A souk in Marrakesh,Morocco.Credit:Alamy
"You know the other name for Marrakesh,don't you?'More cash',because you always need more money for shopping here!"
It's a fitting line delivered bang on time by my guide,Abdellah Amghar,from Australia-based Moroccan tour company By Prior Arrangement,as we enter the narrow,chaotic streets of the Marrakesh souk district inside the medina quarter. Amghar,I soon discover,speaks almost exclusively in these sorts of one-liners,and looks cool,calm and collected in his white floaty djellaba as we forge further into the souks. I,on the other hand,am already hot,slightly overwhelmed and wondering how on earth I would have navigated this tangled knot of laneways without a guide.
"This is an amazing maze of alleyways!"Amghar shouts over his shoulder as he forges ahead past stalls heaped with handmade silver jewellery,thick patterned woollen carpets and vibrant babouche slippers. Marrakesh is known as Morocco's city of artisans,with 60 per cent of the working population occupied as an artisan of some sort,a figure I begin to comprehend as we whiz past these treasures."The deeper you go the better,because you're buying from the makers,not the middle men,"Amghar says.
Majorelle.Credit:Nina Kanikowski
Before long we reach the dyers'quarter,where sheaves of richly-dyed wool in fuchsia-pink,grass green and saffron yellow hang from the walls and ceilings. A worker to my right hurries by with a wheelbarrow piled high with cobalt blue wool,while to my left a steaming dye vat bubbles away with a mass of poppy red wool sitting beside it."The women who make Berber carpets get their wool from here,"says Amghar over his shoulder as we head out through a series of ever narrower alleyways lined with hundreds of filigree metal lanterns."Abdellah!",I yell out as I puff along behind him,"where are we going?"
"To the blacksmiths area,to see the men who make lamps,lanterns,bells,doors..."
We turn a corner and the end of his sentence is swallowed by the intense clanging and banging of the blacksmiths. They sit on the ground around open fires,soldering and hammering away. We just have time for a quick visit to an artisan named Hassan,who looks to be in his mid-40s and has been making beautiful handmade padlocks here since he was nine years old. Then we're off again into the leather souk,where the stalls are laden with handmade shoes,belts and handbags crafted from leather in a rainbow of colours. Turning another corner,we find ourselves in the midst of a leather auction. Hundreds of beige-coloured skins are piled high all around us,and local djellaba-clad men wave money in each other's face,brokering deals to buy the skins in bulk which they'll then transform into pouffes,bags,shoes and more to sell. It's utterly chaotic,and utterly wonderful.
Brightly coloured Moroccan slippers (babouches) in souk,Marrakesh.Credit:Alamy
Our race around the souks finishes at the oldest and biggest herboriste (herbalist) in Marrakesh,the entrance of which is lined with metre-high woven baskets overflowing with medicinal herbs and spices. Inside,in a room where the walls are lined from top to bottom with glass jars,packets of amber and essential oils,we meet a witch doctor dressed in a white lab coat."These are different animal parts,like snakeskin,bat,fox skin,iguana,"he says,pointing to various jars."Normally when we have some jinn[spirit] in the house,we take a little bit from about five or six products and put them in a talisman to keep in the house. There are different ingredients for each different jinn – sometimes you put myrrh,sometimes you put serpent,it's always different,"he says,shrugging his shoulders.