This being a resume of 4 days away, the subject matter will shift from experiences of Marrakech itself, the Moroccan people, actual training (being the point of the trip) and the inadequacies of the DK guide to Marrakech that my little angels had bought me for my birthday.
First off a couple of truths that people may or may not choose to belive.
1. Steph has asked me to make it known that he carried on his alcohol abstention throughout the trip.
2. Although one of these was just round the corner from the hotel, I did not venture once through the portals. Not even for a peek at the menu!
DAY 1
All started well with a flight arriving 25 minutes ahead of schedule due to a hefty tail wind that helped blow us towards Morocco at a tasty 650MPH. Even the very slow process of getting through Moroccan passport control didn't slow us down too much as we were carrying hand luggage only.
We had tried to contact the hotel a couple of days previously to arrange a shuttle transfer but had no reply so we made our way to the taxi rank. We gave the gaggle of taxi persons the address and queried a price. "Vingt cinq" he said. "Pour deux" queried I. "Oui!" said he. So in we jumped. The arranger, as he turned out to be, said we must pay him in advance and not the driver. This was fine by us as there was no chance of us getting ripped off at the destination. Sitting in the back seat I started to count out 25Dh (Dirhams)."Non, non" he said excitedly "Vingt cinq Euros!" We immediately jumped out of the taxi saying something along the lines of "I'm afraid we won't be paying your price my good man!" Here ensued my first (and, as it transpired, only) effort at haggling. Not only was I haggling but I was doing it in French!! The DK guide had said that the price should be 30Dh per person but you can be charged up to 100Dh. I told the guy about the 30Dh reference, which for some reason amused him greatly. Ultimately we settled on 160Dh for the two of us, which on reflection seemed value of sorts.
I await comments from avid blog readers that we were totally ripped off but the best was yet to come. The ride exposed us to Moroccan rules of the road, i.e., there aren't any. You pay a lot to get into Alton Towers for rides less thrilling than this and here we were getting it thrown in with the taxi fare. Bargain!!
We arrived at the hotel with all of our body parts still in tact and checked in to what was on first appearances a very clean and tidy hotel. I know now that some of you are anticipating horror stories to come but I'll stop you right in your tracks - it really was a nice, clean and tidy hotel with very friendly and courteous staff. So if you are planning a trip to Marrakech, you could do a great deal worse than Residence Assounfou, Rue El Imam Malik, just off Place 16 Novembre.
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| Residence Assounfou |
After a swift unpack, we headed out onto the street to find some grub. Being in the New Town and surrounded by a mall of chrome and glass, there were a few decent eateries. We eventually settled on the Queen Atlantic and had a pretty decent meal, although I'm ashamed to say that I got all touristy and went for the Chicken Tagine. It was darn tasty though! Biggest shock was that the small beer I had to accompany the meal was 2/3 the price of the food!
Following the restaurant we had a short stroll back to the hotel and then swiftly hit the sack.
DAY
2
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| Mosque Hasan II |
We awoke at 08:00 after a decent enough
sleep, which was punctuated by the local Muezzin
bellowing out the call to prayer at Mosque Hasan II just down the road. Mosques
are kitted out with PA systems these days so this was not a quiet affair.
As the hotel was room only, we headed down
to one of the local mini marts to stock up on bread, cheese, yoghurt drinks,
fruit juice, cakes and water for our brekkie. We returned to the room at set
ourselves out on the balcony to enjoy the feast. During breakfast we had our
first sight of a construction project across the road, which was to become an
item of fascination for us over the next 3 days. By the time we arrived the
project had already succeeded in an excavation of about 40 square metres
surface and about 20 metres deep. There is obviously no Moroccan version of HSE
as the working practices were almost comical. Towers had been erected, which
could loosely be termed scaffolds and planks laid across these for working
platforms.
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| Project Certain Death |
After 3 miles or so we managed to get some
evidence to back up my claim that all the accidents at work due to slips and
trips were actually idiots hurting themselves by not looking where they were
going. Yours truly was too busy being an idiot by looking around and not
concentrating where he was going and consequently tripped over some raised
concrete. A spectacular dive resulted in a bruised elbow (which is still sore
as I type) I had a look in my first aid kit but could find nothing that cured
shame!!
