Morocco

Ten days took us from the old port of Essaouira to Imlil in the High Atlas Mountains and back to Marrakech via the film makers hot spot of Ait Ben-Haddou.

After an overnight flight to Casablanca were were collected at the airport by Claire and Jonathon and somehow squeezed two more suitcases and backpacks, plus the all important duty free, into the confines of a Jeep 4WD (for the next leg we bought a piece of rope and tied two suitcases to the roof) for the GPS guided trip to Essaouira.

Essaouira

Essaouira (pronounced ‘essa-weera’) is an absolute delight. The walled old city is pedestrian only. Our GPS did not seem to know about this and kept insisting that we drive through no entry signs.

Eventually we were spotted by a sharp eyed car park attendant who relieved us of a fist-full of dirhams, miraculously manoeuvred a row of parked cars to make room for us and organised a wheel-barrow man to take our bags to the riad. We discovered later that his trick was to insist that people left cars with their handbrakes off so they could be shuffled backwards and forwards.

The fortified fishing port attracts its share of tourists but is still very much a working harbour with a fleet of small, open wooden boats as well as larger, deep-water trawlers.

The High Atlas Mountains

Imlil is the centre for trekking in the High Atlas and the gateway to Jebel Toubkal, North Africas highest peak (4167m). It had just received its first winter dusting of snow the week before we arrived. Since we had no intention of climbing anywhere near the summit, this simply added to the already spectacular scenery with the autumn colours changing daily.

Kasbah Imlil was our delightful home for three nights. With picture postcard views from the balcony and different tagines for dinner each night we didn’t mind the long walk from town or the 10 minute walk from the car park with donkey powered baggage delivery.

Our day trek with a local guide proved to be a seven hour slog for which we were rewarded with outstanding scenery and a peek into traditional Berber communities.

The next day was supposed to be a short stroll into town. But Nigel’s insistence that we follow a trail along the river led to another ‘rewarding’ walk of several hours duration. We did at least find a cafe.

Ait Ben-Haddou

The prospect of deteriorating weather (or perhaps stiff joints and aching muscles) persuaded us to leave Imlil a day early and spent an extra day at Kasbah La Cigogne.

This turned out to be a good decision. Not only did we get more time to explore Ait Ben-Haddou but we also had a crumbling old kasbah on our doorstep.

As usual Nigel and Claire were up early hunting the perfect sunrise photo while Sue and Jonathon were on hand to offer constructive criticism over a late breakfast.

Ait Ben-Haddou is an old walled town built from mud-brick. Once an important staging post on ancient trade route, now a popular tourist destination for day trippers from Marrakech. Also popular as a film location for numerous famous (and not so famous) movies. The ones we had heard of included Gladiator, Cleopatra, Prince of Persia and Indiana Jones. Of course Game of Thrones was filmed here too!

Ait Ben-Haddou…

This was where Russel Crowe first entered the arena as a gladiator. The scene was perfectly re-enacted by Nigel and Jonathon. So much so that a local spectator (who had been an extra in the original movie) started chanting “Maximus, Maximus”.

Sue and Claire were clearly less impressed and labelled the two latter-day warriors Maximus Girthus and Minimus Brainus. It was never clear which was which or who was who!

A scenic drive to Marrakech…

Marrakech

Once again our GPS was defeated by a maze of one-way streets and tiny alleyways in Marrakech. After an hour of frustrating driving in which Nigel managed to hit one pedestrian (just a glancing blow with the wing mirror, no blood), we gave up and paid someone on a motorbike to lead us to the riad.

This was the start of three days of exploring, haggling, photographing and just a little bit of eating and drinking.

Sue emerged as the undisputed champion haggler. We were sure some of the street vendors would have paid us to take her away.

The old medina is a crazy maze and a mix of worthless junk and handmade crafts connected by narrow alleyways in which you run the gauntlet of people, handcarts, motorbikes, tuk tuks and donkey carts.

Jardin Majorelle is an oasis of tranquility in the mayhem of Marrakech. Created by artist Jacques Majorelle and purchased in a state of disrepair by Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Berge, it was donated to Marrakech when Yves Saint Laurent died. A wonderful change of pace on our last day in the city.