Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Monday, September 18, 2006
The Road to Marrakech
I know it seems like the only time I post is when I travel to another continent. Fair enough.
---
I flew to Marrakech the day after my 24th birthday party (which, incidentally, consisted of Ecuadorean tapas, a rum and coke, Chi Cha Lounge, a few mojitos, three of my favorite people in the whole world, some excellent salsa dancing, a light drizzle, and two boxes of Godiva Chocolate) Because I was flying through Paris on the way there and London on the way back, I thought I would be smart and pack light, and by light, I mean my small gym backpack and my laptop case. No way is Air France going to lose more of my clothes. I'll show them. I got many comments by Air France officials to the tune of "So, traveling light today!" And I felt like saying, "Yes, because you LOST MY STUFF" but I did not. I just smiled and hoisted my backpack onto my shoulders and walked away. Now I'm in MArrakech and wondering why I did not think to bring a bigger bag so that I could BUY STUFF. Because the shopping here. The shopping here!
The arrival was seamless. The visa is free. I had no checked luggage. A small wrinkled Moroccoan man greeted me at the Marrakech airport with a sign that spelled my name correctly. It was alarming how smoothly it went.
But this was not to last. Because while the shopping in Marrakech may be excellent, the conference planning is ... not so much. The business center in this hotel doesn't have a copy machine. Or a stapler. Or tape. Or paper clips. Or anything. They did not make our group reservations for dinner despite it clearly being marked in the agenda I gave them. They wanted us to pay cash for the projector for the conference room--about $135 in cash. Sketchy. You have to pay cash for the front desk to make copies--75 cents per page. For 5 research papers, the bill is steep. The list goes on. Hey, at least there's a pool. (An alarming number of scantily clad young brown people hang out at the pool. I didn't expect it to be so ... Baywatch.)
---
The day I arrived, Tyler and I walked to the medina, old city, for dinner. He had read in "1,000 Places To See Before You Die" about a restaurant called Yacout, Arabic for "sapphire," located "somewhere in the medina." Always up for an adventure, and fully knowing how easy it would be to find a restaurant located "somewhere," I signed on and we walked to the city center. It was a circus. The crowd throbbed and swirled around kiosks, snake charmers, kebab stands, henna artists, jugglers, carnival games. It was a strange vibe that felt like a combination of an Arab wedding and the State Fair--get your hands henna-ed, toss the ring over the jar and win!, eat some food on a stick, dance under the lights hanging from the kiosk awnings. After turning down several kebab peddlers, we wandered down an alley of the souk and stopped in a charming hotel (much more charming than ours, and it even had a tiled fountain in the courtyard) and the clerk gave us directions: "Go down zees street, et, then you see the road, it is name Mohammed V, you turn a droite, et puis, you will see the Center Artisanale, and then it is right, right, toujours a droite, and then you see big doors" - here he made a double arch motion with both hands - "then you ask someone, it is very close, very close." Simple enough.
We walked back through the crowd and down Mohamed V, turning right at the Centre Artisanale. The road forked a lot, and there was no big door. Rather, there were many big doors but none that seemed more remarkable than the others. We stopped in a small grocery store and the man driected us back and to the left. "C'est tres pres d'ici" he promised. I think he lied.
After once more stopping for directions and being told it was only "300 meters!" from where we stood, we had almost given up and gotten a cab back to the part of town we knew, when a tall thin man in a striped shirt that made him look taller and thinner told us he knew exactly where it was but it was "Assez loin d'ici"- rather far. "Really? We were told it was close! 300 meters!" He shrugged in a particularly French manner. "Non, c'est loin, peut-etre 15 minutes." Tyler and I were skeptical. 15 minutes is not the same as 300 meters. "Je peut vous aider, suivez-moi, 15 minutes. Gratuis!" Free! he says, and my guard went up. Is this a scam? Will he ask for a handout? Or lead us down a dark alley to our death? Ok, the death is unlikely. But we didn't have much to lose, and we were already lost. So we followed him. For a long time. Through alleys and past kebabs and cats and shoes for sale and guava vendors. Past henna parties, children playing in the street, laundry hanging above our heads, and street signs illegible from wear and weather. At a small, dusty mosque, he asked someone where the restaurant was and we walked down a dark, empty alley, which was nerve-wracking until we saw that it lead to a smaller, darker alley, at which point I might have gotten scared if I had been alone. But at the end of the alley he pointed out large, fancy, clean cars driving past slowly through the alleys, "Ils sont des voitures du restaurant"--the valet service was parking them. A few left turns and there we were, and an old man in a white galabaya and a red fez greeted us, "Bonsoir" with a polite little bow and a warm smile. We had found it--rather, been led to it- Yacout, with no name on the building, no street address, and a doorway that didn't even face the street but was two right turns behind a small dirt lot and an unlit alley. There is no way, no way, we could have found it ourselves. Our lean, striped guide said, "Et voila!" and turned on his heels to leave without even asking for a tip. We stepped into the doorway.
