Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
Download the app
Do you have doubts?
Write to us!
Sometimes, you can plan a trip to soak up the culture of a place, and it'll work out more or less well for you. But other times, you'll be lucky enough to find it without throwing away your checklist, because culture will be in the air you breathe. Today we take a deep breath. We are in Marrakesh, it's six in the morning, we wake up suddenly and we don't understand anything. Of course, 10 seconds are enough for us to decipher the PA system that got us out of bed: it's the Fajr, the first call to prayer. We haven't deduced a word, but as recipients we have understood the message: It's April 2nd and Ramadan has just started.
It's only a few minutes, but during the recitation, Marrakesh, and by extension, Morocco, stops the machines. It is a ritual that is repeated up to five times a day, and is marked from dawn to night. In other words: during Ramadan, practicing Muslims owe themselves to Muhammad for a month, making a sacrifice that translates into abstinence from food, drink, tobacco and sex. According to the verses of their prophet, it is during this trance that Muslims remember how fortunate they are to have a plate of Tajín on the table every day. How this ruthless fast affects your mood is another story.
It is logical that for the prayer to slip to the last nook of the souk, it must be issued from a high point in the city. In the height ranking of Marrakesh, we are going to have to talk about the Koutoubia Mosque, who takes the gold with its almost 70 meters high.
When they tell you that it was built in the 11th century, it costs very little to imagine the same ritual but with the means of that time. In other words, the almuedano climbing to the minaret to say the prayer, but on the back of a donkey. To reach it, I climbed the spiral ramps inside the prismatic structure, which are still preserved today. It was a strategic point, and still is, because it is 200 meters from the souk, the bustling commercial area of the city. We're going there.
Getting lost in the souk is a plan that can be extrapolated to times of the 11th century. As foreigners, if they give us four laps with our eyes closed, we wouldn't know where to go next. This idea of “chaos”, evident from the moment the motorcycles overtake you two centimeters away, is a sought-after idea. La Medina, where the most important places in the city are located, is labyrinthine because it proposed a defensive system for the time when there were tribal wars. You might think that its entrails are underground, but no, those hidden circuits respond to a street system that at the same time protected against heat (let's not forget that in summer the thermometer goes out almost at 50).
The labyrinth concept also goes inside houses. In general, the main doors of homes in the city do not offer visibility of the interior, to preserve privacy and so that precisely the enemy would not have easy and intuitive access. That said, they don't clash either Hands of Fatima on the doors, which symbolize protection. Legend has it that Fatima, daughter of Mohammed, embraced her two children before going to war, and that later both returned safe and sound. That embrace, represented in the hand, brings luck and protection.
When we said that the Medina contained some of the most important places in Marrakech, we were referring to mosques, the public oven and latrines, the Koranic school... and the Hammam, which would be the public toilet where all Moroccans go at least once a week. Among them, there is an active and recommended historical one, called Hammam Mouassine. I was already putting it on the door: since 1562.
Four hundred years old support this public space, also social, divided into three main rooms: the hot room (bathroom with black soap), the middle room (plunder of dead skin) and the cold room (hygienic cleaning). It's social because in Hammams, women, in addition to bathing, have the habit of spending the afternoon chatting. As our guide said,”It would be the equivalent of a coffee in the afternoon”.
Dealing with the business that represents tourism in Marrakech and the culture of bargaining is not an easy task. But we repeat, we are talking about culture. That Moroccans have always negotiated with the law of supply and demand in hand. To give clear examples, today, from 11 to 12:30 noon, in the souk, the furs are auctioned off to the people, so that they can do with them whatever they want: from a belt if it's cowhide to a jacket if it's a lamb.
Bargaining is also alive in any non-touristic enclave because it's cultural. The starting point, then, is to divide the starting price by 3 or 4, and starting the bargaining there. Pretending that there are no “entanglements for tourists” in an area that lives exclusively on them is not real, however, in that situation, the line of respect is very thin. If you're not interested, don't talk to the merchant. If you are going to photograph him, ask for permission, because you wouldn't want to be bombed with flashes either, least of all without paying you. And, above all, being in the era of Ramadan, it is considered not to eat or drink in front of those who are subject to abstinence.
In this regard, the Souk des Tailleurs de Pierre It is an area of the souk that cries out to be immortalized. There are the “metal handymen”, authentic iron artists capable of doing the impossible with a piece of wire and a hammer. The same goes for species, medicinal plants and candies, such as dates, a food with which, by the way, the prophet broke his fast during the Ramadan.
Just as we were wondering why many men wore a hood, the diversity of veils that could be seen on the streets of Marrakech was also striking. We will first resolve the initial question. In the case of men, it corresponds to a traditional tunic called It screamed. Altogether, it is also worth mentioning the slippers, typical Moroccan footwear.
The question of the different types of veils that women wear was once again resolved by the guide, who openly stated that, even within his family, there is such a plurality. For example, there are unconvinced women who wear the veil only to pray. Others wear it when they get married. There are also cases, more in dropper cases, of women wearing burka, related to Saudi doctrine. And there is even a minority group of women who wear veils for fashion. The question is to start from the premise of not mixing culture with religion, because the Muslim veil does not always involve both.
Walking around a city as busy as Marrakech and seeing the deserted streets around 20:00 in the afternoon (2 hours less than in Spain), is shocking. But it's more than understandable when you think that behind that fact there is a fast of Ramadan of 12 hours. The city is at a standstill. We return home, we return to the Riad
Traditionally, riads were the stately homes of the richest citizens, such as merchants and courtiers, who planned an interior courtyard around which rooms and common areas were distributed. As we mentioned before, these places provided privacy and protection for the family.
Currently, these types of spaces are intended for tourism, but in any case they preserve the beautiful and detailed architecture in each of their corners. From Riad Algora, and to the sound of the umpteenth prayer of these days (this time, Isha), we closed an article that, however, falls short. To live the Ramadan within Marrakesh it was like finding a cultural oasis. The prayers over the PA system continue to overwhelm us, but this time they no longer wake us up.
