Marrakech: Terracotta Oasis I

Marrakesh has a rustic sort of charm that rings of authenticity. Dusty tarmac roads hug low-rising apartments, shopping centres, train stations and libraries, all painted in the same earth-toned colours: brick red, desert orange, terracotta and oak brown. It’s interesting that the city itself is painted in the colours of dusk, reflecting the Arabic name of her motherland: al Maghreb, a reference to the dusk prayer in the Muslim faith.

The very heart and soul of this terracotta city lies nestled within the walls of the ancient medina, in the sunlight filtering through the winding alleys of the centuries-old souqs by day and in the Berber melodies and beats of the darbouka in the main square (Jamaa el Fnaa) by night, in the lush gardens of the courtyards of the exquisite riads in the Bahiya Palace, and the austere whitewashed walls of the individual rooms in the Medersa Ben Youssef. Marrakesh herself is a feast for the senses.

We covered all of the places that’ll be mentioned in this 2-part series in one day (except for the Majorelle Gardens; we were too exhausted), but only because we had someone to drive us around. Without a driver, it would possibly take two days to cover them all.

Jemaa el Fnaa Main Square (~1h)

Photograph: JourneyDowntheScale.info

Possibly the most photographed spot in the whole of Marrakech, this is a large square that functions as an open-air market day and night. I counted at least 20 drink stalls alone, presumably selling 20 different types of fruit juices. Most of them are lined along the outskirts of the square, so that the minute you walk into the square, you’re overwhelmed with offers of free drinks and greetings in 5 or 6 different languages, depending on whether they can guess where you’re from. Other stalls sell everything from little trinkets and souvenirs to traditional clothes, handbags, and accessories, and there are also rows and rows of food stalls from which rise plumes of steam and the enticing aromas of tagine, couscous, and more.

When dusk falls, the square transforms into a lively scene of traditional Moroccan and Berber music; groups of musicians huddle together, each group attracting its own higgledy-piggledy crowd of locals who gamely join in singing, dancing and clapping. For this reason, dusk/nighttime is probably the best time to visit the Jemaa el Fnaa. You can also just join the crowds as a spectator to the festivities, although tourists are often targeted and singled out from the crowd to give money to the performers (like we were!)

Tourist traps are aplenty, here, though, as our guide told us earlier during the day, so we only bought a few cups of orange juice to quench our thirst as we walked around the square. Pickpockets and professional beggars, too, are a fixture in the square regardless of the time of day, but it isn’t a problem as long as you’re careful about your belongings.

Souqs in the Old Medina (~2–3h)

The numerous souqs of Marrakesh’s old medina are arguably the highlight of the terracotta city, although the Jemaa el Fnaa gets a lot more attention most of the time. It has a distinctly different architecture from the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, which is also a centuries-old labyrinthine marketplace, perhaps to accommodate the difference in climate between Morocco and Istanbul. While most of the Grand Bazaar is built indoors, the souqs in Marrakesh are largely outdoors, at most with wooden scaffolding above.

We walked through three different souqs as we wandered around: the leather souq, the bronze souq, and the textiles souq. In the main commercial streets of the souq, hand-dyed textiles are hung from the ceiling, little shops selling everything from handmade bronzeware to woodwork, leather bags, prayer rugs, Berber carpets and traditional Moroccan shoes literally overflow onto the streets. Scooters delivering various goods trundle past men carrying armfuls of bronzeware and women pulling small trolleys behind them. Prices tend to be much more reasonable here than elsewhere in the Medina, but even if you don’t buy anything, it is enough of a spectacle just to lose yourself in the twisting alleyways and main streets winding through the various souqs. 

As we walked through the different souqs, we came across a number of discreet doorways like this (above), which were entrances to public baths (hammams) and public bakeries. Our guide told us that the old medinas in Morocco often had 5 key features: a bakery, a hammam, a medersa (school), and the market, and all of them were often within walking distance of each other. What was most interesting was the way the public bakery worked. People made their own dough at home, but because they didn’t have ovens at home, they bring their dough to the bakeries where it would be baked to perfection for a very small fee. Crisp on the outside, soft on the inside.

The concept of communal living inherent within traditional Moroccan lifestyles was nowhere clearer than in these small bakeries, hammams, and so on.

Herboristerie Bab Agnaou (~30mins)

A Berber pharmacy located just within one of the old gates to the Medina (Bab Agnaou), this stop was extremely fascinating because of the depth and extent of Berber traditional medicine, which utilized completely organic ingredients free from chemicals or preservatives to treat everything from rheumatism to diabetes, hair loss and sinus.

We entered the vintage entrance to the first floor of the pharmacy and were immediately ushered up to the second floor and into a private room filled with shelves and shelves of jars full of crushed rose petals, dead leaves, spices of every shape and colour, wax, and many other ingredients that I couldn’t recognize. One of the pharmacy’s employees, Muhammad (an extremely common first name in Morocco) promptly proceeded to give us a swift explanation of the different products that they made, their uses and applications.

It was very enlightening for me to discover how attuned the Berber people were to their natural surroundings. Such vast knowledge of the specific herbs and ingredients used to concoct various liquids, mixtures, creams, and more, their recommended dosage, and what they could be used to cure, could not have been accumulated overnight. All of this knowledge must have been preserved and passed on from generation to generation over the centuries. Traditional Malay medicine is similar to its Berber counterpart, but unfortunately, according to my mother, the knowledge has mostly been lost over the past few decades.

Stay tuned for part 2! 🙂