Boxing Day

Today is our last day in Morocco and we organised for the same taxi driver to pick us up at 1pm, we have a lazy lie in and then pack up our stuff, before taking some more photos of our view




After heading down to reception and saying a very warm farewell to Lahcen our host, we head back down the mountain with a donkey carrying our bags and meet the taxi driver, true to his word, taking us the hour back to Marrakech.
Our flight isn't until 8, and we get into the Medina at around 3 so we head for some lunch and a spot of people watching from a roof terrace overlooking the square.







We had a pizza and some fries, then went to the roof terrace at Cafe Arabe for a glass of wine and a beer to watch the sun start to set and enjoy the last of the sunshine.
With heavy hearts we head back into the square to pick up a taxi to the Airport, strangely the first price he stated was a really good one, way cheaper than we had anticipated so we didn't even haggle! Arriving at the airport we stock up on snacks for the plane, i have a cheeky beer whilst Gem buys some gorgeous Orange blossom smelly stuff, and then before we know it we are getting onto the bus outside Gatwick North terminal at just after midnight and our Moroccan christmas is all over! Save for the drive back home which Gem bravely took on herself to complete so that I could get some shut eye as I was back in work on the 27th.
If you have never been away for Christmas and just indulged yourself then please do it, we have had an absolutely wonderful time, Marrakech you were great as always.

Location:Kasbah Du Toubkal

Christmas Day

Well what an incredibly lazy day this turned out to be, I don't think either of us have done so little on a Christmas Day. We get up in just enough time to make breakfast and eat more carbs in half an hour than we have probably consumed in the last 6 months, and then just head back to bed, we pop the cork on one of the bottles of fizz we have in the fridge and open our pressies, then we sit and watch Elf, then have an afternoon snooze (because we have obviously done so much to be exhausted) a spa hammam is booked for 5 and we spend a good half hour lazing in the sauna room, then we go back to bed for more champagne and we watch the first 45 mins of Madagascar before getting ready and going for Tea. A delicious Chicken Tagine and chips nom nom!
Then guess what....... Back to bed more fizz and the rest of Madagascar whilst munching Christmas gift chocolate before falling asleep!
And that really is as much as we did all day....it was bloody brilliant.

Location:Kasbah Du Toubkal

Leaving dar Dallah and heading to the kasbah

After breakfast phill got us packed up whilst I was very lazy on the daybed. Once we had checked out we headed all the way to the other end of the medina and through all of the souks etc to the outer walls and the bus depot. It took about three quarters of an hour to get there and I was quite surprised as how much I remembered, we did end up walking a longer way round but it was the way I knew and its a lot better than getting a map out coz the minute you do you get hassled.
We arrived at the bus depot to get the bus to asni but we had missed it. Well, that's what we got told but I had dne my research and one was supposed to go every half an hour. So I have my sneaky suspicion that the men at the bus depot are all in cahoots and will try to get tourists Into taxis as its more expensive. Fair enough I suppose. I don't like the wool being pulled over my eyes and I told a couple of guys I didn't believe what they were telling me, there was a police station there too but as the police are so corrupt we decided to do what we always do in these kind of situations....decide on how much we are willing to pay and go with it. Therefore, we got a taxi to the kasbah instead. The worrying thing in Marrakech is getting into an unmarked taxi, where you are going, driving through the mountains, all the men seemingly in cahoots etc and then being charged more....you know the kind of thing. Well, a few mins later we were getting into a random car driven by a man known as 'the boss' who was explaining that we would pick up the grand taxi a few mins later on the edge of town, sounds dodgy I know but I suppose you have to get to a point where you gota trust a situation. A few mins later our luggage was being transferred into a grand taxi and the cost was asked for upfront but I said no and that we would be paying on arrival to the kasbah. The taxi driver was nice, polite, considerate driver through the crazy high roads of the atlas where those winding roads would make most people feel a bit queasy. About an hour later we arrived at imlil, a little village at the bottom of the toubkal mountains and began our ascent to the kasbah with our luggage being taken by a mule. We liked the taxi driver and decided that the hassle of getting a bus in such a remote area, albeit it would save us some pennies, we organised the taxi driver to pick us up from the kasbah at 1pm on Boxing Day for the same cost as the journey here.
The kasbah was just as beautiful as we remembered, only this time the mountains were more snow capped. It was lovely and sunny and warm. On arrival we were upgraded to a deluxe room as we were returning customers and the room was free that night, other than that they were fully booked for Christmas.
We got unpacked, well phill did whilst I read through some literature on the bed. We then went out to the hammam for a scrub and sauna which was lovely. Nobody does it for you, you get the key and lock yourselves in and have free reign of the hammam and plunge pool, for a good half hour at least. You get given stuff to massage each other and some olive wrap stuff, like a face mask really for your body.
We got back to our room and cracked open a beer And some medallion Sauvignon blanc Moroccan wine, that we brought from the supermarket earlier. We watched the last half of Bridget jones, we began watching it the night before but fell asleep!!its official, we are both old and light weights now when it comes to staying up late!
We tucked into some snacks that we had picked up from the supermarket and got into bed. Blimey, this is turning into the laziest couple of days away ever, we don't normally laze around. The tiredness of the wedding is catching up with me I think and I have been exhausted for a few months so maybe that's it.
We got ready and headed down for dinner









