Shooting the world, one country at a time
Follow @HandcarryOnly
Showing 8 posts tagged marrakech
High-res
I’m delighted that my writeup and photos of Marrakech, Morocco has just been featured on TakeMeToTravel.com, an ezine focused on travel offerings and experiences. Check out the Spotlight article here to read about the fabled ‘Ochre City’. Share the article with friends!
Also, view the photos and read about my experiences from the rest of my Moroccan adventure here .
The perennial waves and windy conditions off Essaouira translates to excellent surfing and kite surfing opportunities all year round. This has led to the formation of a semi permanent rag tag colony of surfers outside town, some Moroccan but mostly expat. It was hilarious to see some of the local kids, whose primary contact must be with these expat surfers, take on some of their lingo and mannerisms, which you can imagine, is quite different from the rest of Moroccan culture as a whole. These kids were boisterous and confident, dressed in hand-me-down Rip Curls and Quiksilver boardshorts. One of the young ones grabbed my camera when I was shooting them and started shooting away at his friends himself. One resulting image is in the slideshow above.
I really enjoyed taking pictures of the kids in Morocco, they are at once inquisitive, cheeky, shy and boisterous, but all innocent and playful, and it was heartwarming to see how some kids make do with so little, a reminder to us all to be thankful for all that we have.
See the rest of my photos and read about my Moroccan adventure.
A collection of the portraits I made in Morocco, from the Berber people in the Atlas Mountains to city folk in Marrakech and Essaouira.
If Marrakech was like a blast furnace, Essaouira can best be described as a breath of fresh air. The 3 hour bus ride from Marrakech to Essaouira saw the landscape gradually changing, as we headed out from the interior (where Marrakech was) towards the sea port of Essaouira. The harsh desert landscape gave rise to gradually more greenery, the climate became more Mediterranean, with a drop in the mercury and a rise in humidity supporting a greater variety of vegetation. Passing by a large Argan plantation, a curious sight greeted those not dozing away in the bus, what seemed like goats were quite literally up on the Argan trees, hanging from them like Christmas baubles.
Photo by Lottlies
Apparently, the fruits on the Argan tree are so delicious that the goats can’t seem to help themselves although there is sufficient alternative food around. The Argan tree only grows in Southwestern Morocco. Prized for its cosmetic, medical and epicural uses, Argan oil is the world’s most expensive oil at about USD300 per litre.
Essaouira sits on the Atlantic coast of Morocco, a windswept fishing port that has been occupied since Prehistoric times, with a diverse heritage that reflects its varied influences by ancient rulers and more recent colonialists. A North African city with a distinct Arab and European flavour, Essaouira has a character all of its own.
Where Marrakech was a frenetic, noisy, busy and frankly, rather stressful place, Essaouira is the complete opposite. It was pretty refreshing not to have tacky tourist souvenirs thrust in my face everywhere I go. Word has it that the ancient forts and castles surrounded by desert in Essaouira was the inspiration behind Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Castles Made of Sand’. Whether that was true or not, what cannot be disputed was that Essaouira was the hangout du jour of Hendrix and another musical legend, Bob Marley.
Essaouira retains its musical heritage to this day, playing host to the Gnaoua World Music Festival annually, celebrating the best of jazz, pop, rock and contemporary music, and of course, the mystical Gnaoua musicians.
The UNESCO listed medina is much smaller than that of Marrakech and is incredibly laid back, everything seems to happen at a much slower pace here. Children darted in an out of small narrow lanes in the medina and women carried about their chores, whilst somewhere, the tantalising smell of barbequed fish freshly caught off the Atlantic coast wafted about the winding lanes.
I was invited numerous times by various merchants and stall owners into their stores for the ubiquitous Moroccan mint tea, an extremely sweet and potent concoction of sugar and mint leaves. After an elaborate ceremony of pouring out the tea and tipping it back into the pot, the host finally decides that the tea is ready to be served and it is presented in little glass cups. No attempt at hard selling or indeed, any pressure to purchase their wares ever occurs with these occasions, it is simply Moroccan hospitality.
Mint tea in the medina
The strong winds coming in from the ocean also makes Essaouira a haven for wind and kite surfers. Standing on the ramparts of the city walls, looking out to the ocean, you can see numerous colourful kites from the surfers out at sea.
“Down the street you can hear her scream you’re a disgrace
As she slams the door in his drunken face
And now he stands outside
And all the neighbors start to gossip and drool
He cries oh, girl you must be mad,
What happened to the sweet love you and me had?
