Marrakech is probably the most well known and visited city in Morocco by British tourists, it’s certainly a well developed city with an air of prosperity and complete traffic chaos. Our stay at the Grand Plaza was on Mohammed VI Boulevard, a dual carriageway that accommodated trucks, cars, motorbikes, cars, bicycles and, my favourite, roller skaters holding onto cars. All moving at any maximum speed they could achieve with little lane discipline. It was anarchy and crossing any of the roads that turned off the Boulevard was, again, Russian roulette.

As we approached the hotel the guide who’d spent the tour giving us chapter and verse on industry, monarchy, religion, history, geography and culture said by way of a joke “we are now crossing the largest roundabout in the world”. To everyone on the bus it was a joke as he finished his guiding with our last drive in the bus. To one lady she, in a flash, asked yet another of her asinine questions, that we’d sat through for nearly 2,000 kilometres, “How many turnings off does it have?” Frankly, how would her life have been richer whether it was four of 16? She’d kept up a stream of nonsense throughout the tour including my favourite of identifying goats, sheep or donkeys through the bus window so that we could take photos. Rest assured there are many. She was Canadian but it does call to mind something I once heard in the USA when on a business trip that “there’s no such thing as a stupid question”. Let me be crystal clear, there certainly is. For what it’s worth the entry level tours do usually scoop up one guest (female) who is a quasi burden to the rest of the party. Anna and I have a game where we try and identify the person shortly after joining. I know this is a mean comment but on every tour it occurs!

We stayed three nights, two as part of the tour and then one extra night by ourselves. We dined alone on two of these nights and forgive me but I had burger and chips twice. The remaining tour activity was a guided tour of Jemaa el-Fnaa. This is the name of the area that houses the main square and the market. We had another excellent guide, Abdul, who was thoughtful and intellectual. He explained the three sided nature of Moroccan Squares and the small windy nature of the souk passages led to better ventilation and cooling. He also explained the Muslim diet and for those who think Islam prohibits shellfish, in fact, they don’t that’s Judaism. On one theological question he did accuse me of using logic that didn’t apply to the matter in hand!

In the middle of the guided walk we participated in a cooking class. It was Lemon Chicken Tagine, a dish I will probably never ever eat again. The preparation of the ingredients was fun and we were all given jobs, fortunately I missed out on mixing the raw chicken, vegetables and numerous spices with my hands. After our creation it then turned up for lunch along with a warm salad we’d also magic’d up.

Back into the busy souk we dogged the other shoppers and regular motorbikes that weaved their way through the passages. The stalls in the souk never sell the same product next to each other. Clearly, having a competitor next to you was a bad move. The advice was that the haggle started at 50% of the initial asking price. You’ll be unsurprised that I felt no temptation to see if this was the correct approach. I would say that many of the goods look well made and interesting should you be in the market. After the tour we walked back to the hotel whilst some of the guests took advantage of last minute shopping (!)

So that was a busy and wonderful tour with so much to see and learn. We’ll be looking for our next G Adventures tour.

Lastly, as a former guide I couldn’t, or want, to fault Redouane, he was attentive, always managing our safety, efficient, interesting, fun and the tour ran perfectly. We tipped in line with the guidance of $10/day each and then chucked in a little more. I did wonder if everyone else stepped up, I hope so. The money isn’t just a little bonus as I suspect he’s keeping other family members with it. However, where he did outstay a welcome was his pursuit of ensuring that we all completed the post tour survey and advising what mark to give! We were asked to insert no negatives but if we felt there were problems to email G Adventures separately. However receiving from him WhatsApp messages days after the tour giving the number of outstanding respondents with a request to hurry up and complete was a misstep to me. On reflection it’s a competitive market to get work and guides with the best marks get the work. The useless management above him blame the guide for any negative comments about food, hotels and visits?

I guided as a hobby, Redouane isn’t.