Medina, Marrakech: The Overview

Admittedly, I was unprepared for the madness of the Medina in Marrakech. Coming from pampering at the Park Hyatt Milan, Paris, and the IC Marseille, I was ill-equipped to handle the chaos of the old city. The sensory overload from my first night of exploring the maze of alleys and narrow streets combined with the thought of having to do it for three more nights had me literally running for the exit, both from the Medina and from Morocco as a whole. Add in my inability to get a good night sleep due to malfunctioning A/C and no way of getting work done due to faulty Wi-Fi, and perhaps you can understand why I was ready to make a hasty exit.

Only I did not. I chose to stay and explore. And explore I did. What follows is as series of anecdotes that highlight the sheer madness of this city within a city. For all the places I have been, I have not experienced a place so crazy. Like Chungking Mansions in Hong Kong, this place has its own ecosystem. Outside the walls of the Medina things are relatively calm. Inside, everything is going down, day or night.