Twelve Cups of Tea: Marrakech

Two years ago, before studying abroad, I never thought I would now be living in Spain, writing blog posts about my travels.  I never thought I could say that I’ve been to Morocco three times, or North Africa four times.  And yet here I am, just coming back from my third trip to Morocco.  I can easily say that this may be my favorite country on Earth.  

My three trips to Morocco have spanned the country: north to south, east to west, coast to mountains. The first trip wasn't very adventurous: I went

Family from a village, 2009

with a guide and a group of about 50 Americans, being shepherdedthroughout the city, clutching our cameras and our purses. The second trip brought me to Rabat with my human rights class with the emphasis not on sightseeing but on conversation.  This cultural exchange programbrought us together with Moroccan students to discuss everything from religion and politics to food and clothing, and subsequently women’s rights.  Although I didn’t always agree with what was being said, and some members of my class were offended by some anti-women’s rights comments, the experience was incredibly eye opening and a once in a lifetime look into a completely different culture and point of view.  The current trip was my time to explore.  With just three other girls, no map, and open minds, we ventured into Marrakech to get ourselves lost in the medina.  This is the story of our adventures.

Friday we arrived in Marrakech and found our way to the hotel.  Hotels in Marrakech, called Riads, are designed like traditional Moroccan homes with all rooms looking out onto the open air patio in the center of the house.  Our room was beautiful, decorated with Moroccan lamps and Berber rugs.  We were a bit dismayed to discover that our Riad did not have a map for us to take into the city.  A Moroccan city of labyrinths surely isn’t the place to go wandering without a map, we thought. We soon realized that we were

very wrong.  The entire city is centered around one large square, Djemma el Fna, where snake charmers, henna artists, storytellers, acrobats, soothsayers, palm readers, orange juice stands, tea, kabobs, and horse drawn carriages gather. This square was conveniently located two blocks away from our Riad.  Behind the square, a labyrinth of shops called souks stretches for a mile.  As there is no way to navigate yourself through these narrow alleyways anyway, its best to

Steaming cup of tea

forget the map and lose yourself in the spices, lamps, teapots, Berber rugs, scarves, jewelry, and inevitable catcalls. Wandering through these souks, your mind is on stimulus overload.  Bright colors and glittering objects catch your eye in all directions as you wander amidst the busy chaos of the vendor stalls.  Motorcycles and burros weave their way through the crowd, adding an element of danger to your walk. From every direction, different fun phrases are yelled out at the four tourist girls amidst the locals. ¨Ooh Spice Girls!¨ and ¨Hannah Montana!¨ were just two phrases used to describe our presence.  Sometimes we stumped the shop owners, however, who could not clearly pinpoint our race.  Such examples would be ¨Aye papi!¨ ¨Fish and chips!¨ and, my personal favorite, ¨You speak just like the Queen!¨  Clearly this city does not see a lot of American tourists, as none of the references were correct.  Upon hearing that we were in fact American, the shop owners would usually be completely surprised and offer their welcome to this fabulous city.

After initially exploring the gentle chaos of the souks on Friday, we decided to rest our minds and sit down to our first tea of the trip.  Tea is extremely important in Morocco and is a way to bring people together.  It is also delicious.  To pour, you hold the silver teapot about a foot or two (depending on skill level) above the little decorated tea glass and pour, creating a nice frothy layer on top of the tea.  Of course, our first attempt went horribly, spilling tea all over the table.  But with some time and about 10 cups of tea, we finally got the hang of it, and were able to pour like pros.  After tea we did a little more exploring before settling down for dinner. We chose a restaurant in the square that came highly recommended and had our first delicious meal of the trip: chicken couscous with veggies,

onions, and raisins. I could live off of Moroccan food forever.  After dinner we decided to try some delicacies from the square.  At night, the Djemaa el Fna square comes alive.  Drums, clarinets, singing, dancing, and the yelling of vendors fill the air with a festive noise.  Carts appear selling delicious hand squeezed orange juice, dried fruits, traditional foods and spicy tea, filling the air with a mouth water aroma of spices.

Orange Juice cart at Night

Friday night we decided to try the tea, which contains a hodgepodge of spices.  The tea was incredibly rich, with a spicy aftertaste that burned the back of your throat as it went down.  The first couple of sips were irresistible, while the last couple were nearly impossible to choke down through the fire in your throat. Tired, and mouths burning, we decided to call it a night and headed back to the Riad for some sleep.

