Well I can't believe that my four weeks at Marrakech has expired already - and tomorrow morning it's the start of a brand new adventure for this wanderer ...
My visit here to Marrakech has been an exciting and eye-opening experience - looking into a culture of extreme contrasts ...
On the one side of the city Moroccans live and work in very crowded dusty noisy chaotic conditions, where many struggle to find the means to sustain themselves ... living in ancient narrow laneways ...
While on the other side of the city can be found sweeping boulevardes lined with modern apartment buildings cafes banks and businesses ...
... from never-ending greened-up broard avenues ...
... to dusty cluttered roads ...
... from glitzy 21st century shopping plazas ...
featuring all the chain eateries ...
and expensive fashion houses ...
... to the cluttered souks ...
... with shop after shop after shop selling locally made souvenirs to the tourists ...
... from hidden palaces behind high walls ...
... to hastily erected suburbs ...
Marrakech is a city with a past going back centuries when Gand Vizers and Sultans built magnificent palaces for their coutiers and concubines ...
... and it's a city where youths are now starting to express themselves ...
Marrakech is a city of walls ...
both grand - and the not so grand ...
It's a city of many gates ...
and a city of doors hiding mysteries behind ...
... And bringing warmth to the heart of this Aussie travellers, the ocassional Eucalypt ...
... and most Aussies will recognise this horror -
found even here on the other side of the planet ...
Marrakech is a city of beautiful manicured desert palms ...
And even man-made palms towering into the sky ...
... like this disguised phone and radio tower ...
... what a great idea ...
It is a city of beautiful parks ...
of topiaried orange trees ...
... and many a cool oasis for the locals wander through ...
and even cooler inner-coutyards for weary tourists to wonder at ...
and those same tourists can ride in two-horse-powered coaches
or in two-tiered coaches ...
it's a city of grand mosques - and the daily calls to prayer for the faithful ...
And just when your sinuses are getting used to the dust,
it rains for three days clearing the crisp winter atmosphere
and revealing the snow-covered Atlas Mountains way to the East ...
So that's my impressions of Marrakech - and tomorrow morning with my kit packed I walk out the compound gates headed for another adventure ...
- stay tuned -
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