Hello all,

Its been a few days now and only getting to grips with the bizarre sights and the assault of tinny but hypnotising sounds of snake charmers from Djamaa El Fna Square in Marrakesh. London Piccadilly is a tranquil oasis in comparison.

I’d been to Morocco before as a conveyer belt tourist on one of those shitty one day trips to Tangier where your led along like an animal to slaughter through specific side streets and made look at carpets you don’t want to buy or herbal Viagra’s procured from a goats nether regions etc. Needless to say it wasn’t much fun, this recent trip however was a whole different story.

Deeper inland and although still touristic Marrakesh is a buzzing city teetering somewhere on the edge of the old world and the new. By day the main square Djamaa El Fna is a bizarre sight for these tired western eyes. For example you can buy customised false teeth from a vendor who simply has hundreds of teeth for you to choose from which he will then fashion into wire frame to fill up all those awful gaps you probably have after drinking so much sugary mint tea (seriously, they put about 8 sugars in every glass). The only concern is how did this man attain so many teeth? Either heavy sleepers or corpses... my money is on corpses.

By night the square takes on a festival atmosphere, bit like the stone circle at Glastonbury, with night stalls popping up serving cheap and tasty food and little drumming circles cropping up everywhere and traditional story tellers telling tales about the origins of Marrakesh. If you look hard enough you might find one street ‘performer’ pulling his face apart and screaming. I saw him twice and it was pretty graphic. Not for the faint hearted.

I didn’t explore the clubbing scene in Marrakesh  but apparently its vibrant with a mix of techno and house music peppered with Moroccan Pop music with clubs open every night and usually getting a large crowd.

I stuck with the traditional sounds coming out of every side street and odd little shops. There doesn’t seem to be much new music being made here but who knows what you would find traversing the winding streets. I even took a little bit of it back with me and haggled myself a cheap handmade Berber banjo.

Here it is …

I’m very happy as you can see!

Go to Marrakesh. It’s a lot of fun and if you’ve never been to Northern Africa a totally new experience.

- E

Me going all Deliverance

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