put a monkey on me, i don't care: a weekend in marrakech

Around the end of last year, I started to get antsy and annoyed that I had not traveled anywhere since Dublin in October. And it was just Ireland! An amazingly hilarious drunken weekend away yes, but I wanted somewhere warm. And different.

So, Nick and I decided to go to Marrakech, Morocco. Warm, for sure, and different, I hoped so. A London winter can feel like a lifetime. This winter in particular seemed to drag, especially since we got our coldest weather in February. By the time it snowed, it already felt like we'd had our fill of winter weather. So, having an African holiday planned made those cold mornings and dark evenings a little more bearable.

We flew Easyjet from Gatwick to Marrakech on a Thursday afternoon. Despite a hideous experience flying back from Berlin after Christmas 2010*, Easyjet has been my airline of choice while living in London. I guess better the devil you know. This time, we actually had two flights that landed at their destination early. EARLY. Totally unheard of.

We got in about 8.45, and through our hostel had organised a taxi to pick us up, which ended up being a smart idea. Driving along the unlaned roads under a big fat yellow moon, I knew I had definitely found somewhere different.

We stayed at Douarskoll Guesthouse which was adorable, was right in the medina and made us delicious food. We also had an amazing room. It had a mezzanine! It was like sleeping in a treehouse. Here it is:




This was the view from the roof terrace. You could see all the way to the Atlas Mountains, which I obviously forgot to take a photo of.



the things we did:

Marjorelle Gardens




Cacti and brightly coloured pots. Marjorelle Gardens was created by a French guy called Marjorelle in the 20s. After falling in to disrepair, Yves St Laurent bought the gardens and restored them to their original state. It was the greenest place we saw in Marrakech; everything else was a dusky red, or dirty yellow. As per the rest of Marrakech, there were cats and badly dressed tourists crawling all over it.

In Marrakech in general, it was a different kind of tourist makeup than I was used to. There were more couples, groups of older travelers, and lots of families as well, which surprised me a bit. No large groups of young people, but I suppose the lack of readily available alcohol puts them all off.

Bahia Palace




This palace had sweet Moroccan style decoration. And even more cats.

The ruins of Bahii Palace




Not cats this time, but storks. They build these amazing nests up in the top part of the ruins. It was very hot at the ruins, with little shade, but pretty sweet imagining what it would have looked like in it's original glory.

Djemaa El-Fna




The main square was absolutely insane. A tourist trap, without a doubt. It is ringed by market stalls selling the usual fare, and in the day time, the square itself is full of juice stalls, date stalls, people with monkeys, people with monkeys wearing clothes, snake charmers, women offering henna, men offering cigarettes, men in traditional dress offering photos, donkeys, motorcycles, cars, bicycles.

At night, there are proper food stalls where you can have dinner, and also people performing. We didn't get too close to the performances, but one late afternoon performance we saw, involved some belly dancing performed by ladies in Muslim dress, so very conservative, but with the risque bikini tops and bottoms over their conservative clothes. Belly dancing finds a way.

The last night we were there we ate in a restaurant looking over the square. We saw the sunset, and therefore the sundown call to prayer. We watched all the men, and some women, head in to the mosque. We watched street sellers setting out their wares to catch the women waiting for the men, and the men on their way out of the mosque. It was amazing to watch a bit of life in Marrakech that wasn't trying to sell us something.

where we ate and drank:

Cafe Arabe




We went here every day and that's not a bad thing, nor a lazy thing on our part. It was just a really lovely place to spend the early evening. The top floor was a terrace that looked out over the rooftops of Marrakech, so you could watch the sunset. They served alcohol, which we appreciated, and the food was average, which by Moroccan standards, was good.

I really struggled with the food in Marrakech which annoyed me, because I like food so much. I think it was because Marrakech was an olfactory overload. Smells everywhere. Good smells like spices and leather and fresh fruit. But also terrible smells like dirty animals, smelly people, sewage and rotting food. The smells put me off eating and the food just wasn't good enough to tempt me.

where i shopped:



One of the main drawcards of Marrakech are the markets, the souks. They sell everything and they want you to buy it. A polite, no thank you, or non merci, was probably the phrase I used the most while in Marrakech. We soon discovered that the market street closest to our medina was the best. Perhaps they got used to seeing us, but we rarely got hassled as we walked down it.

