Morocco Guide
Marrakesh
The Djemaa el Fna
There's nowhere in Morocco like the Djemaa el Fna – no place that so effortlessly involves you and keeps you coming back for more. There is a fascination in the remedies of the herb doctors, with their bizarre concoctions spread out before them. There are performers, too, whose appeal is universal. The square's acrobats, itinerants from Tazeroualt (the region around Tighmi), have for years supplied the European circuses – though they are perhaps never so spectacular as here, thrust forward into multiple somersaults and contortions in the late afternoon heat. By day too, you'll see sad-looking trained monkeys, snake charmers and, dressed in their magnificent red regalia, the water sellers.
In the evening, these give way to storytellers and above all – the Djemaa's enduring sound – dozens of musicians playing all kinds of instruments. Late at night, when only a few people are left in the square, you encounter individual players, plucking away at their ginbris, the skin-covered two- or three-string guitars. Earlier in the evening, there are full groups: the Aissaoua, playing oboe-like ghaitahs next to the snake charmers; Andalous groups, with their ouds and violins; and the Gnaoua trance-healers who beat out hour-long hypnotic rhythms with iron clanging castanets, and pound tall drums with long curved sticks.
For refreshment, stalls offer orange and grapefruit juice (but have it squeezed in front of you if you don't want it adulterated), while neighbouring handcarts are piled high with dates, dried figs, almonds and walnuts, especially delicious in winter when they are freshly picked in the surrounding countryside. As dusk falls, the square becomes a huge open-air dining area, packed with stalls lit by gas lanterns, and the air is filled with wonderful smells and plumes of cooking smoke spiralling up into the night.