on it being either the pope or palin

I was just sitting around, idly trying to work out who was more stupid: the pope or Sarah Palin.

The pope. Or Sarah Palin?

The pope. Or Sarah Palin?

It’s a tough one, no?

Both think very ignorant and silly things, yet are adamant it’s appropriate to say them out loud so intelligent people have to hear them.

Well, to read about them. If there is one lesson I learnt very early in life it’s to stay away from nasty, thick people because they will only say something silly and upset you or they may turn out to be so stupid that they may think physical violence is the answer. In which case it’ll be like the hiding behind the crash mats in the gym all morning incident all over again. So, I am staying well away from the pope and the Palin.

Let’s just steer clear from the nasty pope and one day he will get what he deserves. A bigger bully will come along and give him a taste of his own medicine.

And that Palin women? Well, I am minded to believe that once when I saw her on the television there was a flicker of terrified realisation in her eyes. Somewhere in there a nice, ordinary thoughtful person is cowering in embarrassment. Hopefully one day she’ll escape and get the chance to make amends.

So, given the potential for redemption for Sarah Palin and the fact that she has never been a member of the actual Nazi party – surely the absolute zenith of stupidity, the pope has to be the more stupid.

Although I feel a bit bad about it. Dementia is on the rise, you know. Perhaps he is more to be pitied than censured.

Or maybe not.

On the unsanitary

Why have the finest minds at Apple called it an ipad. Pad? A word generally proceeded by the term ‘sanitary’. I simply do not understand.

I walked in the front door of my office today, slightly late, and did my usual jaunty nod at the receptionist. In marked contrast to Tony Blair who had to creep in the back door two hours early to avoid being pelted with derision.

on food storage solutions

I’ve got a new keyboard at work which has made me realise that I have spent my entire working life (if we can call it that) with my fingers hovering over the remnants of other people’s lunch.

The worst was at a maternity cover contract where the pregnant woman had clearly been at the trough for England. I could barely force the keys down to type a ‘d’ or a ‘c’. It must have been like sitting next to some kind of industrial hoover.

The one before that was quite bad but the whole desk was a health hazard. She had no excuse. I was filled in on the first day practically that she also had facial hair and a personal hygiene problem. Which obviously made be think badly, not of her, but of the silly little boy telling me this information.

Anyway, today Apple are going to announce their marvellous new product which is going to change to world by finding a cure for cancer, eradicating poverty and generally bringing us peace in our time. It is also going to, I expect, make the keyboard a thing of the past. This is good because it means that people are going to have to take responsibility for their own luncheon rather than leave it for me.

on Scout, Bingo, Jamjar, Archant, Loopy and Petra-Glasgo

I spent yesterday being totally indifferent to the “news” that Brad and Angelina are probably to split. See, I am using their first names as though I know them. At least I am not doing that thing where you run their names together and call them Bradelina, or whatever it is. Bragelina. Angad.

Ugh. I’ve already spend more scant seconds on this than I would like.

There was a piece in the Observer about some guy who went to do something voluntary with elephant in Africa. His sum thought on how far removed from his normal life he was, was to note that when someone asked him to name Mr Pitt and Ms Jolie’s children he could only name five out of the six. They have six children? These children have names? He could “only” name five? The shame. The horror. Back to Africa you fool.

Do you have nothing better to talk about? Why is this published in a Sunday supplement? Who is interested? What is the matter with the world? Why is it so easy to sneer? And so much fun?

And rather than my going away to look up on Wikipedia what these celebrated children are called I thought I would look up why local people are not give the opportunity to work with the elephants and why is some bored banker from Uxbridge taking up a valuable post that could really make a difference to the local economy and culture, not to mention be of sustainable benefit to the elephants?

No answer.

I expect the question of the names would be much easier to resolve but I refuse to look.

And don’t you tell me either.

Is one of them called Scout? No, that’s Bruce Willis’s offspring, isn’t it? Why does my brain hold onto this information. I need some cerebral irrigation.

on the king and 10 million tourists for Marrakech

Morocco is a monarchy. Like a proper one. The king is in charge and his photograph is everywhere. He has official looking ones by the side of the road but in all the shops and restaurants he has different ones. In cafes he is enjoying a mint tea. In restaurant, a meal. In the carpet shop in Rue de Semaine he is lounging back on carpeted stairs – hilarious. In Al Fassia, which you will remember is the restaurant run by a women’s collective, he is looking extremely handsome.

