4 Ways to Beat the Heat in Marrakech

We are in the middle of our first heat wave of the summer.  It is currently 102.  Tomorrow it's supposed to be 107. The forecast is for 9 straight days of triple-digit weather.  It is just May.  Here are some tips based on my observation of the locals:

1.  Leave town.  Marrakech is inland and unrelentingly hot. Locals find a host of long lost relatives and friends who live somewhere on  the coast (read: near a beach)  to visit during the summer. Don't bother giving your aunt the line about how much you suddenly missed her.  You come every summer.  She's already expecting you.  (If you don't know anyone in places like Tangier or Agadir, you can always rent a house in a tourist town like Essaouria).

2.  Psyche yourself out.  There seems to be a widespread perception that temperatures that reach only up into the 80's are cold.  All breezes are also cold.  Almost everyone is still wrapped in at least 2 layers of clothing during such weather. Their parents start dressing them this way as babies. So don't put away those jackets or winter undershirts yet.

3.  Turn off that a/c or fan.  What happens when you go outside after lounging around  in that artificially-cooled environment?  You sweat buckets from the shock of the sudden change in temperature, that's what.  You will actually sweat less if  allow your body to acclimate itself to the heat. Although I doubt this was on your to-do list of New Year's resolutions (and don't get heatstroke/heat exhaustion while trying this out).

4. If all else fails, you can always put on a movie, relax or take a nap  until the sun goes down.  What else could I recommend but Casablanca?

On the Street Where You Live

Behind any given street in Marrakech, where you might expect to find back doors and alleyways, you may find instead a warren of homes and walkways.  I'm not sure how these off-street streets are designated for, say, the post office. 

Their existence does explain why taxi drivers navigate by landmarks rather than by addresses.  Of course, the foreigner who, proudly showing off her faux-Arabic with a freshly memorized destination, may be suddenly at a total loss when it comes to knowing what is considered a landmark in the area. Not that that has ever happened to me.

Nat King Cole, probably best known now for his song "Unforgettable",  might never have recorded this other classic tune had  Lerner and Loewe  lived in Marrakech.  "On the street where...behind the other street...where you make that left...."  It just doesn't sound the same.

The Importance of Blankets

Moroccan homes are stocked with huge numbers of blankets. Until my first winter here, I didn't fully appreciate why that is. I never really thought much about blankets.  I take them out during cold weather, and I put them away when it's warm.  Blankets last for years on end.  I rarely have occasion to buy a new one.  I always kept just enough for family and maybe a couple of guests. Then I came to Marrakech.

Marrakech homes, public buildings, even hospitals may be unheated.  It never snows here. The temperature never goes below freezing, although it gets uncomfortably close.  Understandably, blankets are everywhere.  Got visitors?  Give them blankets and hot tea when they enter your home.  Going to be a patient in the hospital?  Take your own blankets, just to be on the safe side.

Once I was one of a group of female guests in a home, and we were settled for the night side by side on pallet several blankets thick.  We were covered with a couple of individual blankets each, and then the our entire group was covered by the single largest blanket I have ever seen. It measured a good 15 feet across.  We were less likely to be cold than we were to be crushed under the weight of it.

I have seen coarse, heavy blankets substitute for rugs on a cold floor.  I've seen soft, plush blankets folded and stacked as high as the homeowner.  I've seen them stored in closets and beneath sofa cushions. Don't know what to give a bride and groom?  Blankets are probably the most common wedding gift in Morocco. The lowly, utilitarian blanket in America has here an importance borne of necessity.

Marrakech City Bus Etiquette

If you are going to venture forth on a city bus in Marrakech, you have to be prepared.   I was surprised the first time I paid 3.50 dirhams, got a receipt and went through a turnstile inside the bus. The reason for this bit of formality is that inspectors randomly board busses and check every passenger receipt.  (They do occasionally catch people who have sneaked aboard through a backdoor, window, or the push of the crowd.)

