Lonely Planet Morocco
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The Marrakesh Express
The coast to the mountains
East of the Atlas
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Travel notes from Marrakesh
Hi Everyone,
I'm back in Marrakesh again for the third time on this trip and probably not the last.
After arriving in Casablanca last week I left town the following day. There is not much to see or do in Casa except the Hassan 2 mosque. Its just one large modern sprawl around the port.
Took the train to Marrakesh and stayed at the Hotel Ali, a nice place in the centre of town overlooking the main square. For those who haven't been to Marrakesh, let me paint you a picture. The main square is where all the entertainment happens. During the day its mostly snake charmers, who I give a wide berth. North of the square are the souqs in the old medina selling almost everything you can imagine. The square comes to life in the evening when all the open-air food stalls are wheeled out and take over half the square. The smell of all that food cooking is something else. The entertainers come out as well; musicians, dancers, acrobats, story tellers etc. And still those snake charmers are about. Trouble is at nighttime they are more difficult to spot!
Spent two days in town before taking a bus down to the coast to a small town called Essaouira. This is the beach resort where a lot of the independent travellers hang out. There is good surfing as well so there are plenty of Australian surf dudes hanging out by the beach. Most of the package tourists head for Agadir and just pop up to Essaouira for a day trip. The old medina, the old walled city, is right down on the sea around the port. It's a very picturesque location with the waves crashing against the rocks.
My next destination was to go to the High Atlas Mountains, which involved a bus trip back to Marrakesh. From Marrakesh you can see the snow capped peaks of the mountains. I wanted to go to Imil a village at the end of the road, which serves as a base camp for trekkers. There are regular taxis to Asni and from there I took a truck up into the mountains to Imil at 1700m altitude. Imil is a lovely quiet place, no through traffic, no exhaust fumes. The river flows through the village and the houses cling to either side of the valley. Unfortunately that is all I saw of the mountains as I went down with some kind of a fever and was stuck in a hotel for three days feeling rather sorry for myself. Today I felt fit enough to make it back down to Marrakesh. On the bright side the weather in the mountains was terrible yesterday, very stormy and a lot of snow fell on the peaks. Just think I could of been trekking through it! I hope to go back one day when I feel fitter but I thought it rather foolish to head for the hills if you don't feel 100%. The thought of being carted out on the back of a mule was enough for me.
So that brings me back to Marrakesh. If I still feel fit tomorrow then I will head east out towards the desert and find a quite oasis to relax in.
At least it is nice and warm down here! In Imil I was sitting in the hotel with a t-shirt, fleece, raincoat on and was still shivering!
That's all for now I'm going to take it easy around town this afternoon and go for a big feed tonight and drink loads of freshly squeezed orange juice.
Apologies for spelling errors, especially 'q' where there should be an 'a'. Today I'm using a French keyboard and they put the keys in the wrong place as well изаай in case you didn't believe me!
Regards
Geoff
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