All the pictures you have in your head about what a Moroccan palace must look like--that is Yacout. Small and intimate, but grand, intricate, and breathtaking. The blue and white tiles in the entryway, graced by two dark wood chairs and candles on an inlaid table, was just the beginning-the hallway lead up some small stairs, pas a room with a tile fireplace and we could see at the end the gleams of candlelight on a reflecting pool. The gracious host greeted us and when he realized we didn't have reservations, directed us to the terrace where we could, "relax, enjoy the view, have a drink, and get ready for dinner..." Which we took to mean, "You should have had reservations." No matter. The terrace, up towo flights of circular blue tiled stairs and a second terrace with plants and candles, was charming, a split level with lanterns, musicians, and ghost-like waiters in their long white galabayas. Just above rooftops, you can see the whole city of Marrakech and its alleys and minarets spread out beneath you like a nubby carpet. Our aperatifs (we classily orderd un coca and a beer) was served in gold-engraved glasses and accompanied by silver dishes of rich golden raisins and plain almonds. The night was perfect as only a Mediterranean night can be.
After they decided we had relaxed enough, they brought us downstairs to the main restaurant. Down the tile stairs, past the reflecting pool and into what felt like a honeymoon suite: a long, immensley tall room with three french doorways adorned with burgundy floor-length curtains, easily 20 feet tall. Seven circular tables with thick tablecloths, decorated with scattered rose petals and single white taper candles, a tiled fireplace at the end of the room, and a bench with striped embroidery and red pillows that reached from one end to the other. We sat in front of the middle doorway with a glimpse of the pool and the best view of the two musicians, castanets and oud, with their tassled hats. They rested against the glass French doors with the ease of cats, folding their legs under their long embroidered robes and leaning against triangular pillows while they played and sang. They were later replaced by two different musicians who played much more Arabic, Northern, Andalucian music rather than the Southern, African beat the first two had played. The courtyard was open and visible from the terrace, where we had just been, and the night breeze just barely whispered across the candles.
The set menu began with about 10 Moroccan salads: carrots with cinnamon, sweet tomato paste, zucchini, liver, olives, marinated peppers...the names do them no justice. It was not JUST carrots with cinnamon. It was carrote puree with cinnamon and ... something else ... that didn't taste like a dessert, nor like a sauce. It was rich and vibrant. Nor was it JUST liver, but liver cooked to a pleasant, almost sweet, texture, with a sauce and spices hiding inside. They tasted effortless, like when you see a good dancer who makes ballet look easy.
Chicken with preserved lemon and olives. I love this dish, even in its American (or, worse, my homemade) version. Something about lemons with olives makes the world better. To taste it as it should be, in Marakech, listening to an oud, was pretty close to heaven. This was followed by lamb and quince tagine and couscous with vegetables, and the lamb was so tender it came off with a spoon. The quince added a sweet spiciness to the lamb, and with the boiled - but not to death - vegetables, it was perfectly balanced. The couscous was light and fluffy, floating on the side.
By this time, we were wondering how much more food we could possibly fit into our bodies. Granted, we had walked for two hours to get to this place, but one can only be so hungry. Luckily, dessert was next, a light flaky pastry with a rose water-milk sauce followed by an assortment of rose water and sugar-nut bites and, of course, mint tea poured from a foot above the glass to acheive the perfect frothiness.
