Take the train from Casablanca heading south

Blowing smoke rings from the corners of my m-m-m-m-mouth

Wouldn’t you know we’re riding on the Marrakesh Express

They’re taking me to Marrakesh

Graham Nash

Got up this morning at 3:30am, which translates to 10:30pm the night before back home to our only partially jet-lag-adjusted bodies. That’s because Kamal was picking us up at 4:30 (2) catch our 6:30am flight to Marrakech. Apparently we needed to be at the small airport in Fes two hours before departure to board a plane which seated 150 people. As it turned out, we were in the departure lounge by 5:00am – 30 minutes after leaving the hotel.

Anyway, the 50 minute, half-empty flight boarded in about 10 minutes and we landed in Marrakech on time. The plan was to check in at the hotel, have breakfast, then go into the city for a morning look-around while we waited for our room to be ready at the normal time in the afternoon. As it turned out, the Amanjena hotel was happy to give us a full breakfast the day of arrival, and also give us our room right after breakfast since they were also half empty. And because they were half empty, they also upgraded the room.

Where our hotel and room in Fes, while very nice were also cramped and dark, the Amanjena hotel is ridiculously spacious and light. Our upgraded room does have a small pool, although the one in the picture is one of many decorative pools around the hotel grounds. The apparent length of the pool is not some camera trick of perspective, it’s really long.

So rather than rush into town we took our time and unpacked. We’ll be here for four nights and this room, unlike so many (expensive) rooms we’ve stayed at in our travels, has plenty of closet and drawer space. We each have a six drawer dresser and a closet.

Around 10:30 we left to go take a first look at Marrakech. Everything about Marrakech is bigger and newer-looking than Fes. For instance, while the Medina in Fes is small enough to walk around in a couple of hours, the wall surrounding the Medina here is about 12 miles long.

One of the first things we were curious about, probably like most of you, was the extent of damage from the earthquake. While the earthquake was clearly a disaster further south in the mountains, here in Marrakech you had to look to find damage. Not that there wasn’t any, but it was limited. As we were driving outside the Medina we saw the repair work going on to the wall; much of it is cosmetic and already done, with only a few sections that needed rebuilding from scratch. Inside, one 700-year old minaret was destroyed; while it will probably be rebuilt, the new one won’t be 700 years old. The tallest minaret in the Medina suffered some cracking near the top and is currently braced while the repairs are planned. There’s plenty of damage throughout the Medina, but most of it is relatively minor. Kamal said that only five people died in the city. A terrible thing, but not what the media back home was suggesting.

The Medina has a very large central plaza filled with vendors, snake charmers, musicians and tourists. Lots of tourists. Unlike Fes, where the Medina’s souks were patronized by tourists and locals, the Marrakech is all about tourism.

Once you move into the streets of the Medina, you notice three things. The first is tourists. They are the dominant factor in the parts were were in (3). Second is traffic – there are motorbikes and handcarts continuously moving through the narrow streets. In fact, there are way more motorbikes throughout Marrakech than there were in Fes. Third, the shopping streets, although narrow by Western standards, are significantly wider than those in Fes.

We came back to the hotel, and spent the afternoon hanging by the pool that came with our upgraded room. We ordered room service for lunch, napped, read and I even swam a bit. Pretty sweet.

Dinner was at the hotel. They have two restaurants – one which is Moroccan & Italian, and the other Japanese. We went for Italian food and enjoyed it.

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(1) Nash’s spelling from the mid-1960s doesn’t match what they use here.

(2) That’s a negotiation from his opening bid of 4:00am.

(3) We are, of course, tourists. So we are with our kind.