Outside of Marrakech he has ordered the building of lots of those nasty resort type places where people go so they can say they have been to Marrakech without having any of the inconvenience of Marrakech. It’s hoped that in ten years time ten million tourists will visit Marrakech a year. Where on earth they are going to all visit I have no idea. I am assuming that Christmas and New Year is fairly subdued in Marrakech and that in summer it is rammed. And even at a quiet time the Souks felt very busy. There just aren’t enough sights to share out the tourists, or enough space. They must be hoping that they all stay in the resorts they are bussed out to.

I also think that Marrakech has a lot of problems to sort out before it opens its arms to 10 million ordinary tourists. Who have different expectations to back packer or very fancy hotel types.

There is the harassment, the scamming and ripping off by shopkeepers, taxi drivers and the like – things that the middle bracket of casual tourists won’t come back for more of.

And that’s before we even get started on the drought (which won’t stop the endless fountained courts in the resorts) the poverty (which won’t stop the enormous complexes) the child labour and the fact that 40 per cent of Moroccans are illiterate (which makes for some picturesque signs telling people they are at the dentist, but doesn’t seem to me to be a lesser spending priority than tourism).

Maybe the king should look towards Spain and see some of the mistakes that were made there and now stand empty draining the economy.

on traffic and transport in Marrakech

Buses and grand taxis
No my friend I do not want a taxi.
No my friend I do not want a taxi.
No my friend I do not want a taxi.
No my friend I do not want a taxi.
No my friend I do not want a taxi.
No my friend I do not want a taxi.
I am taking the bus.
No. I am taking a bus. I do not want a taxi.

Learn this phrase it will be handy. Every time you leave your hotel someone will say do you want a taxi?

And if you don’t? That’s right. You’re a whore. Brilliant.

Once we got a taxi to the bus station because they insisted it was too far to walk and we were too tired to a) walk and b) argue. The taxi driver drove all round the wrong way and then pretended he couldn’t turn round, turn left or indeed go anywhere we wanted. Although he could take us to the grand taxi stop. Idiot.

In Marrakech they have petit taxis which are for local journeys and will charge you as much as they possibly can. Then there are grand taxis which are for other journey and they too will charge you as much as you possibly can. You can share grand taxi with strangers to lower the costs but they will pack about six people in. I do not like that idea one little bit.

The taxi drivers outside the hotel kept quoting us prices in Euros which I found fabulously irritating. Of course, the price is much higher in Euros. We only had dirham and began to feign confusion, worrying that we had misunderstood that the Moroccan currency was the dirham.

I avoided the taxi mostly because no one wants to get royally ripped off first thing in the morning. Do they?

Luckily, I love buses in other countries. It’s like an adventure. The buses we got went to the South of Marrakech, one more south eastwards to Amizmiz and the other south properly to Ourika. There are no chickens or anything on the buses they are very unpoetic but you have to bang on the ceiling if you want to get off which is quite funny because generally Moroccans seem to be very short. I am very tall so I almost began offering a service to people where I would bang on the ceiling for them.

10 dirham, 10 dirham.

But then the battering would start. Shudder.

Crossing the road
Inshallah. That is what we say as we cross the road in Marrakech. We will get to the other side only if god is willing.

Because it is as plain as the nose on your face that the taxi driver, the man on the moped, the women on the motorbike, the boy on the bicycle, the four cars and the Suzuki minivan are not willing for us to get to the other side.

How to cross the road: step forth boldly and try not to die. And also try to maintain feeling in your arm depsite the attempts of the Best Road Crossing Accomplice Ever to prise off your elbow as they genuflect verbally while you try to steer them across the road.

Thank you Marrakech and goodbye. I may visit you in ten years time to see how you are getting on. But you have been good training for Turkey.

Next big trip for typecat and the Best Travelling Companion Ever? Guatemala.

on the sights of Marrakech

Let me today tell you about some of the sights of Marrakech. There aren’t many sights in Marrakech if by sights you mean big buildings to visit and look and stuff, and that is exactly what I mean. Expect two of them aren’t buildings and one of them was but isn’t any more. Sigh. Stick around and it will all become clear. Ish.

There are some pictures of these sights in my picasa album which can be found here if you are desperately interested and not very critical of other people’s photography.