All this was ours for a price I won't even name, because it was worth it (but no, it wasn't over $100.) It's everything you want Marrakech to be.
---
I flew to Marrakech the day after my 24th birthday party (which, incidentally, consisted of Ecuadorean tapas, a rum and coke, Chi Cha Lounge, a few mojitos, three of my favorite people in the whole world, some excellent salsa dancing, a light drizzle, and two boxes of Godiva Chocolate) Because I was flying through Paris on the way there and London on the way back, I thought I would be smart and pack light, and by light, I mean my small gym backpack and my laptop case. No way is Air France going to lose more of my clothes. I'll show them. I got many comments by Air France officials to the tune of "So, traveling light today!" And I felt like saying, "Yes, because you LOST MY STUFF" but I did not. I just smiled and hoisted my backpack onto my shoulders and walked away. Now I'm in MArrakech and wondering why I did not think to bring a bigger bag so that I could BUY STUFF. Because the shopping here. The shopping here!
The arrival was seamless. The visa is free. I had no checked luggage. A small wrinkled Moroccoan man greeted me at the Marrakech airport with a sign that spelled my name correctly. It was alarming how smoothly it went.
But this was not to last. Because while the shopping in Marrakech may be excellent, the conference planning is ... not so much. The business center in this hotel doesn't have a copy machine. Or a stapler. Or tape. Or paper clips. Or anything. They did not make our group reservations for dinner despite it clearly being marked in the agenda I gave them. They wanted us to pay cash for the projector for the conference room--about $135 in cash. Sketchy. You have to pay cash for the front desk to make copies--75 cents per page. For 5 research papers, the bill is steep. The list goes on. Hey, at least there's a pool. (An alarming number of scantily clad young brown people hang out at the pool. I didn't expect it to be so ... Baywatch.)
---
The day I arrived, Tyler and I walked to the medina, old city, for dinner. He had read in "1,000 Places To See Before You Die" about a restaurant called Yacout, Arabic for "sapphire," located "somewhere in the medina." Always up for an adventure, and fully knowing how easy it would be to find a restaurant located "somewhere," I signed on and we walked to the city center. It was a circus. The crowd throbbed and swirled around kiosks, snake charmers, kebab stands, henna artists, jugglers, carnival games. It was a strange vibe that felt like a combination of an Arab wedding and the State Fair--get your hands henna-ed, toss the ring over the jar and win!, eat some food on a stick, dance under the lights hanging from the kiosk awnings. After turning down several kebab peddlers, we wandered down an alley of the souk and stopped in a charming hotel (much more charming than ours, and it even had a tiled fountain in the courtyard) and the clerk gave us directions: "Go down zees street, et, then you see the road, it is name Mohammed V, you turn a droite, et puis, you will see the Center Artisanale, and then it is right, right, toujours a droite, and then you see big doors" - here he made a double arch motion with both hands - "then you ask someone, it is very close, very close." Simple enough.
We walked back through the crowd and down Mohamed V, turning right at the Centre Artisanale. The road forked a lot, and there was no big door. Rather, there were many big doors but none that seemed more remarkable than the others. We stopped in a small grocery store and the man driected us back and to the left. "C'est tres pres d'ici" he promised. I think he lied.
After once more stopping for directions and being told it was only "300 meters!" from where we stood, we had almost given up and gotten a cab back to the part of town we knew, when a tall thin man in a striped shirt that made him look taller and thinner told us he knew exactly where it was but it was "Assez loin d'ici"- rather far. "Really? We were told it was close! 300 meters!" He shrugged in a particularly French manner. "Non, c'est loin, peut-etre 15 minutes." Tyler and I were skeptical. 15 minutes is not the same as 300 meters. "Je peut vous aider, suivez-moi, 15 minutes. Gratuis!" Free! he says, and my guard went up. Is this a scam? Will he ask for a handout? Or lead us down a dark alley to our death? Ok, the death is unlikely. But we didn't have much to lose, and we were already lost. So we followed him. For a long time. Through alleys and past kebabs and cats and shoes for sale and guava vendors. Past henna parties, children playing in the street, laundry hanging above our heads, and street signs illegible from wear and weather. At a small, dusty mosque, he asked someone where the restaurant was and we walked down a dark, empty alley, which was nerve-wracking until we saw that it lead to a smaller, darker alley, at which point I might have gotten scared if I had been alone. But at the end of the alley he pointed out large, fancy, clean cars driving past slowly through the alleys, "Ils sont des voitures du restaurant"--the valet service was parking them. A few left turns and there we were, and an old man in a white galabaya and a red fez greeted us, "Bonsoir" with a polite little bow and a warm smile. We had found it--rather, been led to it- Yacout, with no name on the building, no street address, and a doorway that didn't even face the street but was two right turns behind a small dirt lot and an unlit alley. There is no way, no way, we could have found it ourselves. Our lean, striped guide said, "Et voila!" and turned on his heels to leave without even asking for a tip. We stepped into the doorway.
