic-sounding children’s songs climbed on board periodically to ply their wares. No indication was evident that we were ever going to leave. When you’re tired and want to get home, it is frustrating how slow moving everything is in this part of the world. Once we got going, it took probably another hour just to get out of Dakar. Traffic was heavy, and the bus stopped very minute or two. The bus itself was basically a transit bus fitted with extra seats in the middle aisle. Senegalese music played over the intercom, a warm dusty wind blew the blue curtains covering the windows, and a guy would lean out of the doors shouting our destination to surrounding crowds, much like the minivan buses in the Gambia.

It took about 6 hours to get to the border. If I thought the 7-seater Peugot 504 car took a while because we’d stop periodically for rest breaks, this was a comparatively aggravating process, made worse by my state of fatigue. The bus would stop constantly to pick up or drop off new people, or simply slow down or stop for reasons I couldn’t figure out. It was like taking an ETS transit bus cross-country. Wherever we’d stop, the sellers and dirty, begging children would surround the doors and climb on board. The bus was pretty packed for the entire trip, with a few dead chickens among the passengers.

I did enjoy my iPod and the nice scenery. There was lots of deserty-looking grass, many deciduous trees, and we got to pass through a fair number of small villages and larger towns. I ate cookies and shared in a street-vendor sandwich offered me by the young guy sitting next to me.

The border crossing was once again uneventful and quick, with barely a glance in my direction as my passport was stamped. Once again on Gambian soil, I took another taxi, which bounced its way down a dirt path to get to Barra. Once there, another long wait ensued for the ferry to arrive, and a longer wait to be let out of the waiting pen to be allowed to run and scramble down the path to the ferry. We were packed in the waiting area behind a gate, like 3rd class passengers on the Titanic, frustratedly watching people walk their way to the ferry who had managed to sneak their way through from the ticket booth. I was quite tired from two long travel days by this point. The ferry ride under a moonlit night sky was quite pleasant, but I was really too tired to care much. On the ride across the river mouth, I ran into my former tour guide to James Island who helped me get a good price for a taxi once we arrived in Banjul.

I finally got home at around 8 or 9. The streets were deserted and quiet: still the Muslim Eid, I think. My arrival at home found the house and neighbourhood quiet and deserted. Entering my house was a bit like when I first arrived five months ago. It seemed barren, empty and foreign. The smell I noticed the first day had returned, like tropical air mixed with the mosquito net smell.

About five minutes after I had arrived and dropped off my things, I looked out my kitchen window and saw a tremendous fire erupt and start to spread right behind the secondary building in my backyard. Smoke and flames were billowing, so I quickly grabbed the bags I had just dropped off in my room, and rushed out of my house. I went around to the backyard to see if the fire had spread and realized that, thankfully, the building was not on fire. It looked as though somebody had started a clearcutting fire on the other side of the fence behind my house. People burn things in this country all the time, which is not unusual, but I had never seen such a massive blaze. I went back inside, and relaxed again a while later when the fire appeared to subside somewhat and my house was still in one piece.

It’s nice to not be moving around anymore and living out of a backpack, but returning feels like a bit of an odd extension, as though I’ve finished but have decided to come back for a few days. We’ll see how the final week here plays out.

The trip on the whole made me realize, more than I would have expected, just how challenging, limited, and deprived my life has been since August. I also didn’t realize how long I had been gone on this little jaunt until I returned to the intern house, which felt a bit distant and strange, like something from a previous life. I’m very glad to not have to travel overland within West Africa again notwithstanding it being something of an experience. Having traveled for 16 days with just a small bag, I don’t understand what people put in those gigantic backpacks when they go trekking through Europe or whatever. I also find myself annoyed by the abuse of carry-on allowance on airplanes by stupid people. How much crap do you really need to try to stuff into the overhead compartment, you moron? Bah. I’m cranky. But at least I’m home.