I arrived in Marrakech at about 11am after a 3 hour flight and barely any sleep for a day and a half. In a rather delirious state I then had to find my hostel which I knew would be difficult being that it was in the middle of the markets. I walked for about 40 minutes with men making comments and hissing under their breath before asking for directions and eventually made it with the help of some guy who was rather unimpressed that I didn’t give him any money for showing me where the hostel was. Truth be told, I didn’t have any small change on me but I don’t think he believed me. After getting the welcome talk from the hostel manager and a map to get around with, I went up to the rooftop terrace which I’d so be looking forward to seeing and sat down for a few minutes. The prayers started going off in every which direction and with my lack of sleep and being alone for the first time and back in a Muslim country, I was starting to go a bit mad. I did wonder what I was doing here and if I was nuts to have come on my own.
After a nap I felt a lot better and went off to the Jemaa El Fna Square to get some food. I ordered a Tagine of Chicken, preserved lemon and olives (in French) and finally had a moment to sit and watch what was going on around me. The square is really big and is full of things I wouldn’t have imagined. There are monkeys and snakes, women all over doing henna tattoos, street theatre (but mostly in Arabic for the locals), acrobats, food stands, men dressed up in old formal dress and more. This was only during the day. I later met some lovely girls at the hostel and at night we went back to the square, which had turned into a rows and rows of huge tents with tables and benches each one sectioned into different food stalls. They all pretty much serve the same thing except for the local stalls, which serve sheep’s head. I can’t say I’ve tried it, it looks absolutely disgusting and I don’t care how much credit I would get, I think I had enough trying sheep’s intestines in Syria.
The next day I spent attempting to find the Jewish Quarter (which never happened) and the Baha Palace (which was closed). I did however find the spice markets and that was quite intriguing. A little discerning considering I was on my own and there weren’t a lot of other tourists around, but I figured it was okay. I went into one guys spice shop where he proceeded to show me nearly everything in the shop. I bought some perfume – had a quick and somewhat wrong photo with him and attempted to get out of there as quickly as possible. I wouldn’t put myself in a situation like that again, it was most unpleasant and I’d warn other young women travelling, that no matter how nice someone seems, the men in Muslim countries have a warped sense of Western women and what rules are okay to bend. I got out of the situation just fine in the end, but even though I’m quite confident and usually have pretty good instincts, I ignored my first instinct, which said ‘do not go into the shop - stay outside’. I’ve learnt for next time.
So needless to say that turned my day around a little and I was feeling a bit vulnerable after that – not a good way to be in a Moroccan market. I wanted to get a Henna Tattoo and found some women doing them and was pulled over to a seat by one of the older women to another one who was doing the tattoos. I asked how much it was to begin with but she sort of ignored me and I was a bit fragile and couldn’t really be bothered pushing it, and at the end I had (and still have) what looks like a children’s drawing on both sides of my hand which they attempted to charge me 300MAD ($40AU). After arguing with them for a while I gave in and gave them 200MAD ($27) and figured that that day must not have been for me and I should give in.
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