which was buffet style of rabbit, fish and lamb tagines with cous cous and vegetables, vegetable soup, creme caramel and lots of biscuits, chocolate cakes and coffee. After dinner the men at the kasbah performed a series of traditional drumming songs which were impressive. It was trance like and they sounded really good together.

After the 'entertainment' phill and I headed upto the observatory lounge and lit the large wood burning fire that was suspended from the ceiling in the middle of the room. We took a bottle of champagne up and chatted until we looked up and the room was full of smoke! The fire was a little vigorous as the man who came upto light it did such a good job! Phill nipped down to reception to double check that the flue was working ok so that we didn't smoke ourselves out and a few mins later he came back up the stairs with two men in tow, Raul and Philipp who were in the dining room that evening. Philipp was a Dutch sailor and Raul an artist and sculptor. They both sat with us and chatted for a couple of hours, they got out their spliffs and we continued with our champagne...only! A few hours later we had discussed religion, travelling, art, jobs, sailing, teaching etc etc and then they headed off to the other side of the hill to their accommodation. They were traveling around for a bit as Phillipp hadn't got another sailing job for a while.
Phill and I got back to our room and
zzzzzzzzzzz.

Location:Marrakech

Xmas eve

I had a fairly restless night last night as some inconsiderate Spanish people were also staying at the Riad and although they were all in there late 40s, at least, they decided to stay up in the lounge area with the log fire blazing and talking and laughing at the top of their voices until 4:30 am. Needless to say, I was rather tired in the morning, phill slept through it! Quelle surprise!
So, we organised breakfast for later in the morning and went back to bed for a bit before going up onto the terrace for breakfast. It is 28 degrees today.




Breakfast was lovely although I would love a proper cup of tea but I can deal with that.

Location:Marrakech

Beyrouth and cocktails in the Chesterfields

You would think that being a Taxi driver in Marrakech would mean that you would know all the little back streets and the locations of the main places and restaurants etc, but oh no!
Our taxi driver was rubbish, we gave him the address and also a very clear map with the locations of Beyrouth restaurant circled in big bold ballpoint, but he was totally feckless and after 15 minutes driving around and around the same wrong street with me and Gem trying to tell him to 'TURN RIGHT HERE' we just gave up, got out and walked the remainder of the way.
Beyrouth is a great little place, tucked out of the way and a bit rough around the edges, but the Lebanese food is wonderful, we tucked into 8 tapas style plates of all sorts of things including Nasazar (lemon chicken wings), Fatayer (a bit like a mini meat filled pasty), falafels, houmous, moussaka.... Can't remember them all but they were delicious.
After chatting to our waiter for what seemed like an hour (we managed to get from asking for the bill, to football, to world politics and the state of the financial economy) we headed off to a bar that we have frequented on more than one occasion, the chesterfields pub. It calls itself a pub but its not, it's more of a hotel bar really, but they do great mojitos and all this decor is walnut and dark leather panelling, big leather armchairs and dark atmospheric lighting. We perched ourselves in our usual spot at the bar and settled in for mojitos and beer with a weird soundtrack of Adele, some weird Spanish guitar, Jimi Hendrix and some 80's classics thrown in for good measure.
Feeling suitably full and the good side of drunk, we get a taxi back to the medina and the short walk back to our Riad...we are now officially pro's at walking back through the souks in the dark.

Location:Marrakech

Getting lost and loving it

Part and parcel of what we love about Marrakech is the complete maze of streets around the souks and the Medina and exploring areas we have never been to before....yes it's disorientating and yes it is definitely confusing, but with a good street map and your own personal GPS in the form of Gemma, its a great experience.


As we were walking through the Souks we saw quite a lot of maintenance work taking place, and Gem was mortified by the lack of Health and Safety, this guy was about 9 feet off the concrete and some old wooden boxes made the foundation for his walkway!

