Medina

Desperately needed some thawing out and trying to catch a couple of sun rays by following said planet by moving bar to bar looking for an outdoor seating position to indulge a glass of vino and primarily preventing scurvy – I know it’s been unheard of in over 100 years, but why risk it I say.  With this technique you get about 20 minutes to order and drink before you lose the heat and forced to move to next sun-soaked position, thus its an endless battle to stay warm; stay sober; find your way to the next naturally occurring hot spot (now which way is west)? Damn hard work.

With all of the above to contend with one Duchess and Princess made a decision (this is always cause for celebration, - glasses went ‘chink..chink’ - because decision are more painful and sometimes more embarrassing than a quick dip in the neighbours pool (indoor) at 3am in Winter – don’t want to dash across frost bitten lawns in the buff again…and of course the conversation that needs to be had the following day, with or without law enforcement officers present... phew). So off we go finding more appropriate atmospheres and thus within 24 hours we find ourselves jetting off to Marrakesh, via Cassablanca. The travel agents suggestion of going via Paris which didn’t make sense to us, (for those with limited geographic talent this is a bit like leaving Rome for Athens via Antarctic –get the picture). Although it was tempting to stop in and see how the Gods (Gucci; Prada & co) were doing mid-season and with prevalent economic disaster we thought (again problem..we were thinking) this could work but then a light came on in the travel agents over coiffured head and the more direct route was booked.

Landed in glorious sunshine in Marrakesh, transported to our painfully selected Riad (went through at least a hundred potential options before settling on the most gorgeous dark brooding, recently refurbed abode, well yeah of course we wanted the real Marrakech without the reality). We get dropped off in the centre of the old Medina with MoMo (the Riads goffer) on hand to greet us and escort us the rest of the way, there aint no getting a vehicle through these laneways (a donkey, one on serious food rations, and cart just fit), as we’re more concentrated on not falling over in our stilletos – perhaps not the most practical footwear, but the locals were transfixed with our tootsies and one should always try to make an impression with the community, we really were not paying too much attention to the directions we were being taken in, but MoMo landed us in front of a non-descript door and welcomed us in – wow, nice, very nice, may choose not to leave for a while.

As we now have a home with caring staff (read: others to think for us), we headed straight out into the pre-dusk of the Medina, again it may have been an idea to note directions, well that’s easy to say now, but then there didn’t seem much haste. Walked and walked, gaped at all the sights – the souks with their multi-coloured offerings; the dress code from every century since Adam was a pup and the mange cats – what’s with Marrakesh and cats don’t they cull or eat them?.... well with this much entertainment who wants to think about getting back to base camp….4 hours later, having sampled ‘Chateau Sahara Blanc’ it seemed like a good idea to head for bed, although the local souks were very generous in offering their lodgings to us (do believe it was a shared situation they were referring to)…..Ok which way, and you can’t use the buildings as a reference as they’re all a faded terracotta colour and the street grid is non-existent so being the practical girls we are, we stopped a young street urchin ‘Mohammed’ and asked him whether he knew our Riad….Mohammed took one look at our feet and said sure he did (obviously the grape-vine had been working and our choice of sandals had reached all corners of the Medina). Mohammed proceeded to escort us home with references to the local sights – why we went by the Jusef Mosque three times was a mystery to us – it could be religious tokenism and we don’t want to be messing with gods we’re not on a mailing list with, so we indulged Mohammeds track to home).   The born trader that Mohammed is negotiated a per kilometer deal that would have put us into another pair of designer sandals (each), but Chateau Sahara had weakened our resolve and we're grateful to have the sense not to have taken the local souks offer of accommodation although they told us it was for "free".