One afternoon I stopped to talk to this kid about the kittens outside his father's antique stall - he was an amazing kid, really confident and verbose, and he sold me an antique amber ring. Turns out Sarah Jessica Parker and other Sex and the City actors shopped there when they were in Marrakech filming the (awful, insulting) second SATC movie. His father's two stalls were crammed with amazing antique jewelry and I was so jealous of the story he told about Sarah Jessica Parker, plucking rings and necklaces willy nilly and chucking them in a bowl to buy. So jealous, so so jealous.

the end:

All in all, Marrakech was everything I wanted it to be. Hot. Different. A holiday. A great travel story.


nick & lorrie, bahii palace, march 2012

* The plane was delayed by hours, and when we finally got on a plane, it wasn't even an Easyjet plane, or an Easyjet crew. After far too long in the air, we were told that we couldn't land at any of the London airports due to inclement weather, nor any nearby. The closest airport that would take us was Liverpool. We waited even longer while on the tarmac - it was the middle of the night, so they had to open the airport for us. Once we finally got through immigration, we had to sit around in the closed Liverpool airport to wait for coaches to take us back to London. We were twelve hours late to Gatwick. It was MISERABLE.

The Top 11 of 2011 - part three

I figured I needed to get this last post up before we got in to the second month of 2012. It seems like we're getting a bit far in to 2012 for all this 2011 retrospection. No matter, 2011 was still a boss of a year, so let's wrap this up.

4. Sail Croatia, July 2011

The next adventure was Croatia, on a boat with my ladies, and a whole lot of Australians. I had been told amazing things about Sail Croatia, that it was an incredible travelling experience, and it mainly lived up to the hype. I'll get the bad things out of the way first: sometimes the lack of independence frustrated me, and the tour company sometimes wasn't the best at communicating what was going on each day. And then the douchebag Australians. If I could have been on that boat with twenty of my friends, instead of five of my friends and fifteen strangers, it would have been the ultimate travelling experience, yes.

But the good things.



The weather. Hot. Beautiful, European hot. Yes, one needs to be careful about putting on their sunblock, but not nearly to the extent you need to do in New Zealand. I am one of those poor souls who burns in thirty seconds back in New Zealand. In Europe, I could sit outside for almost half an hour before I'd start to think, hmm, might be time for some sunblock. I got a tan. An actual real life tan. That's not a regular occurrence for me.

The sitting around and doing nothing. A regular day would be departing early from wherever we'd docked the day before, and sailing throughout the morning. A stop for a lunch and a swim. And then, we'd get to wherever we were going, and could go explore, eat, drink. We spent most of this time on the boat lying in the sun, reading, talk shit and playing cards.

The swimming. The water was the perfect temperature, and was so salty. Sometimes you could see the salt on your skin once you'd got out of the water.

The sloppy night's out. Drinking huge carafes of cocktails in a cave bar. Going to a bar in Hvar that had some sort of fountain, and dancing so enthusiastically that one needed to kick off one's jandals. Drinking cocktails out of buckets. (Large drinks seemed to be a theme.)



The adventures. We hired a wee car on the island of Mjlet, and drove the length of it, stopping at the end for a swim at the sandy beach. Liz couldn't fit in the car, and wanted to drive a scooter anyway, so she led the way. The only downside was there was no car stereo, so no sweet beats.





We finished up in Dubrovnik, which was one of my favourite stops, and a place I would like to go back to. An old, walled city, close to the water. Where you can buy cocktails in buckets. A true tourist mecca.



It was the perfect way to end five weeks on the continent. Thinking about it now, in the dead of winter, when it's two degrees outside, it seems like some sort of far off dream.



3. Family holiday to Provence - Aug/Sep 2011

I am a lucky girl; I have a very lovely mother. Leaving her in Wellington was not an easy thing to do, and missing her is one of the worst parts about being far from home. Lucky for me, her and her partner Gerald planned a European excursion of their own, and came over to visit in August of last year. Mum and Gerald have been together for a few years now (my lovely father died almost thirteen years ago) and Gerald has three daughters of his own, one of which, Michaela, lives in London too. So, the four of us, plus Nick, and plus another of Gerald's daughters, Erica, went to Provence for a bit of a family holiday.

