I am in my second week in Marrakesh, which is very much like AZ. Architechturally, a cross between Santa Fe and Phoenix - in the new part - and pure Areabian nights in the old part. They seem to have a building code, so that everything - even high-rise hotels - have to look like adobe on the outside. The Medina (old walled city) seems authentic enough). lots of crenelated walls and square towers.
Since all they have beyond agriculture is tourism and phosphate, they are EXTREMELY jealous of their reputation for hospitality. They are very concerned that tourists have a good time. One feels utterly safe..
Weather is beautiful, perfect. Great view of the Jupiter/venus conjunction from my balcony overlooking the pool. And birds. Birds, birds, birds. Noisy with birds in the garfdens surrounding the hotel, which has a rose garden, blooming oranges and lemons, lots of palms, of course, and and a hibiscus hedge hugging the buildings. And this is costing me less than $30/day, including breakfast! Clean and luxurious.
But then, as my students say, with nauseating persistence, "everything's relative". The Hotel Mamounia is luxurious at a level hard to imagine, with prices to match ($500-1,000/night). Have a look at their video. The first scene shows the table on one of their terraces where I had a $9 cup of coffee, while waiting for my $150 pedicure at the spa rated "best in the world" in 2011. Fortunately, it was all cosmetic, and they were unable to cut my toenails! So, I got a free foot-bath and foot-massage,, as a consolation prize. My $6 coffe was well worth it as trhe price of admission to this really unbelievable fantasy palace.
It is haerd to describe the "spa", but I'll try. First, I go into a kind of foyer: a long rectangular room, sheathed in white curtains, which blow in the breeze from the patio. There is a desk and a couple of white-clad attendants to show you to the elevator, which they summon and push the buttons for me. I come out in a dimly-lit cavern in deep, cobalt blue, named for some French-Moroccan designer. there are candle-lanterns on the floor of the arching hall-ways. eventually I arrive at the main desk, passing spacious, private massage rooms. The desk has a light-show projected on the wall behind it: a kind of kaleidescope, with arabesque patterns in many colors, slowly moving like fish in an aquarium.
I am escorted to a room [about the size of my room at the cheap hotel], where I sit in a white-leather recliner. The masseuse starts to bathe my feet. Perfumed oil in the water, as I look at the odd, sharp-angled room design - light grey walls, on which hang mirrors with coral, silver-studded frames. Then in came the matronly British manager to explain that the "best spa in the world" couldn't handle my toenails. But she was very gracious, calling a slightly less-seclusive spa to make an appointment for me [which worked out fine].
Moors in livery everywhere , opening doors, vigilant for ways to be helpful, kiosks carved out if marble, mosaics, tiles, elegant upholstery in the dark restaurants and bars, sunken fountains and water running out of faucets in the walls, acres oiof gardens witht he Atlas mountains in hte distance.
After this brush witih luxury and the "lifestyle" of the rich, I walked over to a souk (not a tourist trap, but where the Berbers actually buy stuff for themselves) and ate a humble but decent lunch with the ordinary citizens - for less than I paid for the luxury coffee.
Vegetarians would do well in Marrakesh. Most of my nightly dinners at the hotel consist of a beautifully-presented salad bar. easy enough to skip the chicken and beef, and just go for salads and pastries.
I took one excursion up into the mountains, where we visited a women's co-operative that produces all kinds of products based on the oil of a unique kind of almond. Cosmetics and cooking oil. The Atlas mountains are really spectacular, snow-covered, and high. They catch enough moisture to permit habitation to the west. East is the Sahara. I did see one Berber tent with camels!
we also had tea in a "typical" Berber house. Interesting enough. An adobe pueblo, for an extended family, with ceilings made out of vigas and laterias, just like in AZ, only instead of saguaro ribs, the Berbers use bamboo for the laterias.
An old guy made us some traditional ta in the patio.. First he put green tea into a big silver pot and added a bit if hot water. This he then poured out and added more hot water. When the second test was dark enough, he added loaf-sugar and stuffed in a whole fistful of mint branches. After a minute or so he gave ujs each a glass. Quite good.
They showed us the hamam, which is just a small, domed room built in such a way that there can be a fire under the floor, to heat it up for bathing.
I figured out that everyone here is really a Berber. It's just that the towns people have spoken Arabic for a thousand years, so the division is urban/rural. Berbers are what they call people whose native language is Berber. They are the indigenous people. The Moors (Arabs) are more cosmopolitan, with a bit of admixture from ethnic Arabs and black Africans.
Anyway, they are amiable people, and their government is benevolent despotism. They are poor, but not miserable. They are also young and energetic. Hassan II decided enough luxury was enough, and set a policy of one new dam a year, and universal education. the result is complete electrification and running water,k and a literacy rate of almost 70%. His son, the present king, Mohammed VI has promulgated a new constitution, which makes women and men completely equal, under law, and sets aside a block of parliamentary seats for women. School is free and open to all, but it is not compulsory, for some reason. Across the busy street from my hotel is the big technical university, and i see as many women as men going in and out.
So far, I have seen only three veiled women, and the rest seem to be evenly divided between those who wear hair-covering and those who don't. [It's kind of like Turkey, in this regard]. scarfless girls in blue-jeans tear around on motor-scooters. Obviously, no one is forcing anyone to wear anything. Lots of women wear scarves; lots of men wear little Muslim caps. Lots more don't. It seems to be a matter of personal preference.
Apparently, there is a significant Sufi component in Moroccan Islam, never hassled by the government. Maybe this accounts for their fairly laid-back religious temperament.
Now I'm off to arrange for a tailor-made jilaba (the hooded caftan that half the older men wear over their blue-jeans). They don't have my size off-the-rack, so I am having one made for not-very-much money, courtesy of a nice cab-driver. [All the cabbies are guides.]
here is the main square (where I saw actual snake-charmers, with shawms and live cobras!)
