Marrakech Mayhem, Part 2: Found

With our confidence rising all the time, we could set our sights on attractions further away from our riad; shaking our heads at dubious offers of assistance and sometimes even laughing at the audacious claims of cheeky young locals. "C'est fermé!" or "It's closed!" is apparently a witty and helpful thing to shout at tourists as they walk along a street. At least there were no sexist slurs - our friend Beth had been on the receiving end of quite a lot of unwanted attention when she visited Marrakech with a female friend.

After checking out the lush Jardin Majorelle we visited the one of the amazing royal palaces, Palais-el-Badi:

After 48 hours in Marrakech, we'd started to notice a pattern - a few hectic hours out on the streets would be followed by a period of recuperation in a quiet restaurant, palace, garden or riad, before we could face the mayhem again - but we were definitely warming to the craziness, the pace, and the sheer inventiveness of the locals. At the risk of being a bikesnob, observe if you will, this superb example of Moroccan bicycle style:

Of note:

• Front brakes completely disconnected
• Rear brakes also purely for decorative purposes
• "Moroccan singlespeed conversion" with gear ratio chosen using the rule "whatever stops the chain from falling off too much"
• Missing seatpost clamp, ingeniously replaced with padlock (Hah! That'll stop 'em!)
• Asymmetrical seat orientation; this actually suits the sidesaddle riding position adopted by most riders for easy ejection (see first two points)
• Cargo rack - this allows the vehicle to carry livestock and building materials with ease. We spotted a full-size front door being carried like this.

We decided to brave an al fresco dinner in the "big square", delving somewhat apprehensively into the crazy maze of smoky, smelly food stalls, teeming with beggars, pickpockets and extremely inventive spruikers. Easily the cheapest meal of the trip, the food was surprisingly good and the atmosphere incredible. We caught this little guy red-handed, trying to relieve Bec of some change!

For our last full day in Morocco we ventured out of the city, our guide Majid taking us into the Atlas Mountains to experience the rural life of the Berber people. Johnny was kept busy translating as Majid was much more comfortable in French than English, but Bec was improving all the time. By the end of this year she will probably be as good at French as she is German, if not better!

The scenery was spectacular, and quite astonishing at times, seeming more Swiss Alp than Moroccan Atlas:

We enjoyed a scrambling climb up multiple waterfalls before heading back into the city for a very different watersport. The Hammam. Neither of us really knew exactly what this was, but we knew it had to be done and Thierry had organised a visit to a very special one close to our riad, operated by another French expat. Veronique gave us a lovely welcome on her rooftop terrasse before Bec was sent off to be Hammam-ed. She came back in a dressing-gown looking somewhat dazed, but refused to give any details to Johnny before he was sent to his fate.

Now, not being at all knowledgeable about ancient North African cleansing rituals, we cannot definitively say that our experience was the norm. If there is an expert reading this, does this sound right?

1. Enter a small bathroom-like cubicle with no fittings beyond taps and drain
   
2. Strip down to bathing suit
3. Large member of the same sex enters the room
4. Large person also strips to bathing suit
5. Large person fills plastic buckets with warm water
6. Large person pours water over client
7. Large person applies soap to client
   
8. Large person flagellates client with what feels like cheese grater (coarse side)
9. Repeat steps 5-8 using ever-finer grating devices until all client skin has been removed
10. Large person sloshes a final 20 litres of water over client
11. Client dons dressing-gown in order to stop internal organs from falling out

Our hammam experience in many ways mirrored our overall impressions of Marrakech; confronting, unfamiliar, a little scary, but somehow simultaneously fascinating, enjoyable and totally unforgettable.

Marrakech Mayhem, Part 1: Lost

There are four levels of being lost:

1. Oh no! We're not going the same way as we did last time! But it's OK, because there's a sign telling us we're still going towards our destination, and frankly, where we are is pretty nice anyway. This variant is frequently experienced in Venice, and is known as Pleasurably Lost.
2. Hmmm. None of this looks familiar, but we've got a map that correlates to the street signs, so we can work this out. This is a feeling you might get in a large foreign city - Lost In Translation.
3. This is not good. Where the hell are the street signs? There are no other tourists around, but I've just got a feeling that if we go towards that thing, we'll get to the nice stuff. This is not a good state to be in for too long - Lost In Space.
4. Omigod omigod omigod. Everything looks the same. No signposts, no landmarks, the map isn't making sense. No tourists, people are telling me things but they want money so I can't trust them. And now there's a crowd of vultures following us. Lost In Marrakech.