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| Athlete!! Atlas Mountains are in the background somewhere |
We continued along the N7 without any
further ado and decided on a turn around point after 12.5km. We paused for a
drinks break and to take a couple of photos. We’d attempted to get the spectacular
Atlas Mountains in the background but the
glaring sunshine meant that these did not come out that well.
On the return to town we encountered a lot
more locals than we had on the way out, many of them children who had been let
out of school. Hence followed a lot of “bonjours” and the odd “Selaam” for the
older ones, who appreciated this small gesture greatly. On entering the city,
the roadside thermometers were now up to 35ºC and the large volume of traffic
meant that throats became dry very quickly.
The number of twists and turns we had taken
on the way out were unfortunately not engrained in our memories and it took the
use of the ‘return to start’ facility on the Garmin to get us safely back to
the hotel. In 2 days time we would discover that we could have gone straight on
down Avenue Mohammed V to get to somewhere we recognised but for now we were
still wide eyed innocents!!
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| Place Jemaa El Fna |
As we ventured further across the massive
square we encountered the orange juice sellers. For a mere 8Dhs we were
supplied with 2 large and very refreshing glasses of freshly squeezed orange
juice. Again there is great competition for your money from a number of these
guys. Even as you are about to order from one, others are still shouting for
you to change your mind and head over to them!!
The benefit of the orange juice became
greater as we made our first foray into the Souks. This is a never ending
warren of stalls selling all manner of goods and, without concentrating on
which way you came in, you can quickly become disorientated. Again, the stall
holders are all after your hard earned and, much as I fancied another go at
haggling, there really wasn’t anything that caught my eye. Certainly nothing
that I’d have managed to get home in my daysack!! Anyway, we didn’t
concentrate, we did become disorientated and we did take an age to find our way
out again!! Fortunately we managed it in daylight and set off towards the
rapidly erecting food stalls for some tea.
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| A hearty meal for bugger all. Courtesy of stall #97 |
The DK guide book had advertised the food
stalls as an easy going stroll around the stalls, where you leisurely peruse
the menus before settling on the meal of your choice. Not so. The chat men on
these stalls were 3 times as intense as anything we had previously encountered.
No sooner had you fought to within an inch of your life to free yourself from
the attentions of one, than another was immediately upon you. We ultimately
settled for the cheeky chat of stall #97 and sat ourselves down to dine. The
food was both cheap and very tasty. 2 courses with bread, dips, dressed olives
and drinks plus a glass of mint tea came to under £10 for the both of us!
With bellies full we set off at a leisurely
pace back to the hotel. Before heading back to the room we decided to have a
peek in an undercover alleyway, which was advertised as an artisan market. How
pleased I was that we made this decision as I found the only shop thus far
where I could purchase some beer. Being a Muslim country, this all had the feel
of some undercover deal during prohibition as my cans of Heineken were stuffed
into a carrier bag and I sneaked surreptitiously away having parted with 60Dhs
for 4 cans. By no means cheap compared to Tesco prices at home but an absolute
bargain compared to the single bottle the night before. With limited
opportunities to purchase beer in any case, the value was further enhanced. I
know that lots of you are now thinking that as I was on a training break, why
was I guzzling ale. Well, as I had already turned the other cheek as far as my
sausage and egg bagel breakfast was concerned, I was not giving up on another
vice!!
The 4 cans were eagerly consumed between a
chat session on the balcony whilst viewing progress of Project Certain Death
and viewing of English language movies on The Action Channel.
With a full and enjoyable day behind us, we
settled down to sleep at the more than decent hour of 22:00
DAY
3
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| Convenient hole!! |
Day 3 pretty much followed the format of
day 2 in respect of the Muezzin, breakfast
and training, although we managed not to get as embarrassed navigationally as
we had the previous day and the mercury settled in the thermometers at a far
more manageable 33º! We encountered the same manner of friendly people along
the way and were even surprised to find out that Moroccan sheep speak the same
language as ours! Because we had gone a more straightforward route to N7 we
were able to go a bit further down the road to the 12.5km turn round point. The
only other change of any note was on the outbound journey we used the opposite
side of the road and were greeted by a conveniently placed hole in a large
concrete wall that allowed us access across the train tracks.
We enjoyed the same rest format as the
previous day with the relaxation being punctuated by the arrival of a
portakabin at Project CD! We were intrigued by the potential lifting plan based
on what we had seen before and settled down on the balcony to watch the show.
