Marrakech, 8th June

8th June ’99 1345hrs Tuesday. Cyber café, Marrakech. Pavements melting. We’ve really got into the Youth hostel socialising thing. Last night we met two Canadians; Heidi and Madalin, and their friends from Sweden; Joass, Johann and Elli. We went to a pub (!) which we weren’t expecting in Morocco at all, and it was really cheap. Mmm, great. (Thank God for air conditioning in this place!) We’ve just eaten and huge meal for brunch – Couscous aux gazou (had sausages but I didn’t risk it) which was gorgeous.
After all our alternative planning yesterday, our Canadian companions have invited us to go trekking up Mount Toubkal for a couple of days. After much thought, finding out if we need a guide (no) if it will be snowbound (only at the top) is it high enough to have oxygen depletion ( only slightly), we have agreed.
We might go on to Ouarzazate for a night or so, but our time is limited. There is so much I want to do in Morocco – it’s really annoying that we won’t be able to do them all. This is the first country that I really feel that I want to stay in for a while – I love it here. I’ve got the hang of my Arabic numbers, and now I’m picking up a few basic phrases, which I’m enjoying enormously. This afternoon we’re stocking up on food and kit for our trek, and headed for the Djemaa El Fna later.

Brunch was eaten at a café-cum-restaurant that the Canadian girls had eaten at before. It was only because they had eaten there before that they caught the owner in a bit of a cheeky attempt to milk us for cash. I hate to say it, but people repeatedly tried to stiff us out of money.

Don't get me wrong - the exchange rate from pounds to Moroccan Dirhams was very, very good, and everything was incredibly cheap, but more often than not we would pay at a stall or shop only to spot the actual, lower, price on a off to one side, or inside the outside bit of the restaurant. It wasn't costing us anything, really. But it was really annoying.

The owner of the restaurant had presented us with menus - and Madalin was surprised to see that the prices were about 50% higher than they had paid the day before. She took the laminated menus back inside with her and returned with sheets which were identical to the others in all but price.

Now.
One of the things about Morocco that Gemma and I had been very careful about was to read up on customs and levels of acceptable clothing and whatnot before leaving the UK. Gemma had bought some light canvas trousers to wear, and a couple of very light long-sleeved tops.

In the cyber café, which was in an air-conditioned basement, there were a few other people we recognised from the hostel. The Swedish guys were going off to a shop, and because some of the girls from the hostel had been hissed at by some Moroccan guys sitting outside a café on the way, they asked to come back with us. They were a little provocatively dressed by Moroccan standards.

On the way back, we passed the same café, and the same men were there.
Nothing.
Nada.

About twenty yards past the café, a couple of the girls started laughing.

"What?" I said, turning round.
"They must have thought we were your wives!"

I'd never had a harem before.

So....Toubkal.
The highest mountain in North Africa.

And we were going to climb it.
It was one and a third days to the top from a base camp and Refuge Alpin in the High Atlas, and a day back to camp. Getting to the base camp involved catching a coach from Marrakech to a town called Asni, and then getting a truck up into the mountains.
That was the plan.

Marrakech was incredible.

The Djemaa El Fna is a wide open square at the heart of Marrakech, packed with entertainers, snake chamers, food stalls, story tellers, acrobats...and bordered on two long sides by souks or markets, which were labyrinthine and misleading, where awnings and towering two-storey buildings blocked out the sunlight overhead, and alleyways and arches lead off to other areas of the souks. Deeper into the maze some of the stalls became less tourist-oriented, but Gemma and I and the Canadian girls were still assaulted on all sides by cries to appreciate quality or value, or to take tea with shopkeepers. In places there wasn't a square inch of wall or stall that wasn't covered with wares for sale - jewellery, trinkets, leather goods, souvenirs, art, olives, bread, djellabahs and pointy slippers covered with gold braid, and rugs everywhere.

One of the Swedish guys had basked in the praise of Madalin and Heidi for his amazing bartering technique, meaning he had bought a really nice leather satchel for an excellent price.

Hasn't everyone always thought they would be good at bartering?

I have.

So I wandered into a little jewellery boutique up a narrow stone staircase and had a look around. I spotted a little purple stone necklace that I thought my sister would like, and I asked Gemma how much she thought it was worth.

"About two pounds," she said.
Okay, thought I. That'll be...thirty dirhams. I turned to the owner of the stall and asked him, in French, how much the necklace was.

"Six hundred."
"Dirhams?"
"Yes. Six hundred. Very valuable piece. Berber craftmanship."

The Berbers were the indigenous people of Morocco. A few tribes lived in the High Atlas or the Pre-Sahara, or else were integrated seamlessly into Arabic life. The speaking of French, Arabic and Berber was de rigeur.
Berbers were also credited with making almost every object for sale in Morocco.
Busy Berbers.

I began to panic. There was no way I could bid down from 600 to 30. The laws of bartering just don't allow that. High price asked, low price offered, bid together to what it's actually worth...those are the rules, no? I would have to start in negative numbers!

I said thank you, but no. He persisted. I said that it would only offend him if I were to offer a price.
At this point he turned his face fully onto me for the first time and I saw that the entire right side of his face was a welt of scars. The left side of his face wasn't that friendly.

Ah.
A price, you say?

Ten dirhams.
Laughter from our scarred friend. Being waved away. Relief from me. I turn.
Three hundred.
No, no, sorry.
Berber craftmanship! Special price, for you, my friend!
No, sorry.
Two hundred, come on. Bid.
No.

I turned and stepped out of the shop, and he followed me, growling prices.
I was getting progressively more and more nervous as we descended the narrow steps twenty dirhams at a time, and slowly made our way further away from his shop under spreading fabrics until...

"I buy for forty dirhams, I cannot sell for less than that!"
"Okay, okay, forty dirhams."

I agreed just to get away. I had visions of him following us all evening. He turned to everyone else who had just witnessed my embarrassing attempt at price bidding.

"Okay. Anyone else want one for that price? Hashish? No?"

We moved away from that area of the souk, my cheeks burning.