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pgitlin · 7 years ago

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3 Women in Marrakesh

Marrakesh 27 January 2018 Saturday X, Y and I had been talking about going away somewhere together for a few days, generally doing the sort of things which most women enjoy and most men will do anything to avoid - shopping, spa treatments, gossiping and more shopping, all interspersed with light meals in good restaurants, and plenty of wine to lubricate the conversation. Our first attempt didn’t quite succeed as the three of us couldn’t quite coordinate dates, but Y and I did spend 3 days together in Milan which was a great success and set a blueprint for our next attempt.

So here we are, the three of us on an EasyJet flight to Marrakesh for three and a half days of “female friends’ time”, staying in a beautiful 9-suite Riad in the heart of the old city looking forward to a tour of the Medina with a private guide, a day’s cooking lesson, spa treatments, shopping, and lots of female chat.

Picked up on time by our private chauffeur service, the drive to the airport from Monaco via Beaulieu was quick and comfortable and in no time at all we were through the fast-track airport security and enjoying a coffee in Starbucks, the only refreshment place available on the passport controlled side of Nice Terminal 2 departures. EasyJet almost won me over despite my longstanding aversion to the airline (which I won’t go into here) as the flight was called on time and we were relatively speedy through the embarkation gate. I say almost won me over because we then spent almost half an hour standing in a glass-sided boarding tunnel for absolutely no apparent reason. The sun, which appeared at midday after a grey and intermittently rainy morning, beat down and by the time boarding finally began, I was feeling quite faint. However boarding was uncomplicated, Easyjet’s planes are very modern and clean, and my seating companion turned out to be an extremely pleasant and handsome young Frenchman. So far so good. A half bottle of prosecco later and I have a feeling that with such an auspicious start, this trip is going to be tremendous fun.

Sunday 28 th We arrived in Marrakech at 16:30 local time and were very pleasantly surprised to find that new Airport terminal, which opened about 18 months ago, is an attractive, modem, spotlessly clean, spacious building. The passport queues moved efficiently and soon we had collected our luggage (A and I had checked in luggage in anticipation of the shopping we hope to do!), been greeted by our driver, and driven into the Medina. The car stopped opposite an alley where we were met by a young man from Riad Farnatchi and guided down a maze of alleyways to the Riad. It’s a gorgeous mansion, three stories high, arranged around 2 courtyards, one with a pool and the other with the traditional 4 lemon trees. The place was surprisingly chilly, although I had read the weather forecasts for the time we will be here, I was not expecting the Riad to be as cold inside as it was when we arrived.

Our suites are enormous, each quite differently laid out and decorated, but we each have a terrace overlooking one or other of the courtyards. After settling into our suites we met downstairs for an aperitif before dining in-house. It was cold enough for us to ask for a fire to be made in one of the lounging alcoves and as we were the only diners, the staff moved our table in front of the fireplace in the little dining room. Dinner was delicious, prepared by the Riad’s Berber cook. Roasted vegetables, slow roasted lamb, Tangia, couscous washed down by a very good Moroccan red wine. The meal belied my initial assertion that this was to be a trip when we would be eating lightly! But I don’t think i can keep it up at the same pace! Conversation however was the highlight of the evening, and we all agreed that there is very little which beats sharing a meal and chatting with really good friends!

It was a pleasant surprise on going upstairs to bed to find my suite warm, and to discover a hot water bottle between the sheets, and wonderfully soft pillows so I had no trouble at all in falling asleep.

I was woken briefly at 5 am by the sound of the muezzin’s call to prayer, but slept on until I heard the birds chirping in the courtyard outside my windows. Breakfast has been ordered for 8 am so the thought I should usefully use the time from waking around 7 am to write up our evening’s activities.