Don't have a seat? You can sit on the steps, on the side, or even in the aisle.  You can lean on the doors.  You can put your arm out of the window.

If you get a seat and an older person asks you for it,  you are generally expected to give it to him or her.

Just so you know--the city busses, as opposed to tour or some of intercity busses, are not air-conditioned in summer or heated in winter.

Menara and the Camel

There's a beautiful park in downtown Marrakech called Menara. There's a huge pool of water with giant fish that come to the surface to eat bread that people throw to them.  There is a  wooden platform over the water at the far end of the pool and a small bleacher area for concerts. Behind the bleachers there is restaurant with indoor and outdoor seating. Strolling musicians perform for tips around the restaurant and among the grove of trees in the adjacent area.

 From the bleachers you can see across the way to palm trees and behind them are the snow capped Atlas Mountains.  They don't look that far or that tall, but then I realized I could see a thin layer of cirrus clouds in the sky. About a third of the mountains' height still rose above the clouds.

So that's the beautiful part. Here's the good part. The sound you hear--it should just be reaching you now--the sound you hear is me with my eyes closed and screaming when the camel I got on stood up. A camel stands  hind legs first so it looked and felt as if  I was about to be pitched over her head (I know my camel was a her because her baby was tied to her and trailed behind).

Camels are popular throughout Morocco with tourists

When we left Menara we went across the street to perennial tourist attraction of camel and pony rides. I got on a camel, and in order to get on, I made this graceful move where I hitched up my long dress--while wearing jeans, of course--to get a leg over the camel. Her single hump was about four feet high even as she sat. When she stood, my eye level was about ten or twelve feet above the ground.

So after the camel stood, I opened my eyes and closed my mouth. I rode no more than about 200 feet up and back again, but I did it. Yay me. The fearless. The tamer of camels.

Forget what I said about the screaming.

The Neighborhood

So when I told someone about the roosters, the donkey and the sheep (did I mention the sheep?), she said, "where are you living again?" Ok. So I really am in Marrakech, also called the Red City because the buildings and the houses traditionally were all the same color--not red, really, more of a salmon color. But let's not split hairs.

Much of Marrakesh is new construction from a building boom that has been going on for some few years now. The new residential construction is mostly 3 or 4 stories. (It also makes for a nice, low skyline.) In the  houses I've been in, there is one apartment per floor. Often different couples within the same family will occupy the whole building.  In my case, my extended family and I have the 2nd and 3rd floors, the unrelated property owner has the 1st floor.

I live right on the edge of an old section of the city that is about 2 or 3 miles not-so-square miles and is bounded on all sides, I think, by new housing construction. By old section, I mean single-story, adobe-style dwellings and dirt roads. When I first saw those houses, I thought they were abandoned. Then I noticed that quite a few of them have satellite dishes on the rooftops. Some, I'm told, are very well appointed on the inside. I think the satellite dishes would bear that out.  Some are poor and use tarps held down with cinderblocks for their roofs and a plastic bamboo fencing for a wall or door. I've heard that some folks are holding out for big bucks from developers or individual perspective new-home builders.

There is a paved road runs past my corner.  I live 2 doors down from the corner and while the building on my side street has sidewalks, the roadway itself is the beginning of a dirt road that extends throughout this old section of town.  (The dirt road, by the way, has street lights just like the rest of the city.) At the corner to my right starts the paved streets. And just to complete the picture, two blocks away to the right is a wide boulevard lined with trees.

So what's up with all the livestock in my neighborhood?  To my left is the old Marrakech. A donkey cart owner parks his donkey directly across from me. Ahh, the braying I've come to know and love. I'm not sure who has the rooster nearby, but someone else has another one a few blocks away and they sometimes talk to each other.

There's also the guy with the small flock of about 20 sheep. I don't know where he lives, but I discovered that there's a small field in this old section of town, and he takes them there to graze. I discovered the field when I looked out of an upstairs window of an old, adobe mosque about 2 blocks away at the end of the dirt road  that runs by my house.