I have tried to write these in the order I visited them. Marrakech is more about it’s spirit and vibe than it’s buildings with stuff in.

Saadian Tombs
I had to escape to a cultural site of interest because all the hustle and bustle was getting a bit overwhelming at this point and I was starting to look like a cartoon character that had been hit on the head. Minus the birds orbiting.

Down near the Bab Aguaou, which is the best gate in Marrakech and has storks nesting on it, are the Saadian tombs. The first infidel to step foot in them was a French chap in the 1920’s. During the occupation the French noticed two green-tiled roofs rising up in the shanty quarters and no local would tell them what they were. Anyway,one intrepid French chap ventured down a very narrow alleyway and found the tombs of the Saadian sultans. According to legend a wizened old man appeared and said he couldn’t share the secret and make the tombs a mere show for white people. Well, wizened old man will be spinning in his own tomb because the tombs are one of the most visited sites in Marrakech. Although to be fair there aren’t many sights to visit so the competition is not stiff.

It is kind of spectacular and modest at the same time. It has the vibe of a parish churchyard. As usual, the carving and detail on the arches and cornices were beautiful.

When we went all the lanterns were covered with bags and there was a cat stuck on the roof.

And I can’t think of anything else to say about it apart from you have to go down the same little alley way intrepid French chap went down. I quite liked that.

Medersa Ben Youssef
You can buy (I think you might have to get this combined ticket but I can’t remember) a ticket for the Medersa, the Musee and the Koubba for 60 dirham. You have to do them in that order for a reason which might become clear to you when you reach the Koubba depending on whether you are as geeky as me.

I took 600 photographs on this trip (the Best Travelling Companion Ever took 1,000 because there were cats) and a lot of them are of tiles and cornices. There is many a tile and cornice in the Medersa.

The Medersa was founded in the 14th century to teach Islamic scripture and law. It was used up until 1962. The Ministry of Culture gave it a lick of paint in 1990 but they didn’t get too carried away with tidying it up. There are over 100 little student rooms clustered around a number of hallways and it is really hard to imagine all the students fitting in. There is only one hammam too. This might be why it closed in 1962 but the Best Living Guidebook Ever wasn’t all that sure about that one.

Musee de Marrakech
The museum of Marrakech is mercifully next to the Merdersa because there would be nothing more irritating than having negotiated your way up through the Souks to have to find your way somewhere else in the un-navigable city that is Marrakech.

The best thing about it is the massive chandelier with the Timeout guide says looks like the mothership from Close Encounters of the Third Kind and I am not going to argue. The light in the museum is oddly yellow and it is kind of breathtaking when you walk in for the first time.

There’s not much in it but the building is lovely and poses very politely for a photograph or a thousand.

Koubba El-Badiyin
Basically it’s a toilet. No, really it is. It’s the only surviving structure from the time of the Almoravids, who founded Marrakech, so it’s like a building block for the Moorish architecture of the whole of North Africa. It was probably built in the 12th century and you can’t imagine the English Heritage or the National Trust letting people crawl over something so significant. The best bit is the underneath the dome and after having looked at the Medersa you can make the link between the iconic Islamic images and style. Which is most satisfying.

And, that’s it. Opposite the tanners lay out their square and strips of leather to dry in the sun.

Jardins de Majorelle
Or the Majorelle Gardens. They were lovely. There are pictures of that too.

Yves Saint-Laurent bought them and has bequeathed them to the city. They are cool and calm and even the presence of most of the French middle class couldn’t spoil them.

My favourite I think.

Badii Palace
When they were built in the late sixteen century. The sultan asked his fool what he thought and the fool said he thought it would make a magnificent ruin. And, hot damn, he was right.

I want a fool. What a brilliant concept. Anyway, be grateful for that snippet of information because I just write all this stuff of the top of my head and there won’t be anymore where that came from. Or there might be. It depends. On whether I have a hat on or not. Ha ha ha. Very pleasing.

This was my favourite sight. Oh, no. Les Jardins de Majorelle were. No, the Badii Palace. No, the gardens.

It’s a tie, people. A tie.

The ruins are spectacular and the central courtyard is the size of two football pitches, easily. It is vast. There is also a terrace where you can go up and look at the storks and the view.