Sunday 28th 22h45

We had quite a day today. We met our guide at 10 am and set off for a walking tour of the Medina (we thought). Our guide was fluent in English, quick with wise-cracks, but short on any cultural or historical information. While telling us he was going to show us the various artisanal sectors of the Medina, he then proceeded to take us to a carpet emporium where our guide and the staff tried a hard sell which interested none of us. Our next stop was another emporium, this time of metal lanterns, lamps, and other decorative items. Again, while we could admire the craftsmanship, none of us was interested in buying any of it. Finally he hit the jackpot by taking us to the apothecary sector. We spent a very interesting hour and a half with a herbalist who was most amusing in his explanations of the different tisanes/infusions available for a variety of conditions, amongst these constipation, bloating, stress, insomnia, sinusitis, cold sores and psoriasis. We tried sniffing nigella essence, orange oil with lavender, alum with amber and each had a neck and shoulder massage with argan oil and arnica. I left with a bag full of infusions, creams and oils and only hope I remember what each is for when I get back home!!

Our guide then walked us fairly fast through the souk to the famous square Jamna al Fna before saying he had a meeting for work and pointing us in the direction of our Riad. Fortunately we managed to find our way back, stopping on the way to buy cotton and wool throws which were much nicer than anything we had seen in the carpet emporium. After a quick stop at our Riad to drop off the morning’s purchases we spent another two hours wandering through the souk, stopping to photograph the wonderful array of preserved lemons, olives and other preserved vegetables beautifully arranged in glass jars, delicious sweet pastries filled variously with nuts, dates and honey, and fresh vegetables. Before leaving Monaco I had been commissioned by Brigid to buy some silk tassels of a particular design and after looking unsuccessfully in dozens of shops selling tassels I was beginning to give up hope of ever finding the correct ones. When we were returning to the Riad in order to prepare for our visit to the Hammam, a shop with a vast assortment of silk tassels caught my eye. It turned out to have exactly what Brigid wanted and I returned to the Riad satisfied with having succeeded in my mission!

The next activity for the day was our appointment at the Farnatchi Spa Hammam. Housed in an adjacent building and accessed from the hotel through a series of passages, the Spa is an oasis of light-filled calm, modern without losing the charm of the building’s Maroccan architectural heritage. We were given glasses of verveine and camomile tisane before being taken through to the ante-chamber of the steam room. Here we disrobed and were given what I can only describe as sumo wrestler- like, gossamer-light black cotton aprons to protect our modesty. We quickly became accustomed to the steam and heat which hit us as we first entered the Hammam and soon were luxuriating in the warmth as Fatima began the ritual cleansing. In no time at all we had discarded our modesty cloths and submitted to being covered in black soap (made from olive oil which looks black in the jar but is colorless when applied to the skin), after which Fatima scrubbed each of us all over, then sluiced off the skin removed by the scrubbing. After this we applied clay to our bodies, shrieking with laughter as we realized we looked like witches with dark clay-streaked faces and bodies. Next Fatima massaged each of us with Argan oil, washed our hair, applying oil to our hair as well, before she finally rinsed each of us , laughing as we gasped on finding that this final rinse was with cold water. The three of us thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and now understand the camaraderie Arab women enjoy in their weekly visits to the Hammam, bonding in a way which is only achievable by discarding inhibition and submitting totally to the enjoyment of participating in a communal ritual.

Dinner was a reltively sedate affair at Le Trou au Mur, opposite the entrance to our Riad, recently opened by the Riad’s owners. We chose wisely, an array of tiny dishes of Maroccan salads, grilled sardines with Chermoula, tender lamb with roasted vegetables, and light fluffy couscous with lentils and vegetables, all small portions in comparison to the gargantuan helpings which many restaurants serve. We drank wine modestly, and retired to bed relatively early, pleasantly tired by the day’s activities and very relaxed after our Hammam treatment.

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pgitlin · 8 years ago

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Cuba continued - final post

Saturday morning 18 March

From the port, we drove west along the Malecón, the long seafront road between Old Havana and Vadero where our hotel was.

