Au Revoir Marrakesh

Hello from the rain-swept shores of Britain!

I always book my return flights as late in the day as I reasonably can to, in theory, try and make the most of where I am.

In practice, making the flight ends up dominating the day, and Morocco was no exception to this rule! I had a final shower and packed up the Airbnb. It was quite a nice set up, the blanket on the bed was brilliant and exactly what you need in hot weather. I’ve attached a picture and will try to hunt one out here next summer.

The bathroom was fine, only marred by the presence of a pallet in place of a shower tray, but it did the job! The drains did stink though, which I also experienced in Istanbul, so I wonder if it’s a hot country thing with things decomposing faster.

I had a final wander across the city, through the souks, making my way back to the square of action from the previous night. There was no sign of anything having happened though, so it must’ve cleaned off fairly quickly. I headed down off a side street and got a very thick crepe with chocolate on it, and then went back up to have a coffee at the square and read more of my book on Partition. I had another coffee cream nes nes, which was about three times more expensive here than it had been everywhere else in Marrakesh, but I guess that’s what happens right in the middle of the tourist bit.

As an interesting comparison, an Americano from Greggs costs about £1.60, but one from Ralph’s Cafe on New Bond Street is £4.95! Bonkers.

Now, it was about 1300, and my flight was leaving at 1920. I was conscious that this was a slightly strange airport, requiring paper boarding passes and a lot of security checks, so I wanted to be there three hours before, so just after 1600. With that in mind, and it being a 2 hour walk from where I was, I began to head over, planning to stop at the Menara Mall on my way out of town.

The Mall wasn’t very busy and reminded me a lot of the Kirkgate Centre in Bradford, which is soon to be closed, but smaller and with less interesting shops. They did however have a Carrefour!! I like Carrefours and spent my very last dirhams on two cans of Coke for the road out, and began the last wander in the blazing heat to the airport.

It was a nice walk, and quite a nice, full circle way to finish the trip. I made good time, getting to the airport just before 1600, and joined a never-ending queue to get my boarding pass stamped. I never travel with hold luggage specifically to avoid this part of the airport experience and so I was particularly resentful of having to do this.

I suspect my increasing dehydration didn’t help my demeanour very much either, so once I’d gotten through security, I bought a 2 litre bottle of water, in Euros curiously enough.

Security was an interesting experience too - I had liquids, but they weren’t in a plastic bag, since Gatwick don’t care about that anymore. Here, they did care and wanted them removed but not in a plastic bag. The man was very intrigued by a bottle of perfume, but very quickly put it down after smelling it! He also thought I was Moroccan, further contributing to my ill-founded belief that I could blend in in most countries.

I had the exit row on the plane which was also a first, and read the whole way back. There was an annoying kid behind me who kept coughing and generally being a bit of a nuisance, but noise cancelling headphones took care of most of that. Airplanes are bloody noisy anyway aren’t they!

Once I got to Gatwick, I sped home via M&S, the train to Victoria and the tube - definitely not a walkable airport (50km to my flat!), but I wasn’t complaining.

And that was Marrakesh! Overall, I would recommend - it’s a fun place and you can definitely keep yourself entertained for a few days. I wouldn’t go if you’re looking for reams of culture or a beach, but it seems to be reasonably well connected to Casablanca so perhaps you could combine the two.

Some other bits I couldn’t find space for elsewhere:

Marrakesh is the English spelling, with the oft-used Marrakech being the French spelling but both pronounced the same. For centuries, the whole of Morocco was known as the Kingdom of Marrakesh, and as a result some Eastern languages such as Urdu still use Marrakesh to mean the whole country! To make it even more confusing, it was also called Morocco City before that. It wasn’t until the 1912 Treaty of Fez that the two names diverged.

Another interesting side effect of this treaty was that the north coast of Morocco was given to the Spanish (although previously agreed between the French and British during the 1904 Entente Cordial that famously repaired Anglo-French relations ahead of WWI), to ensure that the coast opposite Gibraltar was held by a weaker imperial power!

Step Count:
Day 1 - 20,631
Day 2 - 30,783
Day 3 - 28,962
Day 4 - 21,674

My foot injury actually feels perfectly fine now, despite all the walking!