Again, it is kind of amazing that you can wander all over the ruin where ever you like. It’s like the opposite of Stonehenge, w

There is a very strange bit of the palace that they have refurbished. It looks most odd. I really hope they are not going to do the rest of it because it will completely ruin it. If you are going to refurbish it you should make it look like it looked when it was built. In this case that will mean covering the walls with gold. And I expect that will last a day at the most. Not least because I will be on the next Easyjet flight out there with a duffel bag and a wallpaper stripper.

Storks nest at the palace. The Timeout guide says that they have lost their migratory instinct yet the Footprint guide says they leave on the 17 July every year. Which is it then? It is clearly going to be one or the other. They either don’t migrate or they are so migratory that they do it on the same day every year. I can’t sense a middle ground there were either party could have gotten confused from.

Anyway, I like storks and I spent a good three and half a minutes trying to get a shot of one flying overhead. Failed.

Bahia Palace
I can’t remember much about the Bahia Palace apart from there was a skip outside made of mirrors. This was there not because skips are mirrored in Marrakech but because there was a contemporary art exhibition in the Palace.

To be perfectly honest after a while all the buildings merge into one. I think this is because the restrictions placed on Islamic form in art and architecture make for not much variation. Even the presence of some art didn’t really distinguish this one from the museum, say.

There was a banana plant here.

Erm.

Lots of cats.

Um.

You could skip this one to be honest.

Maison Tiskwin
This is basically a very nice house filled with stuff that Dutch anthropologist Bert Flint has collected on his travels between Marrakech and Timbuktu. The best things were the display of the tent in the first room which has some jebellahs placed to look like people sitting in the tent and the house itself. It’s creepy and pleasingly well done.

Also, when we left he was sitting in his office by the entrance. He looked like a bonkers grandpa and it is said that sometimes he will give you a tour if he is in the mood and you ask him. I don’t know about the first but I definitely fell down on the second.

I was a bit over the sights by this point because when you live in London you are a bit spoilt for big building with stuff in. The house is near a really good toilet if you are a suffering from a bit of tummy trouble. I’ll say no more about that.

on harsh realities in Marrakech

My final image of Marrakech was an unpleasant one. We left the hotel at seven to get the bus to the airport. It was still dark and there were no tourists about. Out side the bus station there was a crowd of about 30 Marrakechis near a police car and two police man. I saw the policeman raised his baton and heard him hit something near the ground several times. It was kind of confusing because he was clearly hitting something very hard but there wasn’t really any reaction from the crowd at all.

When we got a bit nearer there was a man sitting on the kerb with his hands cuffed behind his back. There was a large laundry bag on the road. The policeman hit him in the back, hard, about six or seven times. The other police just watched as he spoke into a phone. The crowd looked bored.

We waited at a safe distance for the bus. The policeman kicked the man into the road.

I have never seen police brutality before. It’s hard not to judge. It’s hard not to make the same damming criticisms I make of the Metropolitan police when they kettle or smash protesters with riot shields. I did some research when I got home and it is very common in Morocco. Apparently they do it all the time.

Not in front of the tourists though.

on Marrakech meals – part three

Tea stall in Jemaa El Fna
There are four tea stalls on Jemaa El Fna which appear at about five o’clock. I sounded quite certain about the number of stalls, don’t I? I think maybe there might be five now I come to think about it. Anyway. They do different tea. The one we went to, which also happened to be where we were on New Year’s Eve does ginseng tea and some sort of cake. They serve the tea in little glasses shaped like pint glasses but much smaller. These glasses are washed by being dunked in a bucket of mildly soapy water.

The stall is run by a man with an impressive moustache who is helped out by his son who said he was fourteen. He has a fourteen year old sized hands, feet and head but everything else was the size of a ten year old. It is very difficult to age anyone in Marrakech. Particularly the children. It looked to me as though the kids fighting and setting fire to things before the football were about seven but they may have been as old as sixteen. Morocco has a problem with child labour with a large percentage of that labour affecting the “physical, mental and emotional development of children” so maybe that has something to do with it. It then seems as though they skip looking between ages 15 and 30.

This kid was very excited to be helping out and was great at chatting to all the tourists and getting them to give him money. Which is Dad, interestingly, totally disapproved off. At one point another guy appeared to help out, he too had a fantastic moustache, and belted the kid round the head for something. A couple of times. They had to be separated by a creepy guy who sadly spoke English. To us. Extensively.

Anyway, domestic violence aside the ginseng tea is very nice and is not full of sugar so it makes for a refreshing beverage before the stroll back to the hotel.