Saturday we woke up bright and early to the thing we were most looking forward to: breakfast. Breakfast was served in our Riad on the rooftop, in a traditional Berber tent filled with decorative couches and tile tables.  I quickly decided that I want a rooftop with a Berber tent on it. The breakfast included some more mint tea, delicious orange juice, yogurt with fresh honey, homemade jams, and the best bread I have ever tasted.  We had signed up for a cooking class through our Riad for mid-morning,

so we decided to do about an hour of exploring beforehand.  We walked to Djemaa el Fna and took in the sights, with a few photos as well.  This is where things started to go downhill.  If you stand in one place for too long, look at somebody, or take somebody's

Me with some Snakes

picture, you find yourself suddenly surrounded by street performers demanding money.  After standing near the snake charmers, watching the cobras dance with weary eyes, we were descended upon, being split up and taken to see various snakes.  Once they have your hand it is all over.  I was dragged into the snake pit to observe as Rachel had a snake unwillingly wrapped around her neck.  Photos were quickly snapped as we tried to escape the clutches of the so called ¨non-poisonous snakes.¨ The charmers were faster, however, and quickly started demanding money for their ¨services.¨  I held out 50 cents and proclaimed that I had no more money to my name.  Rachel and Jan followed suit and claimed that I had all the money.  The men demanded more and more, saying ¨paper, paper, no coins.¨ I´m sorry, but I just won’t pay you 20 dollars for accosting me.  We finally got ourselves out, pushing our meager coins into their greedy hands and taking off.  We quickly made our way back to the Riad shaken up and cringing from the feel of the snakeskin.

Back at the Riad, we learned how to make chicken tagine with apricots, prunes and dates.  First, the woman cooking showed us the Moroccan way to cut an onion, which involved holding it in your hand and throwing your knife down on top of it to dice it.  Clearly us Americans did not have the skill of hand chopping without taking out a finger.  The woman wearily watched our feeble attempts at dicing without a cutting board before saying that we just need one onion – the one that she had perfectly cut.  I swear, we’re not incompetent in the kitchen!  Despite the low level of our involvement in the actual cooking process, it was actually a fun class, and yielded some delicious results!

Souks inside the Medina

Saturday afternoon we did some more exploring of the souks, this time with our eyes on the prize and ready to buy.  Of course, buying things in Morocco is a bit more labor intensive than elsewhere.  You can never set your heart on any one thing because it is completely up to the shop owner and your own haggling skills on whether you can set an agreeable price.  After striking out at buying lamps, we ended the day at a random shop, where the owner, Reda, immediately struck up a conversation with us.  Upon our entrance, he started pulling out his collection of rugs and telling us the history of his Berber people.  Every rug tells a story, which he told us with pride.  We had heard that you are more likely to negotiate a good price if you have a rapport with the owner, so we heard out his winded, hour long speech about the Berbers before making our offers.  Jan walked away with a beautiful white Berber rug while Rachel and I both bought Moroccan lamps.  After striking these deals, our friend Reda told us that he knew of a great restaurant that the tourists don’t know about, and offered to take us there.  We were a bit suspicious as to his motives, especially when upon arrival to this restaurant he was greeted by his dogs. I’m pretty sure he was just getting more business for himself.  We were tired and hungry after our long conversation with him, however, so we decided to stay for a delicious meal.

Sunday, we woke up for our last full day in Marrakech, excited as always for breakfast.  We had booked appointments at the Hammam (bathhouse) for that morning, and weren’t sure what to expect.  My second trip to Morocco involved a traditional Hammam experience, in which we all sat around in a hot room dumping buckets of scalding water over our heads.  Moroccans typically don’t have showers in their houses, and use these Hammams for bathing.  Sure, we stuck out as a group of 10 Americans in the Moroccan bathhouse, but it was a great experience that not many tourists can say they have done.  The hammam from this trip, however, was completely different.  More spa than bathhouse, and more for tourists than locals, its emphasis was more on luxury and comfort than practicality.  Jan, Rachel and I decided to go for the traditional hammam scrub, in which a woman scrubbed us from head to toe with rough bath salts.  Skin feeling a little raw, we were then slathered in mud, then oil, as we prepared for our massages.  We left feeling as smooth as a baby’s bottom.

Oranges

After getting clean and relaxed, we went for lunch in the square and decided to actually do something touristy by going to the palace.  It was kind of a letdown and not kept up very well, but at least it gave us a break from shopping!  At this point we had started to realize how much we had actually bought, and were getting a little worried about fitting it all back in our carryon.  If you don’t know, Ryanair are sticklers about carryon items.  Oftentimes they make you stuff your purse inside your bag and try to fit it into the impossibly small metal cage before boarding the plane.  If your bag doesn’t fit, they can charge you 35 euros on the spot to check it.  We, of course, wanted to avoid this by any means possible.  As the night got later and we got more tired, the ideas of how to get past the impossible Ryanair standards became more ridiculous.  Ideas such as lamps made into hats, teapots wrapped around our heads in some sort of headdress, and cameras stuffed into our jackets making us look like robust pregnant women were tossed around.  None of which we actually had the guts to pull off.  When push came to shove, we pushed and shoved until all of our belongings were either being carried on our person (I wore all 5 shirts I brought, and 3 scarves) or packed into our bags.  I was unsure whether my bag would fit the little steel cage of doom, but I was ready to fight Ryanair if need be.  Turns out, the Ryanair Morocco staff could not have cared less about our dodgy backpacks and we were quickly ushered on the plane, souvenirs and all.