The Islamic art here is stunning. There are no people or animals depicted, and so Islamic art simply uses repetitive geometric shapes. These can be painted, carved or assembled as a mosaic. The overall effect is amazing.
Here are some examples of art we have discovered, mostly from wandering around Marrakech… although two photos are of our ceiling at home!
Yesterday we visited the beautiful Jardin Majorelle. A bit of its background for you – it was created by Jacques Majorelle, a French painter who was fascinated with this country (easy to see why!) and in 1923 made Marrakech his home. He designed the garden himself and filled it with all sorts of plants that he’d collected during his world travels. He also commissioned an art studio in the garden and had it painted in ‘Majorelle Blue’.
Today this garden is a haven of calm and peace away from the bustle of the soukh and the constant traffic noise. It is a photographer’s paradise with its amazing blue walls and exotic cacti. The cafe serves great mint tea – the teapot even comes complete with tea cosy featuring a little man wearing a fez.
It’s not a huge place but we spent a good few hours there trying to capture that wonderful blue colour in a photo. You can see our attempts below…
If you find yourself in Marrakech we highly recommend les jardins Majorelle.
It’s impossible to describe this fascinating city in a paragraph or two, because its sights, sounds, smells and tastes are overwhelming.
The sights range from the snake charmers, acrobats, monkey handlers, and henna artists at ground-level in the huge Jamaa el Fna square to the towering Koutoubia mosque dominating the skyline.
Pre-dawn, the first sound is the call to prayer; as the sun rises, scooters and horns take over; and as evening fades the cool air is filled with the flutes of the snake-charmers and the fables of the story-tellers.
The smells fill the air: from exotic spices, leather and incense in the souk through to the stench of rotting animal skins at the tanneries.
The tastes: sweet mint tea, naturally sweeter orange juice, fresh figs, dates and apricots, olives of every hue, still-warm biscuits, and of course the delicate flavours of the tagines.
In combination, it’s all rather overwhelming… so to really understand what it’s like you’ll just have to come here to experience it for yourself…
… after leaving the suburbs of Sydney, we arrived, weary, at our hotel in Marrakech. We’d travelled by car, plane, train and on foot with nearly 100kg of luggage, but we (and it) all arrived intact.
Our first train ride in Africa was the most eventful of those modes of transport… it was packed, so we ended up travelling with our bags (and several locals) in the luggage compartment as there was no space anywhere else. The countryside was beautiful – we passed several Berber villages, lots of red desert, and a few patches of green. It was over 30 degrees, and the only air-conditioning option was to open a small window, but it was cheap, reasonably comfortable and certainly interesting.
…is something that completely escapes us. Those who can fly with a pair of undies and a toothbrush are more alien than a Martian in our thinking. What if you knock a glass of red wine or orange juice into your lap 1 hour into your flight (Tim has done both) and need a change of clothes? What if you can’t sleep and need a small library of real books (screen-reading is so tiresome)? What if one of you is a compulsive Royal follower and you need to look at every available magazine article (especially if William, Kate & family have just travelled to Canada)? What if one of you is a pharmacist and needs to travel with medication for every possible eventuality? What if you need shoes for hot, cold, warm, warm-ish, slightly-less-warm and ever-so-slightly-warm weather conditions?
So… we have mastered the art of travelling heavy, but I bet there is still a ‘what-if’ that we haven’t considered yet…
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
-Mark Twain
After 20 years of working in the beautiful city of Sydney we are embarking on a new adventure…
Sydney is just starting to warm up for summer – the birds are singing and the flowers are blooming – so why head into another winter?! Well… it is 28 years since Tim first climbed the Atlas Mountains, wandered the souks of Marrakesh and was bombarded by the sensory overload of Casablanca. It is a wonderfully fascinating place that draws you back, and so this will be our fourth visit. We’ll be teaching English at the same time as trying to learn some Arabic ourselves. We’ll be exploring worldviews and helping the locals to not only communicate in English, but also understand some of western culture and thinking too. We’ll be learning their culture too and making new friends. And we’ll be having fun!
Why would we want to leave? Doesn’t everyone want to come to Australia? Well, our careers in pharmacy and engineering have been great but after 20 years it’s time for a change. Teaching is rewarding. Enabling someone to do something today that they couldn’t do yesterday is so worthwhile. Also, we have family in the UK; it’s too cold to move back there but Africa is colourful and warm, has great food, beautiful architecture and fascinating culture. And learning a new language will be a good challenge for the brain: if we want a coffee we will have to learn how to ask for one.
In our room there was a huge pile of random items that have now been finally shoe-horned into four inadequate bags. All the essentials for survival in Africa: laptops, MP3 players, cameras, mobile phones, Tupperware containers, safety pins… but, sadly (for one of us), the hair straightener won’t fit…
Although some people have been surprised at our plans, everyone has been wonderfully supportive. We feel that we’re just where we should be right now. Sydney is a beautiful place and we have some amazing friends here, but we’re really excited about leaving, and today is the start of the next chapter…
A Tale of Two Travellers 