Morocco, day sixteen: Marrakech

Google Maps had a suggestion for me this morning: walk to the bus stop.

I thought this was an exciting development on my travel adventures so far, so after breakfast duly found the bus stop just a stone's throw from the hotel and was only thwarted when the lovely man told me I was at the wrong bus stop and that I needed to cross the main road (the N9) to get to the bus stop on the other side. Still, it showed initiative I thought and after a challenging road-crossing experience, I was eagerly standing outside the Café Amine waiting for a number one bus. One came along. Not at once.

The cost of my ticket for the half-hour or so journey to the Place Jemaa el Fna was 4 dirhams, which equates to about 0,40€. This is a much more economical way of travelling than petit taxis or InDrive, although those are not expensive, and the sheer size of a bus has the advantage that if it is involved in a collision while meandering sedately from stop to stop, it will come out of it better off and I shall be dropped refreshed at my destination.

I'm not sure that the person driving had received the memo regarding the size of the vehicle they were driving. As a car driver, I've had occasion to raise my eyebrows a couple of times during this trip thinking "no, no, no, that won't fit" as a Dacia Sandero or a bicycle somehow becomes liquid and squeezes through the tiniest of holes in traffic, but this bus experience took this to a whole new level. I'd have thought that no acceleration plus quite big would've been enough to deter our driver from executing ambitious manoeuvres in densely-packed traffic, but actually I think that the sheer size of the thing emboldened them to take on more than one car at a time, invincibled by the sheer magnitude of horn.

Occasionally, a moped would squish past in the outer lane of the Boulevard Abdelkrim Al Khattabi, driver and passenger happily looking at their phones as it did so, and as we got closer to the touristy area, the sound of hooves on tarmac would approach from behind us a horse and trap of tourists – those poor horses – thought they had a better chance of getting through the chaos. The pollution in Marrakech from all the cars, buses, touktouks, mopeds, trucks, lorries et al – including the horses, really – is very visible. The Koutoubia Mosque is clearly visible from the top of the Boulevard Mohammed V, as is the haze of smoke and particles that surrounds it. It was quite a horrifying view, although it's less noticeable when you're there and breathing it in with all the other smells.

As we approached the Koutoubia mosque, the traffic became so dense that I thought we were going to have to abandon the bus and walk the rest of the way, but here we were to experience some expert needle-threading techniques as our wheezy old Scania bus somehow negotiated the cars as if it were identifying as a Peugeot 205. At one point I really though it was going to take out a few SUVs, but we passed round the back of them with millimetres to spare and were then at our destination, the leafy bus stop at the Arset el Bilk garden.

Just because it's a garden doesn't mean it's any less manic.

I made some effort to find the Unriwalled Showabove but I'm now wondering if it was at the Café Argana which was the victim of the bombing in 2011. My default starting point was the Café de France, again, where I took great pleasure in ordering a black fizzy sugary beverage in a glass bottle to consume as a stream of hawkers wandered past wondering if I'd like to buy some authentic Airpods, a watch of any description, some things I wasn't quite sure what they were – all sorts. The staff in the café did little to deter this but perhaps if it's kept fun rather than aggressive, they let it slide. I don't usually partake in the red-labelled sugary drink, but there is nothing better in a hot place where pastis is not a breakfast option than an ice-cold sugary caffeinated drink supped through a straw from a pre-used glass bottle. This bottle was new, but the pleasure was not diminished.

Refreshed and sugary, I was ready for Marrakech. I first had a little potter about to see if I could find the riad in which friends and I stayed back in 2001 after a viewing of the Morocco episode of Absolutely Fabulous led to an exchange that was essentially, "Shall we go to Marrakech for Christmas?" "Yes." However, around the edges of the Place it's clear that there has been a lot of working going on in the intervening years, and lots of places that I'm sure were once there are there no longer. I don't know how bad the damage was after the earthquake of 2023, but it might be that some of those lovely old buildings were even then being held up by a prayer, so this might be the reason.

Still. Lack of Showabove aside, I did have a good wander. I entered the medina through a small covered market where the first things I saw for sale were baby walkers and baby clothes, hanging under some dolls which had disturbingly suspended from their necks, some with heads, some without, some with clothes, perhaps as some kind of a warning, or perhaps so that once you'd bought the baby, you can then be talked into buying a baby walker. After much scouring away from the Chuckies, I found a magnificent fridge adornment in the form of a tiny yellow babouche for five dirhams sold to me by a very friendly gentleman.