The cabin was eventually lowered into place by use of a forklift truck and a
number of planks and chocks! The incessantly impatient Marrakech car drivers
blaring on their horns whilst the forklift blocked the road and then
immediately cutting past as soon as it moved its forks under the cabin. Once
the entertainment was over we made our way back to Jemaa El Fna for more of the
same even stopping for orange juice with the same guy and returning to stall
#97 for our tea! We did vary our choice of meals but other than that it was
turning into Groundhog Day but in a good way.
We again returned to the hotel via the
underground beer seller where I treated myself to more Heineken. The Action
Channel was showing GI Joe – Rise of the Cobra and I settled down to endure
this as Steph decided he’d had enough for the day and hit the sack. After
putting up with a pretty awful movie for about an hour during which time I’d
fought to keep my eyes open and decided to get my own head down as it must be
well past 22:00. As I found my watch I was amazed to see that it was only
20:50! As I still had another 2 Heinekens untouched I half turned back to the
telly but then decided that enough was enough and settled down to sleep.
DAY 4
After confirming the previous evening that we didn't have to check out until midday, we decided to get another shorter run under our belts. Again we headed out on the Agadir road with the intention of doing around 10k. We dispensed with breakfast and set out at around 09:00 with the temperature already in the high 20s. After a couple of km and with me feeling pretty strong, I confirmed that Steph was OK jogging along on his own and upped the pace to sub 7min/mile turning round at approx 6.25 km before catching up with Steph again on the way back at the tops of Avenues Mohammed VI / V. We had a quick catch up and then I powered on for the 2k back to the hotel. Steph arrived back not too long after me so had obviously done some powering of his own.
We were back in the hotel with plenty of chilling time until the midday check out so we had a final view of Project CD, had showers using all of the towels that Steph had liberated from the housemaids the day before and generally chilled out until the last safe moment with me quaffing the leftover Heinekens from last night. Well I wasn't taking them with me and it was past 12:00 somewhere in the world!
We headed for reception to confirm that the shuttle bus was still booked for 18:00, checked out and set off out onto the streets to kill 6 hours.Steph's own thoughts plus a recommendation from Facebook was that we do our strolling in a brisk manner and claim the miles towards training. After having a chuckle it did seem a fair thing to do but I was still determined to amble rather than power walk!
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| Place Jemaa El Fna from Cafe De France Kouroubia Mosque in the background |
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| Mint Tea - classy and yummy |
Eventually time was up and wandered back into the hotel lobby and, after a short rest, boarded the shuttle bus to the airport. The airport experience started out as any other until we got to the gate when, for some reason the gate queue started early. We got caught up in the enthusiasm for people to get out of their chairs and stand thinking that we would now be on our feet for a good while but, not so, the plane was here early, was cleared early and we all boarded early. The upshot being we left 30 minutes prior to the scheduled take off time, which had the obvious benefits when back in Blighty.
SUMMARY
Right at the start of this post I'd said that I'd be commenting on a few aspects of the trip. I hope that I've done that justice with the reams of ramblings above but just to summarise in a few words.
Marrakech is not a family destination but that should not take away the fact that it is an intoxicating place; and that was without sampling one of the local specialities. The driving standards, the noise and bustle of Jemaa El Fna, the smells from restaurants and cafes all combine to create an experience not gained in many places.
We found the people to be nothing but friendly and courteous. Those working the markets, taxi drivers and one or two others were exuberant in their approach but never overstepped the mark where you felt you had to be rude. Whilst out on our daily runs we received a few odd looks but also many waves and greetings with the odd words of encouragement from some.
The training environment more than exceeded our expectations. We's chosen Marrakech as it was reasonably cheap to get to and stay in and, being in Morocco, we felt we'd get an idea of the environment if not quite the heat. A spot of research said that average temperatures for the time of year were around 20ºC, which was certainly warmer than home but nowhere near MdS highs. So when we saw that the forecast was 27ºC for both of our main training days we were a tad more satisfied with our destination and then when we saw that it actually hit the highs of 35ºC we were chuffed to bits, especially as we both completed all 3 runs without any undue discomfort. We learned how much salt we would lose just by looking at our clothing after each day! We learned to drink little and often to maintain levels of hydration and had the opportunity to recover properly rather than the scenarios at home where we would complete a run and then be launched into other priorities. All in all I can safely say that we are now measurably more prepared for the start of the race.
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