In a nutshell: up close and personal with Marrakech family life

114 in Jemaa El Fna
The guide book go on and on about the food stalls on Jemaa El Fna. Like they are a hive of germs and sickness but actually they are pretty ordinary. The guidebooks also don’t mention that if you walked across the square when the stalls are set up, after about 5 o’clock again, you are beset with man in white coats trying to get you to eat at their stalls. One guys tried to get us to eat when we’d only just eaten at another stall and when we said this he said we were liars. Nice.

Anyway, one night we wanted to eat in at a stall and so let ourselves be persuaded by one guy who spoke to me in an Ali G accent and said safe a lot and spoke the Best Travelling Companion ever in an Australian accent mostly on matters soap opera.

It was tragically overlooking the sheeps’ head stall. Shudder. I only realised this when I had sat down at one of the long benches but managed to strategically place the Best Travelling Companion ever’s head between me and the sheeps’ heads. Which weren’t, you know attached to sheeps’ bodies or anything.

The food was good and it is definitely worth eating to say you have but if you believe the guide book hyperbole you will be a bit disappointed.

I think this is generally true of everything though so…

In a nutshell: Harmless, not the health and safety disaster the guidebook warned you about

Bab Doukkala
Bab Doukkala was one of the first streets we walked down on the way into central Marrakech. What a baptism. It is a narrow street with a lot of butchers, which sell both dead things and alive things. The dead things are mostly sheep and the alive things chicken, pigeons and rabbits. They smell. There are lots of stalls and lots of people selling random second hand stuff. I seem to remember that there are three mosques on this one street, albeit very small ones.

There are not many places to eat expect one which promises cous cous on Fridays. So for our last supper we went there.

There was no menu just a very shy boy (who as he was between the ages of 15 and 30 was very hard to age but he could easily have been eight) who stuttered some things in French. I had chips because by this point I had developed a chip addiction and was so exhausted I couldn’t face the thought of eating a meal. Do you ever feel like that? Like your body is far too tired to process any food at all?

Anyway, the food arrived after one of the chefs had dropped a massive bucket of yoghurt on the floor, some of which splashed up his face and made him look like…well, never mind what it made him look like, we are about to eat.

Really great food again. Just a little café which in London would be a very greasy spoon in a tube station and therefore only visited by prostitutes and homeless alcoholic but in Marrakech served great food. The standard of the décor having absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the food. Again. I think a lot of people must go to Marrakech and miss out on a lot of marvellous food because of the look of places but, if you visit do not fear the food poisoning – get in there and eat in places you wouldn’t touch in London or New York (for example) because you really can’t compare.

The boy who took our order was also in charge of sorting our bill out and he had some trouble working it out. Then I gave him a really big note because it was all I had left. But he dutifully sorted it out. You could tell he was really, really shy and we all stood there waiting for him making it worse.

When we were finishing up another Western couple came in. I am not sure what they were doing there because they did that thing that you see some tourists do – they walked in and sat down and then wanted immediately to leave because they did like the look of the place. They did not leave. Why the hell not? You don’t like it, go. No one cares. But what they did instead was sat down, bitched about the place and laughed at the boy.

So, to make up for them and the bad impression they were giving of white people I tipped the boy more than usual. Covering our tip and the tip he wouldn’t get from them but would have earned four times over. He beamed. Which was lovely because up to that point he’d been wearing this grimace of fear punctuated by the occasional glower of concentration.

In a nutshell: Best chips and smile this side of Willesden Green

on Marrakech meals – part two

Cafe of the one eyed cats (near the Medersa)

So, we had been to the Museum and where thinking about lunch and typically loads of young boys and men appeared with great ideas about where we should go and what we should do and, man, I had had Enough Of These People And There Total Disrespect For My Personal Space.

NO, I AM NOT SPANISH AND I DO NOT WANT A TOSTADO.

Ouch, the tantrum. I even stamped my little foot in frustration. Funny how they all melted away. Anyway we found ourselves down a street which opened out into a little square with narrow alleys spidering away from it. A man, with no teeth, ushered us to a low plastic table and put some small bowls of lentils and salad before us. The lentils of peace.