We somehow found ourselves at the northern quarter of the city, this is very much a 'local area for local people' we were the only tourists walking through the street market, and everyone buying from the traders were marrakeshi. The produce looked incredible, and there was everything you could possibly need, fresh fish of all kinds, loads of vegetables, big jumble sales of clothes, shoes sandals and socks, and of course what shopping trip wouldn't be complete without some knock-off Dre Beats for £5 (if you don't know what Dre Beats are then your too old to be cool and you need to ask a teenager)
Couldn't really take any pics as it was too close and madly crowded, and the Morccans don't really like having their picture taken anyway. But did manage to get these by aiming the camera in the general direction, but holdint it at waist height, and snapping away.

Candy floss!!!!!!!!!



We found a really nice little cafe so we stopped for a drink.

We then headed back to the main square, Jeema El Fnaa, and from there walked up the Avenue Mohammed V main road to a place called Gueliz, which is basically the new town Marrakech and its where all the finance, business and educational facilities are located, along with all the new generation of rich Marrakeshi, some really great restaurants and the Supermarket where you can buy booze!
It's a fair old walk, we reckon about 4 miles, but its gorgeous and sunny, so its really nice just to stroll along chatting. We stop off at the Grande Cafe de la Poste which is a really lovely restaurant that used to be the original post office fro Marrakech back in the day, we had a lunch of antipasti, washed down with a couple of glasses of wine.

We got to the supermarket and stocked up ready for our two days in the heights of the Atlas Mountains,
On our way back we stopped off at a large outdoor market type place that was full of all the artisan craft traders who live and work in the artisan quarter. Marrakech is not full of tat, the actual quality of the products, and I'm not talking about the cheap drums, or the crap plastic tourist junk, but the traditional lamps, ceramics and the leather goods are all handcrafted and really good quality. These are all produced by these artisans who all go off to be educated as apprentices to learn their craft, and are then accredited once they complete their training and receive certification to acknowledge their craft. An apprenticeship can take 6 years to complete!














Rather than try walk back we just jumped a taxi back to the Medina and then found our way back to our Riad so that we can get changed for our meal out, to it we are going to Beyrouth, its a Lebanese restaurant in Gueliz and we went here on our first trip to Marrakech and loved it.

Location:In and around the medina

Spa treats for Xmas

After our lovely lunch we headed off for a wander around, making our way in the general direction of the spa that we had booked. We arrived at the Medina Spa around 3:30 and had a hammam, body scrub and algae wrap, then had a full body massage. Needless to say we left more than a little relaxed and smelling faintly of honey and orange blossom, which for Gem is really nice but for me...well.... i smell a bit girly!
We head back to our Riad, via the spice markets, crocodile skins and chameleons, to over ready for our meal in Al Fassia.

Al Fassia is a fab restaurant, and to us it means one thing.... roast lamb shoulder! After booking the flights, the next thing Gem did was reserve our table here and order the lamb shoulder. So no pressure Al Fassia!
They didn't let us down, it was just as delicious.

We started with a selection of Moroccan salads, mostly lovely but with some weird ones!






And then to say we devoured the lamb shoulder is an understatement




Now it has be one something of a tradition for us to then go to the Chesterfields pub, just round the corner and drink cocktails, however we both realised that we got up Friday morning at 7 and had been awake ever since, apart from 20 minutes snooze Friday night, about 36 hours give or take, so its no surprise we were yawning our heads off, so we got a taxi back to the Riad, got in bed with a roaring wood fire, a couple of cold beers and watched Elf on the iPad!

Location:Medina Spa & Al Fassia

Lunch on the Terasse

Lunch on a roof terrace in the sunshine is just lovely!


We scoffed a sausage Tagine with cous cous, ensalata caprese and a bottle of wine! Yum!

Location:Cafe de Arabe

Dar Dallah, its good to be back

Just checked in to the Riad Dar Dallah, and we have the same room as last time! It's lovely and peaceful in here compared to the madness of the Medina, but I can't quite get my head around the fact that its 23 degrees and they have got the heating on! Everyone is walking around like its the middle of winter with leather jackets and scarves! But then I suppose that they are used to 50+ degrees so a 30 degree temperature change is pretty significant.



We are going to head out in a few minutes to go get our bearings, get some grub and a drink or two, before going to a spa for some luxurious treatments.
Laters!
Ooh did I mention its gorgeously sunny and warm here with not a drop of rain in sight!

Gem- I spotted a Christmas tree in the entrance to cafe Arabe.

Gem- I took Phill to a little patisserie place I spotted the first time I was in marrakesh but I had never brought anything from there so we popped in and got some calorific Xmas treats, Moroccan style. They were yum, most of them!

Location:Ménara,Morocco