We were utterly spoiled by Mum and Gerald, who had rented a villa outside of a small village called Bargemon. The villa had it's own pool, an amazing view over the hills, a huge barbeque area, and mine and Nick's bedroom at the bottom of the house was built in to the rock, like a cave. Luxury to someone who, while travelling, was used to sleeping in bunk beds.




It was an actual proper holiday, as opposed to travelling. Sure we did some sightseeing, drove through the hills to other perched villages, admired the sights, visited some markets, sampled the delicious food. But we slept in, and didn't stick to much of a schedule, and had afternoon drinks. I went for at least two swims a day, we had croissants for every breakfast, and most of the time was spent lounging by the pool with a book.




And the food. The food. Honey glazed duck, creme brulee, desserts that were on fire, hunks of brie and camembert. We had most meals at home, but still went out a few times, which was always interesting, because here the French actually only spoke French, not like in Paris, where they see you trying to speak French, and just speak to you in English, because they can't be bothered waiting for you to work it out.

I loved every minute of it. Especially hanging out with my mum.



2. Dublin - October 2011

I realise that this Top 11 is becoming more like: The List of Places Lauren Visited in 2011. But what can you do. I just like visiting places so much.

I was pleasantly surprised to receive a visit from my friend Sophie in late 2011. Before I left, she wasn't even thinking about coming over, so therefore I didn't think I would see her again until I eventually get back to NZ. But I was SURPRISED to hear of her plans for a European jaunt, and when she mentioned she was going to Dublin, I decided I would go with her.

Sophie lived in Dublin for a year, and at this stage, I was contemplating heading there to live after the UK visa ran out. (I'm not anymore because there is a New Plan, but more on that later.) So she seemed like a pretty good Dublin travel buddy.

And she was. We had another tour guide in the form of Sophie's friend Owen, who was also kind enough to pick me up from the airport and drop me back. Such luxury. We went out Friday night, watched Irish football, which was weird, and then went to a sweet bar with a lot of bookshelves (a surefire way to make me like a place is an abundance of books).

Saturday was sightseeing and wandering around Dublin.




And then Saturday night was drinking Guiness in a local pub (it really does taste better in Ireland), then heading to Kehoe's for a few hours, and then a club in an old movie theatre. Due to a stupid decision to watch Australia play South Africa in the Rugby World Cup, we did not get back to the hostel until 7.30am the next morning. And then had to get up to check out by 10am.

It was not the best laid plan, and meant that Sunday was a bit of a wash. We didn't end up doing any of the things we planned, just tried to keep warm and not die of our hangovers.

All in all though, I suppose I can't be surprised that I spent most of my Irish experience either drunk or hungover. Seems kind of fitting.



1. Christmas in Kennington, 2011

And here we are. The final highlight for 2011 was an excellent Christmas spent in our flat in the London suburb of Kennington. Nick and I had spent the previous Christmas with his sister in Berlin, so figured that our other Christmas in England should actually be spent in England.

My flatmates and I offered to host all the other orphan Kiwis who were in London, and there ended up being about ten of us for Christmas lunch. We decorated our kitchen/dining/living room (yes, all three in one, we live in London, space is a luxury) with lights, tacky Christmas decorations and crepe paper. Public transport in London pretty much shuts down on Christmas Day, so we had people sleeping on our floors and in our kitchen.




Christmas away from home, and all those familiar things, always feels a bit odd. The same, but different. Being in the northern hemisphere for Christmas, and therefore winter, is a bit odd too - as this is what we're led to believe Christmas should be like. Cold, dark, snow if you're lucky. Lots of warm heavy comfort food. So it feels like what Christmas actually should be, but also, nothing like what you're used to.

But anyway. We started the day with pancakes, banana and bacon. Then snacks. And then roast turkey (Katie was in charge of this task and did an amazing job). And then more snacks. And then chocolate pudding for dessert. All the while drinking bottle after bottle of delicious wine.

A happy Christmas indeed.

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So that's it, that's the end. Thanks for playing. Now I have to come up with some new blog ideas. I have a few brewing. I have some travel plans, so that should be a few entries, at least!