Our guide for the day was Katia, a beautiful young woman, who had come in place of Roly who was in hospital suffering from kidney stones. She was a deight, a fount of knowledge on Cuba’s colonial and recent history, who freely shared her experience of life both during Fidel Castro’s era and now under Raoul Castro. She had been well briefed by Roly as to what our interest were and did her utmost to accommodate these.

Our driver was a young man whose pride in his Chevy Bel Air was obvious. The car belonged to his uncle, but he took car of it and used it as a taxi. At each stop he leapt out of his seat to open, but more importantly, to close the door so that no one banged it! He was also a musician; like most Cubans he has several jobs in order to earn sufficient money to live adequately.

Katia confirmed what Roly had told us at the beginning of our trip; the average salary of a teacher in Cuba is 25 CUC (Cuban convertible currency equivalent to 1 euro), and senior doctors earn an average of 50 CUC a month. Granted that every Cuban citizen receives ration coupons for basic foodstuffs (see here http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/Dividing-the-Pie-Cubas-Ration-System-after-50-years-20150302-0029.htmlsic), and prices of whatever fresh fruit and vegetables are available in the market are controlled by the government, that is still a very low income on which to live. Consquently almost all Cubans supplement their income in a variety of ways. One finds teachers, university professors and others working as cleaners, waiters or doormen in the international hotels as not only the wages, but more especially the tips, provide valuable additional income. Families also often live communially so as to ensure that everyone has better access to the things which make life a little more comfortable. We also learned that many Cubans have family or friends living abroad. They are permitted to send gifts to their Cuban relatives. This accounted for the fact that almost all the young people we saw were wearing smart sneakers (trainers), jeans and other clothes which would not disgrace a teenager or young person living in the States or Europe.

We began our tour with Katia by visiting one of the 4 synagogues in Havana. It was undergoing renovation so we were unable to see the main sanctuary. However the community hall was being used for the Saturday morning service and was well attended, with people arriving all the time while we were there. The Jewish population of around 15,000 before the Revolution has diminished to around 1,600 nowadays, but it appears to be an active rainbow-coloured community.

From there we went to the Parque John Lennon, aka Beatles’ Square in Vedaro where apparently during the 70’s and 80’s young people would flock at night under cover of darkness to listen to Western Pop music. There is now a statue of John Lennon on a bench in the square which is a popular place for families with their children on the weekends.

We drove from there around the city to the Presidential Palace, currently undergoing renovation. It is an enormous edifice which was used by Cuba’s presidents until the Revolution. Fidel Castro did not live there, but apparently in many different places around Cuba, which were kept secret as he feared assassination by the CIA. Then we went on to the Plaza de Armas, the oldest square in historic Havana founded in the 1520’s by the Spanish. It was here in the Castle, remains of which can still be visited, that the Spanish kept the treasures plundered from the New World before being shipped to Spain. It is a lovely square, filled with flowering trees and Royal Palms.

Just an aside, the Royal Palm is Cuba’s national tree. Roly told us that there is an anecdote that this is because the Royal Palm is like the Cuban people – it blows almost horizontal during hurricanes, but when the storm is over, it springs back upright, and the Cubans weather adversity in the same way!

We walked from the square through Old Havana, once again admiring the wealth of architectural styles, colonial mansions, neo-classical buildings, and many Art Deco buidlings. The streets were filled with people, and being Saturday, many seemed to be locals. There were street musicians, a troupe of dancers on stilts, dressed in flamboyant costumes, and vendors of fried pastries.

We visited a beautiful Art Nouveau house with rich stained glass windows and doors, and a cool plant filled interior courtyard. It is now a perfumery, beautifully restored and owned by the government. The Hotel Raquel was also a delight, this was a kosher hotel and the Art Nouveau interior reception rooms are an exquisite example of the period, again with beautiful stained glass windows and screens, many featuring the Minorah and other symbols of Jewish culture.

Our driver met us here and we drove to Neuva Vedado, a suburb of Havana, to La Casa, a restaurant owned and run by a family in their house. The food was delicious, lamb stewed in red wine and served (of course!) with rice and black beans. There was also steamed cassava and fried banana as well as a side salad. The restaurant is certainly worth visiting if you are ever in Havana.

