Marrakech: The Ochre City

As mentioned in our previous post, we headed south for the Marrakech International Marathon (although we opted for the half marathon), and spent a few days roaming around The Red City. Marrakech gets this name from the color of its city walls, made out of red sandstone in the 12th century. These days, the walls are still sandstone, but painted to ensure the city lives up to descriptions found in most tour guides. Marrakech is also (perhaps more accurately) sometimes referred to as the Pink City. Marrakech is one of Morocco's "Imperial Cities" meaning it has been, at some point in its history, a Capital of Morocco. Each of the Imperial Cities also tends to be associated with a color, although the historical relevance of these associations seem a bit foggy. Marrakech is undoubtedly red or pink. Fez is usually associated with green. Meknes claims yellow or gold (although sometimes also green). Finally, the current capital, Rabat holds a weak hold on a claim to the color blue, which is more typically associated with the city of Chefchaouen.

Our visit included stops at many of the typical historical sites: Badi Palace, Bahia Palace, the Koutoubia Mosque, the Saadien Tombs, Jemaa El-Fna (the main square and primary entrance to the Medina), and the Menara Gardens. As well as a few of the more modern spectacles like the Secret Garden, La Mamounia Hotel, and the Royal Mansour Hotel. Our favorite site was the Badi Palace - the entrance is a bit hidden, but once you make it inside the walls, you are treated to beautiful sites of what remains of a 16th century palace. The palace was once thought to have had 360 lavishly decorated rooms, several large pavilions, a courtyard, and a large pool. Each of the galleries are superbly curated. You can tour the old dungeons. The king's former reception hall has been preserved as it was discovered. One gallery displays the history of the ongoing archeological and restoration work on the site. Finally, the enormous reflecting pool and sunken gardens are an awesome spectacle. Much, much, much smaller, but just as cool as Badi Palace was the Secret Garden. It's amazing to see the amount of care and effort that goes into restoring some of these sites. In the case of the Secret Garden (which has a nice rooftop café that overlooks the garden), the restoration included returning to full operation an irrigation system fed by a still functional natural spring Roman aqueduct. Amazing!

We ate more than enough food, returning multiple times to the Zeitoun Cafe (so much so, that we were on a first-name basis with the staff after only two days!). Their food was very good, but not the best food we've had in Morocco, but their service was top notch. We enjoyed friendly conversations in Arabic with the waitstaff and the manager, and they made the best ice cream sundae (get the Orientale - you won't regret it)! On our first day in Marrakech, our goal was to have lunch at the Earth Cafe, a vegan/vegetarian restaurant. It was honestly one of the top 3 vegan/vegetarian restaurants we've eaten in! It doesn't look like much from the outside, but the food was awesome and the prices were super cheap (sorry, we forgot to take pictures of the dishes before we devoured them...but we promise they were good).

In the evening, we ventured out to the famous Jemaa El-Fna square. You may have heard of it as the place where you can have your picture taken with a monkey, or with a snake draped around your neck as the snake charmers dance with their cobras, or brave the food and juice vendors for a fresh smoothie, camel kebabs, and snail soup. We opted to "snake" our way through the crowds, using every Arabic/Darija/French phrase we knew for "no thank you, we already ate" to get the vendors to back down, and enjoyed a rooftop dinner at one of the restaurants overlooking the square.

We'll be honest, we didn't have any life-altering experiences in Marrakech. Being one of the most popular places in Morocco among tourists, we experienced the highest level of "annoyance" here with taxi drivers and vendors. Even using Moroccan Arabic with taxi drivers, they refused to use their meters, and ripped customers off left and right. We had one taxi driver agree to use his meter, then proceed to drive us the "long way" to one part of town. And another who used the meter and proceeded to drop us in the complete opposite direction of where we wanted to go (we don't know if this was intentional or an honest mistake), and then no taxi would return us for a reasonable fare. So we ended up walking back...

The final 36 hours of the trip we decided we wanted a bit of rest and relaxation before running the half marathon. So, we vacated our medina riad and booked a room in a 5-star hotel located 100 yards from the start/finish line of the race. We enjoyed being treated like celebrities for a few hours...took a relaxing dip in the indoor pool; did a little pre-race workout at the fitness center (which was equipped with a personal trainer); attended the all-you-can eat, build-your-own pasta buffet; stood in a steaming hot rainfall shower just because, and capped off the evening watching some animated movie with Arabic subtitles...and we absolutely wore the hotel robes and slippers :)

If anyone is looking for a destination Half Marathon (or Full Marathon), the Marrakech International race is a good option! It's SUPER flat, and the weather was perfect. Every other morning was super sunny and chilly (about 45 degrees), but we were blessed on race morning with 50 degrees and fog. We finished the half marathon with enough time to catch the massive (and quite impressive) breakfast buffet at our hotel, before cleaning up and getting ready to head back to Rabat.

Oh, one last thing for our American followers...we doubt anything like this exists in the US, or everyone would use it. We purchased a few rugs in Marrakech (which we were not expecting to do). They were heavy. And we took the train...we weren't quite sure how we were going to get everything back to Rabat. The staff at the riad recommended using one of the messenger services, which are attached to two bus companies in Morocco. We took a taxi to the "messagerie," with our two rugs. Those of you in the US: picture two packages, weighing approx. 20-25lbs each, and each package is about the size of a carry-on suitcase. How much would it cost to send two packages of this size, 2-day shipping, in America?? I don't know, but it's a lot...well in Morocco, we know exactly how much it costs...$11.00. IF I'M LYING, I'M DYING! Probably one of the best discoveries we've made in Morocco...or perhaps one of the most detrimental discoveries because now J knows how to respond when K says, "We can't bring that back on the train, I guess you can't buy it." *wink wink* Heaven help us when we figure out the affordable way to mail rugs back to the US...

So, long story left long, Marrakech was worth the visit, but not life changing. The riads were beautiful as always, but we found the relaxation and ammenities of a luxury hotel a better respite from the crowded streets and noisy markets. The food was noteworthy, and we managed to score some fair pricing on a few rugs. The raison d'être for the trip ended up being an enormous success. The 1/2 marathon was absolutely beautiful and the timing worked out great for running, repacking, refueling, and then returning home.