All the pictures you have in your head about what a Moroccan palace must look like--that is Yacout. Small and intimate, but grand, intricate, and breathtaking. The blue and white tiles in the entryway, graced by two dark wood chairs and candles on an inlaid table, was just the beginning-the hallway lead up some small stairs, pas a room with a tile fireplace and we could see at the end the gleams of candlelight on a reflecting pool. The gracious host greeted us and when he realized we didn't have reservations, directed us to the terrace where we could, "relax, enjoy the view, have a drink, and get ready for dinner..." Which we took to mean, "You should have had reservations." No matter. The terrace, up towo flights of circular blue tiled stairs and a second terrace with plants and candles, was charming, a split level with lanterns, musicians, and ghost-like waiters in their long white galabayas. Just above rooftops, you can see the whole city of Marrakech and its alleys and minarets spread out beneath you like a nubby carpet. Our aperatifs (we classily orderd un coca and a beer) was served in gold-engraved glasses and accompanied by silver dishes of rich golden raisins and plain almonds. The night was perfect as only a Mediterranean night can be.
After they decided we had relaxed enough, they brought us downstairs to the main restaurant. Down the tile stairs, past the reflecting pool and into what felt like a honeymoon suite: a long, immensley tall room with three french doorways adorned with burgundy floor-length curtains, easily 20 feet tall. Seven circular tables with thick tablecloths, decorated with scattered rose petals and single white taper candles, a tiled fireplace at the end of the room, and a bench with striped embroidery and red pillows that reached from one end to the other. We sat in front of the middle doorway with a glimpse of the pool and the best view of the two musicians, castanets and oud, with their tassled hats. They rested against the glass French doors with the ease of cats, folding their legs under their long embroidered robes and leaning against triangular pillows while they played and sang. They were later replaced by two different musicians who played much more Arabic, Northern, Andalucian music rather than the Southern, African beat the first two had played. The courtyard was open and visible from the terrace, where we had just been, and the night breeze just barely whispered across the candles.
The set menu began with about 10 Moroccan salads: carrots with cinnamon, sweet tomato paste, zucchini, liver, olives, marinated peppers...the names do them no justice. It was not JUST carrots with cinnamon. It was carrote puree with cinnamon and ... something else ... that didn't taste like a dessert, nor like a sauce. It was rich and vibrant. Nor was it JUST liver, but liver cooked to a pleasant, almost sweet, texture, with a sauce and spices hiding inside. They tasted effortless, like when you see a good dancer who makes ballet look easy.
Chicken with preserved lemon and olives. I love this dish, even in its American (or, worse, my homemade) version. Something about lemons with olives makes the world better. To taste it as it should be, in Marakech, listening to an oud, was pretty close to heaven. This was followed by lamb and quince tagine and couscous with vegetables, and the lamb was so tender it came off with a spoon. The quince added a sweet spiciness to the lamb, and with the boiled - but not to death - vegetables, it was perfectly balanced. The couscous was light and fluffy, floating on the side.
By this time, we were wondering how much more food we could possibly fit into our bodies. Granted, we had walked for two hours to get to this place, but one can only be so hungry. Luckily, dessert was next, a light flaky pastry with a rose water-milk sauce followed by an assortment of rose water and sugar-nut bites and, of course, mint tea poured from a foot above the glass to acheive the perfect frothiness.
All this was ours for a price I won't even name, because it was worth it (but no, it wasn't over $100.) It's everything you want Marrakech to be.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