After lunch we enjoyed a drive around Nuevo Vedado which was built by the affluent middle classes during the 40’s and 50’s. Here many of the large mansions are now ambassadorial residences, and the more modest houses have been restored. There were good examples of domestic architecture of the 1950’s, reminiscent of the suburbs of Miami.

Then it was on to a large forested park on the edge of Nuevo Vedado. Katia told us that this had been a very popular place for families to gather a day out together while she was growing up. It is very lush and green, with a river running through the middle. Sadly nowadays it is full of the detritus of animal sacrifices made by adherents of the African-Cuban religions Santeria and Palo Monte., and we passed several sites full of feathers, skeletons of birds covered in flies and maggots, and shredded paper and plastic.

(Thirty-four percent of Cubans are followers of these religons, as opposed to thirty percent who are Roman Catholics.) There was in fact a sacrificial ritual taking place in the river when we arrived, and I watched fascinated as 3 men and their Babalu (priest) performed their rituals. Fortunately I did not see them actually kill the chickens, but there was much chanting, dipping the dead chickens into the water, and sprinkling their blood into the water and onto the ground. More groups of families arrived while we were there, all going off to various places alongside the river to offer their own sacrifices.

From here we drove back through Miramar, another favoured and affluent pre-revolutionary residential area. There are many grand mansions here, mostly embassies, including the enormous Russian compound with its brutal constructivist building, rising up above the flat landscape and lower rise buildings surrounding it.

I always enjoyed the drive along El Malecón, the broad 8 km esplanade along the sea from Miramar to the mouth of the Havana Harbour. The side opposite the sea wall is filled with what in their day were beautiful apartment houses and individual mansions. There are many Art Deco gems and several neo-classical buildings, most now crumbling echoes of their former splendor. However there a signs of regeneration with some being restored. I fear though that if unrestricted development is allowed as Cuba becomes more capitalist, that the glory of this esplanade with be ruined by high rise hotels and apartment buildings, much as has happened in Monaco.

At the end of the day, as we were saying our farewells to Katia, we heard once again how hitch-hiking is the main way that most people iin Cuba get around because the public transport system is so inadequate. She told us that our taxi drive lived en route to where she lives, about 2 hours from Havana. From his town she would hitch-hike the remaining distance which was about 15 kilometres. She also told us that this was a completely safe way to travel, and that she in fact often hitch-hiked with her 4 year old daughter if she needed to get somewhere. We had also learned during the day that Katia had been a primary school teacher and then a regional television reporter and presenter. She had met her husband at the television station where he had been a script writer and programme developer. They had both decided to give up those jobs because they had become increasingly unhappy at having to present only approved news. Katia said they had been very frustrated when they found bad practice or incompetence in local services but were not allowed to report this. Now she and her husband both worked as independent tourist guides, a role which she fulfills competently and expertly in our opinion.

Our final day, Sunday 19th March, was spent rather lazily. We walked across the road from our hotel, the Melia Cohiba, to the Riviera Hotel, the hotel developed by the notorious Meyer Lansky, the money man for the Mob in the 50’s. It is slowly being restored by Caribe Hotels after having been neglected for many years and is an example of late 1950’s interior design. The lobby/lounge area, dining room and swimming pool are beautifully restored to their original state, and one can imagine the gangsters and their friends partying here and in the Casino (which is not open) during its heyday.

It was here in the lobby that we met some Canadians who were about to go off with a guide to see the Synagogue which we hadn’t been able to see the day before. Yasmin took advantage of their offer to join them, but Brian and I went back to our hotel and spent the morning lazing at the pool.

All too soon it was time to leave for the airport and our flight home to Nice via Madrid. It was sad to say goodbye as we had fallen in love with Cuba and its friendly people, its falling down buildings, and its indomitable spirit. I have no doubt that if at all possible, we will visit again.

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