Friday 13 April 2007

We have booked a guide for today. He was supposed to meet us at 9am, but gone 9.30 were are still waiting. We ask reception to give him a buzz. He then asks if we postpone the tour to the afternoon. We do not want that. He manages to get to the hotel by 10am. He claims to have been held up in traffic, but we have the impression that has been doing some heavy partying, way into the wee hours of the morning. Apparently he is still fighting off a bad hangover. We can still smell the alcohol on his breath.  He does not seem to like walking, because he takes us in his car through the many too narrow streets of the old town. Sometimes people have to jump into the shops to avoid getting hit by the car. On two occasions we do hit people on bicycles, fortunately without causing injuries. He drives us via an enormous detour to the Jardin Majorelle. This garden was a project of the French painter Jacques Majorelle in the 1920's. He started with the garden in 1924 and since 1947 the garden is open to the public. About 10 years ago the garden was bought by Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé. It is a beautiful botanic garden with many exotic and colourful plants and trees. We see many cactuses and even a bamboo forest. It is very popular and the garden is really to small to deal with this number of visitors. With the car we drive again through the narrow streets of the old town, sometimes almost right through the merchandise of the shops. We feel embarrassed. We reach the  Medersa Ben Youssouf. It is an old Koran school from the 15th century. It's architecture resembles that of the Moorish buildings in Granada in southern Spain. The building is built around a courtyard. On the upper floors are the cells, where the students used to study and sleep. The walls are covered with decorated cedar wood. At the far end of the courtyard is the prayer hall, where the decorations are most attractive with many fir cone and palm motives, which is unusual in Moorish stucco.  Our guide does not join us. We are left to our own devices and have to manage with our guide book (Rough Guide to Morocco). The next stop is the tannery. Via a handicraft shop we get to a rooftop vantage point from where we can watch the tanners go about their business. In Marrakech the skins are not colour dyed, like they do in Fes. There are not many tanners today as it is a Friday, the day of the most important prayer service of the week. The smell is not half bad. Back in the shop people try to sell us things we do not want. We endure it for the benefit of the view we just had. There is also a Berber pharmacy, which is fun. They sell natural remedies for all kind of thinkable and unthinkable ailments.  We get a massage with an oil extracted from the goat tree, to be found between Essouira and Agadir. The tree is called that name because goats climb the branches to get to the leaves and eat them. The massage feels great.  We pay for the massage, but do not buy any of the wonder medicines.  We say no even to the bitter orange cream against depression or a ginseng like concoction for optimized libido ("eight till ten times a day, will be no problem anymore") and other cures of that nature.  Next stop is the Koutoubia mosque, the largest and most important mosque of Marrakech with a 12th century minaret. This minaret can be seen from far away and is a symbol for the city. The minaret has similarities with the Giralda of Seville in Spain. The minaret is crowned with three large copper balls. Probably the ball were once made of gold.  and were a gift from the wife of Sultan Yacoub el Mansour (1184-99), as a penance for breaking the fast for three hours during Ramadan. It is Friday and the great prayer service is in full swing. The mosque is filled to capacity with praying men. This partly the reason why many shops are closed today. We walk around the mosque (we cannot enter as non-believers), and peek inside. Our guide - yet again not adding any useful information - drives us back in the direction of the hotel. We say goodbye to the guide and go for lunch at  restaurant Douriya, which has been renamed Brasserie Tanjia. The guide insists tagging along in order to introduce us there. It will get him a commission no doubt. We have a delicious lunch on the shaded roof top. 

We retire for a while in the Riad. Around 4.30 we go out again to visit the  Saadian tombs. These tombs from the  Saadian dynasty (16th century) have been neglected and hidden for centuries after the establishment of the Alouïte dynasty (to which the present King also belongs) until they were rediscovered in the 20th century (1917) on a aerial photo. They were beautifully restored and a garden was made around them. A tunnel leads visitors around a mosque that now separates the tombs from the street. The tombs are beautifully decorated and the style resembles that of the Medersa Ben Youssouf. The most attractive tombs can be seen through a narrow doorway and we have to wait in  a long line for our turn. After visiting the tombs we walk once more to the  Djemaa el Fna and sit down again on the roof top of the CMT hotel. Again it is very quiet on this roof top - quite unlike the other roof top café's - despite the great and unrestricted view of the square. Maybe it is because of the poor impression of the hotel itself. We again enjoy the view on the snake charmers who seduce unsuspecting tourists into getting their picture taken with the snakes, for which they are asked to pay dearly afterwards. We return to the hotel by 6pm. Tonight we eat in our Riad Kaiss. A table is set in a lovely loggia with a view of the patio. It is quite a romantic setting, at the backdrop of the tastefully illuminated courtyard, the fountain and the orange trees. The food is heavy and we are completely filled by the time we leave the table. The nice Moroccan  Cabernet Sauvignon from Meknes tastes wonderfully well with the tajines. In all it is a great finale of our stay in Morocco. We go to bed early, because we have a very early start tomorrow. 

Weather: sun, 26°C/79°F.

Saturday 14 April 2007

We rise early, around 5.45am. We have breakfast on the patio. A taxi picks us up promptly at 6.30 and takes us to the airport. The roads are deserted. The airport is in complete chaos. The departure hall is too small for the crowd. We 2 hours before take off and our flight is not even shown on the information screens. That does not happen until 45 minutes before departure. We have to line up in front of desk 4. Check-in progresses very slowly and line 3 starts merging with ours because their agent has mysteriously disappeared  20 minutes prior to departure we are checked in for our first flight segment to London. The system does not allow a check in for the connecting flight to Amsterdam. The baggage gets a label for Amsterdam. Next is lining up for passport control. That does not take long so we go immediately on to the aircraft. We take off about 20 minutes late. After 20 minutes we land in Casablanca, where we stay on the ground for about 40 minutes to pick up passengers, cargo and fuel. Then it is another 2 hrs and 50 minutes to London Heathrow. Oddly enough we get there 10 minutes early. There starts our long slog from Terminal 1 to Terminal 4. Security check - bus ride - check-in, followed by a 2 hour wait. We have a couple of drinks at the airport pub before we board the plane to Amsterdam. The flight is only booked for 35% of the seats, so we have all the space we want. After some delay caused by understaffed baggage handlers we are off to Amsterdam where land right on time. We catch the 8.15 train to Rotterdam. The taxi driver in Rotterdam has never heard of our street, although it is in the middle of the city. Nor does he know many other streets in the neighbourhood. He has just started his taxi company, but has yet to learn his local geography. We are home somewhat before 10pm.