Deep Travel “The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see.” – G.K. Chesterton

The fortified walls of the Medina restrain Marrakech’s knotty veins, a labyrinth of compressed alleys where salmon walls disperse low dusty light. Winding and doglegged, the souk bulges with enigmatic doorways and alluring wares. Carts sprout conical towers of desert red paprika aside orgies of figs, olives and dates.
I aim to discover Marrakech like a book, alone and entranced, transformed by her casual anarchy.
Carcasses hang nude, corpulent and obscene. It is the dream of another creature. A cat, black and wiry, meditates on the exposed flesh. The reverie of fat gold eyes remains unstirred by the crowd’s disordered beating. I snap a mental picture of this haiku and follow the bustle through the souk, driven by the tac tac tac of an artisan’s hammer.
The alley births me into the spectacle of the Jemaa el-Fna; a mass of stalls rises out of an ambient smog of steam and tantalising aromas. The mood is carnivorous. In the bacchanal discord, brazen hosts assault with invitations. Each offers ‘air-conditioning’, an enterprising twist on open-air.
Flanking the culinary circus is an intense merging of oddities. A cock fight, a monkey, and Shilha dancing boys shaking hips. Sans alcohol, the world is more ectopic.
Berber men caparisoned in hooded jellabas, age lined faces illuminated by a gas lamp, huddle and weave stories. Beside the bovine fortune teller swathed in red wool is a silent line of three blind men, clutching canes under the broad sleeves of robes. I’m about to steal a photo until a look-out recites the mantra: “10 dirham, 10 dirham”. I close my eyes and plagiarise sightless Marrakech, gratis.
Smoke, leather, shit, gasoline, mint and cumin intersect with an undulation of drums, flutes and guitars, punctuated by the clang of dirham. I gaze up at the illuminated minaret of the Mosque. It is enticing and forbidden. I recollect the feline’s desire. The wail of the call to prayer travels through the world of colourful diversions.
Turning, I spy a stranger sight: myself, a chicken, lying supine, beak skyward, hypnotised. I wander back to the veins of the Medina. Old scooters fart past impassive men in hoods and an inert donkey.
I find my friend, the feline, still lost in his reverie. In the maze of ochre walls struck with chalked Arabic, I perch on a doorstep. Marrakech has claimed me. Surrendered and bombarded; I am her hypnotised chicken, her hungry cat and her three blind men. My metamorphosis is complete.