Marrakech is an ancient caravan town, a gathering place where Arabs and Berbers mingle with Sahara nomads and mountain people.
By Anita Draycott
I felt like I had just stepped into a movie. Snake charmers, teeth yankers, fortune tellers, acrobats, water carriers—good guys, bad guys all putting on their nightly performance in Jemaa el Fna square, in the marvelous mayhem that is Marrakech.
Each evening as the sun starts to set the cast assembles, setting up stalls of street-food delicacies ranging from massive cauldrons of snails brewing in a mirky broth to lamb kabobs hissing on charcoal fires. Circling the square is a non-stop throng of rusty bicycles and mopeds, mangy donkeys pulling wagons, rattling petite taxis honking their horns. Marrakech is an ancient caravan town, a gathering place where Arabs and Berbers mingle with Sahara nomads and mountain people. Morocco is a feast for the senses and twilight at Jemaa el Fna assaults all of them.