In contrast to the medina in Fès, where one needs to be afraid of the hawkers and tour/massage/hotel/restaurant guides, here the most dangerous part of the experience were the mopeds which have no time to waste stopping for pedestrians. Once I'd got the hang of that, I spent an hour or so looking around before finding my way to the Madrasa Ben Youssef where once again there was too much influencing for my liking.

Getting in was a little more stressful than I wanted as I'd decided in wisdom not to get cash out at the bus stop next to the hotel for some reason, but instead hit one of the machines on the Place Jemaa el Fna. It appeared everyone else in Morocco had had the same idea so there was no money to be had and for the first hour or two of the afternoon I was worried I'd have to forego the Madrasa for lack of funds. Eventually, I found a Banque Populaire not far from the museum which had not been pillaged, and withdrew my cash to pay the 50 dirham entrance fee.

Entrance to the Madrasa is down a little alleyway and through a door (do look up at the muqarnas) that then leads you to the place proper, and it is resplendent with its ornate but not gaudy carvings and blue, green, yellow, and white zellij. I had a nice long sit in the cool and watched people lining up to take photographs of a self-loving one at the other end of the reflective pool, then poked around the prayer room and ablutions chamber which is now just a humble toilet. The dormitories and other annexes upstairs were much grander than their equivalents in Fès, I thought, perhaps befitting a place considered the pinnacle of Moroccan architecture.

Built in the 14th century, it takes its name from the neighbouring mosque and was once the largest Islamic school in North Africa. It's now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It closed in 1960 and has undergone renovations since, in 1982 and 2018, and has been open to the public as a tourist attraction since 2022. It is a most quieting place. Nearby can be found the Almoravid Qubba, a small monument erected by the Almoravid dynasty in the early 12th century. It was closed when I got there – or at least there was no visible way of getting in – but what you can see from the outside is still quite pretty.

In the evening, after an expensive mint tea on the terrace of the Café de France, I ventured into the square to find something to eat. There is a most magical transformation of the Place Jemaa el Fna which occurs at sunset, and although it seemed less striking this time than when I first witnessed it in 2001 (I think) it is quite something.

Throughout the day, the square plays host to people selling all sorts of wonderful tat (quartz Folex or Fomega for 800 dirhams, anyone?) as well as vendors of spices, fruits, plants, and juices, as well as the snake charmers and street performers. If you're not paying attention, you can get run over by someone on a moped or even an errant taxi trying to get its occupants as close to a riad or hotel as is humanly possible, and while that's happening someone will walk up to you trying to sell genuine AirPods or other technology that really you probably want to be buying when you're out having a walk.

At sunset, as the calls to prayer float forth from the surrounding minarets, those making noise stop for the duration, and then the place turns into a huge outdoor restaurant and what a hundred or so little stalls pop up around and kitchens burst into life and men with menus keep their eyes peeled for hungry tourists who might have got lost. For those who are not too meaty it's quite easy to avoid the ones where there's an array of flesh adorning the stall waiting to be cooked – yum – but if you're feeling adventurous, multiple purveyors of slime will try to get you to sample their delicious snail soup which, the last time I tried it, was not delicious.

I wasn't particularly hungry and was really only looking for a bowl of harira and some bread, and eventually settled on stall 34 where the hawker had been polite and not-pushy and engaged me conversation about Sainsbury's and some other things that seemed random but which seemed to demonstrate at least a superficial understanding of his customer. I'd encountered him early on in my wanderings and said I was off to look around the other stalls but became more inclined to eat there as the hawkers at other stalls tried desperately to win my custom. They don't appear to be able to follow you off their little patch, but there were a couple whose blocking methods seemed slightly questionable, and by the time I returned back at stall 34 – to a round of applause, for some reason – I was happy to find my little seat and order my soup.

I was served more than I asked for, of course, and was expected to pay for it. I'd wanted just a bowl of harira and some bread for 10 dirhams, but also got a Moroccan salad and some lovely aubergine mush thing which was brought to me unrequested as a vegetarian offering which looked too delicious to ignore. The mistake here was saying yes to things I'd not ordered as more then came, but I felt it part of the game and was glad I had as there was much yumminess. For the further unsolicited food, I pushed them aside and left them and then no more came; they went back to the "kitchen" and we never spoke of them again. In the end I paid 50 dirhams for my evening meal which was, I reckon, not bad value for money and more than I'd bargained on but worth what I ate.

The bus back to the hotel was rammed and manic and I was a rude tourist and forced myself through the locals to get a seat as I'd been waiting longer than they had. The traffic was, if such a thing is possible, worse than when I'd come in the opposite direction, yet still the horses clopped past.