Jemaa el-Fnaa | The Life of Lock Mommy

I can feel the blog starting to get away from me because we’ve been doing so much and I have SO MANY photos and not enough time to post. It’s late so this will be a quick one.

Last night we drove both cars and the entire entourage to the area of Marrakech called Jemaa el-Fnaa. It is probably the most overwhelming place I have ever been in my life. Moroccan traffic is notoriously scary…I have never actually worked up the courage to drive here. There aren’t a lot of traffic lights and they DEFINITELY don’t yield to pedestrians. But Marrakech is typical Moroccan traffic multiplied by 100. There are a ton of cars, plus caleches (horse-drawn carriages), scooters and motorcycles (no helmets, whole families riding on one scooter), bikes, donkey carts, buses, taxis – with everyone moving at top speed, weaving in and out…I have no idea where they’re going but they obviously need to get there asap. When crossing the street last night we literally had to just run out into the traffic, dodging 3 lanes (I use the term “lane” very loosely), plus any animal-powered vehicles, and the scooters that appear out of nowhere. It was extremely scary. I can’t imagine any place in the US where I would face a similar situation. The scooters zip up and down the tiny streets and alleys too, so you have to be on guard at all times. It may be part of the charm, but the king would make great strides toward a more tourist-friendly Morocco with a little traffic control so the tourists didn’t have to run for their lives.

We lived through the street-crossing and headed directly for a pizza place I had read about (Lonely Planet – Morocco) because everyone was starving. As we approached the tiny pizza take-out window, a guy offered us seating at the panoramic roof-top restaurant. I didn’t immediately realize that it was a different restaurant than the one we were planning to go to, but I was just happy to sit down and look forward to possibly having food in front of me in the fairly near future. It took a really long time but the food was good and they had cheese pizza that was acceptable to Adlani so that was a huge plus. For 10 of us the bill was 667 dirhams ($75).

We wandered around Jemaa el-Fnaa for a little while but everyone was exhausted and we had the street-crossing and ride home ahead of us. Jemaa el-Fnaa is basically a big area in the middle of Marrakech where tons of people gather at night (during the day too but less so). There are tons of stalls selling food, carts selling orange juice, and lots of street performers – snake charmers, Berber musicians and dancers, henna artists, monkey trainers…I really can’t describe what it’s like to be there. It’s a total assault on the senses. Ben loves it. I used to like it more when I only had to worry about not getting myself run over. It’s not as enjoyable now that I’m responsible for others. Ben bought the kids these lit slingshot things and the kid demonstrated them by shooting one way up in the air, and BAM – Adlani was gone running after it. You had to be there.

We took an extremely round-about route home because none of the roads are marked with the street names so my map was useless. I don’t know if they have GPS here but the only one I have is on my phone which I’m not using because of the roaming charges. It took us about twice as long as it should have but we finally found our way back and fell into bed.

This morning our family showed up at breakfast and the rest of the entourage (sleeping in the other apartment) did not. Unfortunate since I paid extra to have breakfast included, but whatever. Who knew that their sleeping through breakfast would start a chain of events?

After breakfast we told the kids they could spend one hour at the pool before we went to Marrakech. I went to the pool with our kids and their 11YO cousin, while Ben went to the other apartment. The grown-ups had gone out to the market and had been gone a really long time, and the teenagers were starving, so Ben took them to a restaurant in the resort. He also took our room key. I didn’t know which restaurant, and didn’t have any way to contact him. After about an hour in the pool, I saw my nephew heading off by himself, and I sent Aliya after him. I assumed he was going to the bathroom and I didn’t want him to go alone. The bathroom was very close to the pool, but I didn’t have a clear line of sight. About 20 minutes later they hadn’t come back, and Uncle Abdullah showed up. I somehow communicated that Aliya and Amine had gone to the bathroom and hadn’t come back, and he went off to look for them. Ben arrived about 10 minutes later and I was starting to get frantic. He took off looking for them too. By the time they found their way back to the pool I started to cry. Amine had decided to go to the apartment to go to the bathroom. Neither of them knew the way, and oh by the way they didn’t have a key either. Our apartment is right next to the pool so it would have been the logical choice (they didn’t know I didn’t have a key). The bathrooms immediately adjacent to the pool would have made even more sense but sense was in short supply. Aliya felt really bad and told me that she didn’t even know where Amine was going (language barrier) and was just doing what I told her and following him so he wouldn’t be alone. All’s well that ends well I guess. When they were gone Adlani said, “They probably got lost and ran into a really scary looking dude, who said, ‘Want to come to my room and eat some candy?’ and they went because Amine really likes candy, and then…” Oy vey.

In the afternoon we got a taxi to Marrakech by way of the dromedaries in the Palmeraie. For 300 dirhams ($33.40) the kids each got their own camel and were led on a 20-minute ride out of our sight through the palm trees. In Marrakech, we found our way through the medina to the Bahia Palace. We paid the admission even though the sign said it was closing in 15 minutes. The attendant didn’t mention anything so I thought we were ok. The palace is AMAZING. So many beautiful doors and ceilings! But unfortunately a security guard started shooing us out before we got our fill of the place so I just took as many photos as I could as he herded us through.

The taxi driver had told us about a place to buy the stuff that’s for sale in the souk, but at fixed prices. We swung by Jemaa el-Fnaa because we hadn’t seen any monkeys or snakes the night before and the kids wanted to make sure they didn’t miss seeing them, then took a caleche for a short ride, ending at the store. At that point Aliya looked like she was ready to pass out – both Aliya and Norah fell asleep in the caleche. It was really hot (100ish), and we hadn’t eaten since breakfast. We spent some time in the store but it was so overwhelming that we didn’t end up buying anything. Then we grabbed a taxi back to the hotel. The taxi driver was impressed with my Arabic. 🙂

I stayed with the kids while Ben went to Marjane to get some food, which took about 2 hours (the store is 10 minutes away). We all chowed down and everyone is currently passed out except me. I have a lot more photos to post but tomorrow we are headed to the mountains and we need to get an early start so I’m off to bed too.

Camel ride (actually dromedaries):