Against the door he leans and starts a scene,
And his tears fall and burn the garden green
And so castles made of sand fall in the sea, eventually…
A little Indian brave who before he was ten,
Played war games in the woods with his Indian friends
And he built up a dream that when he grew up
He would be a fearless warrior Indian Chief
Many moons past and more the dream grew strong until
Tomorrow he would sing his first war song and fight his first battle
But something went wrong, surprise attack killed him in his sleep that night
And so castles made of sand melts into the sea, eventually
There was a young girl, who’s heart was a frown
cause she was crippled for life,
And she couldn’t speak a sound
And she wished and prayed she could stop living,
So she decided to die
She drew her wheelchair to the edge of the shore
And to her legs she smiled you wont hurt me no more
But then a sight she’d never seen made her jump and say
Look a golden winged ship is passing my way
And it really didn’t have to stop, it just kept on going…
And so castles made of sand slips into the sea, eventually”
Jimi Hendrix | Castles Made of Sand
View the photos and read about the rest of my Moroccan adventure here.
le souk ! (by …cathzilla)
Dirham (by Filippo Chiesa)
I went out to the old city, at night as usual.
The silence of the street surrounding me.
And the lights of streetlamps
pouring sleep into the eyes of the alley, showering me
with their yellow pallor, as I fill up my palm
with the flowers of the wilting wind.
Then I look once more.
I gaze into the emptiness, to see you
You, my old city, I forever see you:
Dust of the storms of ages
Covers the balconies of your houses, the colors of paint,
clothing the plaster, whose carvings repeat the song of sadness.
Dust of the storms of ages
Gathering on the bricks of minarets, and on green-roofed mausoleums
on the entrances of markets, rising
Above the front of branches
Mohammed Bennis
Marrakech greets you like a blast furnace, a riot of heat and colour. It was a less than genteel 39˚C in the sweltering July summer and everything looked to be a never-ending expanse of a million shades of brown from the plane. As if the desert had formed itself into various buildings, clustered haphazardly together, before flattening out into the surrounding countryside again. Scattered about the brown sandy landscape though, were lush oases of date, olive and orange groves, and coming from the tropics, a vista exotic as I have ever seen. Blending arab and african culture with a strong European influence, Morocco is a place unlike any other. Marrakech, or the ‘Ochre City’, is the capital of Morocco and its cultural and financial nucleus.
Marrakech is home to the largest Souk or traditional market as well as the famed Djemaa el Fna, both translated as “gathering place of the dead” or a more prosaic “mosque with a courtyard in front”. Either way, it is the cultural heart of the city and it certainly seems like half the population gathers there in the evening. Describing Djemaa el Fna as an interesting place would be akin to calling the Hindenburg “a big balloon”. A constant throng of activity and people, it is a open air market in the day, with all manner of herb doctors, contortionists, acrobatic performers, snake charmers, story tellers, henna tattooists and the ubiquitous orange juice stands, selling the sweet refreshing nectar to everyone parched by the relentless heat of the midday sun.
Those wanting to escape the heat of the open square duck into the labyrinthine maze of the Souk, perhaps one of the greatest markets in the world. It is so big it is organised (if such a word can be used to describe it) into ‘districts’ selling different wares. Dark, sometimes narrow and winding, the Souk holds its secrets close to its heart, seducing those who enter with its exotic offerings within. Hidden gems of silk babouche slippers, dyed leather and wool, antique jewellery, beautiful inlaid cedar boxes and 200 year old antique furniture are to be found there, or equally likely, a poor fake patched together that very morning. Walking through the maze of shops with all manner of wares hanging from the rafters, with shafts of sunlight streaking through gaps in the ceiling, it is easy to be transported into a different era, a terribly romantic notion of nostalgic adventure, until someone shouts ‘Konichiwa! You Japan? China? I give you good price!’
As the late afternoon sun retreats and dusk falls, a dramatic transformation starts to take place back out in the square at Djemaa el Fna as countless food stalls are set up, bellowing smoke and myriad intriguing and sometimes unidentifiable smells. The sounds of the Gnaoua drummers fill the air, and belly dancers and Berber musicans add to the din. Hungry diners start streaming into the square, looking for tagine or roasted lamb’s head. The resulting sights and sounds are nothing short of amazing, the atmosphere is alive and practically crackling with energy, not unlike the vibe before a football match. The entire medina of Marrakech has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site and its not hard to see why.
Morocco has fortunately been left relatively unscathed by the Arab Spring. Whilst there were protests to air grievances and to seek increased rights for the people, the government, headed by His Highness Mohammad VI, in contrast to other rulers in the region, did not resort to violence and repression to quell the uprising but instead took small steps towards redressing some of their complaints. The darkest hour was a terrorist bomb in Djemaa el Fna, which made international headlines. Apart from that, it remained relatively peaceful. Whilst the system is far from perfect, it remains intact.
See photos and read about the rest of my Moroccan adventure!