The guidebooks talk quite a lot about how meals in Marrakech are made up of lots of courses but this was the only places we encountered it. And you get what you’re given. After the salad and the lentils came a mini mixed grill and although we said one between us we quickly learnt the Arabic for ‘no, my friend I have cooked two and you will eat them because you are very polite and nice.’ I am a bit hopeless when it comes to meat and fear any fat or gristle but the meat in Marrakech was really good and only once did I have to spit anything out into a tissue and hide it under my plate.

There were lots of kittens and young cats stalking the café and they also enjoyed the grill. I have completely forgotten what the other courses were but we ended with mint tea. They put so much sugar in the tea, in everything , in Marrakech that they ought to call it sugar tea with mint. They put so much sugar in everything, that I had to drink full fat Coke just for a break from the threat of a diabetic coma. it is no wonder that none of them have any teeth. Also, the tea? Foul. Apart from some made by a quite nice old fellow in a scarf shop. That is a whole other story though and should you want to hear it you can pay for my therapy bill.

Back to the point: I have no idea what this café was called but if you are standing outside the Musee de Marrakech walked toward to Koubba and veer to you right down a narrow, darkish street past some little shops (they look like cubby holes really) selling pop and sweets. On your right as the street opens out is a communal tap with some lovely tiles and ahead of you is the café. But you know, good luck with finding anything.

In a nutshell: you get what you’re given and so do the cats

Al Fassia
Al Fassia is the run by a women only collective. This is extremely unusual in Marrakech and it’s not until you visit, return and read up on it that you can truly appreciate how hard it must have been for them to get Al Fassia up and running.

You have to book. We booked. I don’t think either of us have ever been somewhere that you have to book a coupel fo days in advance for so we were excited. We had to check with the hotel staff whether we would be able to wear jeans as we only had travelling clothes. Unfortunately sullen woman had the best English so we asked and she made us feel ridiculous. Never mind. By this point I had developed more compassion for her plight as a career woman.

Al Fassia is in Gueliz which is, frankly, a hole. It is the new town, designed as a playground for the rich with designer shops and fancy restaurants and exclusive hotels. But, as is often the case with these types of places, it is a hole. It has no atmosphere and no redeeming features. It is not my kind of place at all. Anyway, Al Fassia does have atmosphere and redeeming features but it also has a lot of customers who probably think Gueliz is marvellous.

We got to breeze in as we had a reservation leaving less organised right people outside, which was enormous fun and would only ever happen to me on holiday.

When we were waiting for our main course a couple appear. Italian. Late forties. He looked like he’d been through the washing machine on the wrong wash cycle. She had most of her surgically enhanced breasts hanging out. This always amazes me. Morocco is a Muslim country, even the Lonely Planet guide remembers to point this out and suggest that you might like to respect this by covering up a bit. But no, Countessa Donna Italiano had it all hanging out. Anyway, they had asked there hotel to make a reservation but they had made a mistake and the restaurant had no reservation. The husband had a right strop. He was probably already in a bad mood having paid for those breasts only for the pool boy to be enjoying them instead of him. The woman who seemed to be in charge of the restaurant was no fool. No, she was fabulous and she had instantly worked out that this pair were clearly loaded and greedy and were exactly the sort of people who she wanted to spend, spend, spend in her restaurant. And lo, a table appeared for them. Not a great table. A table next to the poor people by the door. A table next to us and our jeans.

So between these people and our waitress it was a hilarious meal. Our waitress made the sullen woman at the hotel look like Julie Andrews. She threw our bread rolls at us, and when she poured the water she got some in the glass but most on the camera. We had soup. It was a worry. We feared burnt laps. We didn’t want three bread rolls but she insisted. ALL OUR WINE IS MOROCCAN! GOD DAMN YOU!

Phew.

The food? It was okay. It wasn’t the best meal I had in Marrakech, apart from the cous cous which was lovely and buttery. I am not really into posh restaurants, though, so am probably not the best person to ask. But I am glad I can say that I went and I think a restaurant run by a women only collective is a very important thing.

In nutshell: Novelty outfit fooling the rich people but important enough to get away with it all and reserve a special place in the typecat heart.

Roadside table in Ourika
Look at this.

We ate this by the side of the road in a village in the foothills of the High Atlas. It had figs and prunes and walnuts, and the balance of flavours was amazing. It was I think the best meal we ate in Marrakech and I say that even though this was the day that I was sick. With the please-god-no-more-meat-illness.

It was definitely worth the bus trip to Ourika.

In a nutshell: Toothless chef deserving of Michelin star