Marrakech – Mopeds and Minarets

Marrakech was fabulous! – A vibrant, chaotic city where gardens and quiet terraces offered welcome shade and respite from the crazy, overcrowded streets teeming with life: with people – people on mopeds, riding bicyles, driving carts and mules, caleches and taxis, people offering to sell you their services – to henna your hands, shine your shoes,  or sell you a myriad of goods especially in the impenetrable souks, where we invariably got lost.

It was an assault on the senses and cannot in anyway be sufficently conjured up through images alone, there was just too much noise: the  antiphony of the call to payer echoing around the rooftops, the insistent drumming in the square, the snake charmer’s haunting flute, rowdy taxi horns, horses hooves, early morning songbirds, the voices of the storytellers…and then there were the smells; sandalwood, jasmine, engine oil, horse dung, shoe polish, spicy tagines, mint tea, cumin but most of all orange blossom – it was the season – and at times it seemed to me that the whole city was drenched in orange blossom…heavenly!

I didn’t write – other than make a few lists- but I read a couple of great books, especially What I Loved by Siri Hustevedt – a book I lived inside for the whole time I was reading it and somehow did not want to finish. John laughed out loud as he re-read Catch22

We visited several palaces, drank tea (all we could afford!) in the gardens of the most expensive hotel in Morocco – the fabulous La Mamounia, wandered the souks, ate harira – a spicy lentil soup with lemons and dates on the side, and ate fabulous pastries and ice cream in the Argana Cafe in the main square.

It was warm, no it was hot! hard work at times but exotic and rewarding –  an absolute gift for any writer… and I have to admit  another beginning did just drift across my mind…