Yes, we had a level 4 nightmare when we arrived in Marrakech. We hadn't taken enough notice of our Riad's neighbourhood before venturing out into the madness of this crazy Moroccan city, and we paid dearly. Our lovely host, Thierry from Bordeaux, had drawn a line on our map showing how to navigate back from the main square, but the scale was way too tiny to really help. In the end, in 11pm desperation we had to ask a shopkeeper for assistance - he delegated to a seven-year-old boy who led us through the dark alleyways for what seemed like an eternity, while suspicious characters lurked a few paces behind. At the door to our Riad, we gave him a banknote which would feed him for a week (the smallest thing we had) and he still wanted more. We were scared he and his mates would still be there waiting for us the next morning - not a nice way to spend your first night in a new city.

We had determined that things could only get better from here - and we were right. The next morning, a fantastic breakfast on the sun-drenched terrasse of the riad helped a lot, and we spent a good half hour learning the landmarks near our accommodation so as not to be flummoxed again. Suitably confident, we jumped right into the tourist circuit, taking in the Ben Youssef Medersa, a former religious academy featuring a stunning internal courtyard in the local Arabic tiles-stucco-and-wood style.

Next stop was the Musee de Marrakech, showcasing more of the extravagant interior wall ornamentation. Exterior walls usually form the streets and alleyways, so no effort is spared when it comes to decorating the internal courtyards!

Following a relaxing rooftop lunch we plunged into the exotic, colourful and pungent souks. Your nose really takes a battering in Marrakech, going from the foul smells of poorly-tuned diesel and two-stroke engines in the streets to sweet confections in the patisseries, before turning a corner and having the raw odour of tanning leather grab you in the back of the throat.

After several hours of meandering through the seemingly-endless array of glassware, carpets, pottery and random tat, we found ourselves people-watching at the amazing Djemma-al-Fna square - Marrakech's crowning glory:

And after a couple of Tagines, we headed home nice and early. It had been a much, much better day, and we didn't want to push our luck!

Oyrgpuyrl Cnex

We recently welcomed Brush and Bel to London - primarily they were here to see Wicked, but we got to hang around with them for a few days on either side, which conveniently included John's birthday. We still don't quite know how, but the topic of Bletchley Park came up at Johnny's birthday dinner, and the idea of a nerd-excursion to the home of modern computing was born.


For those who have no idea of the significance of Bletchley Park, and/or haven't seen the film Enigma, here's the quick summary. In WWII, the Germans used a machine called an Enigma to encrypt their radio communications.


It was an electro-mechanical machine which used a system of rotors to ensure that every character was encrypted with a different key to the one before it. The Germans believed their system to be unbreakable. They didn't reckon on the persistence, pluck and absolute brilliance that was assembled at Station X, the "Codes and Ciphers School" based in Bletchley, an hour north of London. Winston Churchill was a very keen supporter of this team of elite chess players, mathematicians and crossword-puzzle solvers, and they didn't let him down. In particular, a mathematician from Cambridge called Alan Turing devised a machine which would test a particular "crib" or suspected Enigma configuration in just 15 minutes, enabling the British to stay one step ahead of the Germans and ultimately win the war. This machine, the "Bombe" was the forerunner to the computer sitting in front of you right now. What makes it even more incredible is that your machine would take roughly twice as long to crack the code, such was the power of Turing's design.

Bletchley Park is now a museum, showcasing the fascinating work that was done at Station X, including guided tours of the various huts, and lectures from clever people who understand some of the technology. We sat in on a one-hour "Introduction to the Enigma" lecture, which was superb, and gave us an idea why the Germans believed their device to be unbreakable - there are 150 million million million possible configurations!

There simply wasn't enough time to see it all - luckily, the ticket gives admission for a whole year, so nerd-boy here can come back again and again...