All aboard the Marrakech express..

So we’ve hit Morocco, well Marrakech actually and are now a few days in. Our hotel is a little oasis from what seems like an absolutely mentally busy city from our drive in from the airport. We arrived mid-late evening and the roads were packed with cars, mopeds, buses, lorries, you name it, it was there dodging, weaving, screeching to a halt, basically jostling for position to get somewhere before YOU.

Inside the hotel walls things are a little different. Three storey ochre coloured buildings line a large aqua-marine blue pool lined with trees including the most humongous palms I’ve ever seen.
The weather is stunning, hovering at about 42 degrees by day and 26 at night which has its good and bad by products.

The good, well it’s hot and dry everyday which is what we came for after a few years of holidays dodging showers. The bad, well the bars are quite stifling at times at night as are the bedrooms where the air-con fights a losing battle to cope. Then there’s the sun bed run…

Now I hope any German readers forgive me, but you guys have a reputation (certainly with the Brits) for being early rising sun bed grabbers, but Jeez even you lot would struggle here and I’ve not even had the faintest sniff of bratwurst, no its definitely the porky banger & Toulouse sausage munchers at work on this occasion.

After day one it was clear that if you snooze you lose, so every day since if I’ve woken up anywhere close to 8am, I trudge bleary eyed and laden with towels to claim a spot for Stoke On Trent near the pool and there I sit, dutifully waiting for the good lady to prepare herself for the world. I’m here right now writing this on my phone as it happens.

“Fifty Shades Of Grey” what’s that all about? Well I know what it’s about obviously, but I mean whoah, why is it being read by cross legged women (and men) on one in every five loungers in this resort, has reading “erotic literature” (porn) suddenly become all socially acceptable? If so, what about the poor illiterate, is it now ok for him or her to whip out a copy of “mahoosive hooters” or “King Dong” at the poolside? “It wasn’t like that in my day…etc etc

Another hotel upside is the food, I have to say that even by mass produced hotel standards it’s been excellent, I’ve tried to eat Moroccan whenever I can and it’s been delicious, I’m hooked on tajine dishes for starters, even plain lentils cooked that way are lovely and don’t get me started on the lamb… It’s not all been eating though, I’ve had a lesson on tajine cooking too and another on how to make Moroccan mint tea which is a real treat. If I can remember it all I’ll attempt to do some sort of beer and food matching malarkey when I make it home.

I suppose as this is predominantly a beer blog I’d better tell you all about that too. The beer in the hotel is “Biere Pression” or at least that’s what it says on the pump head. Despite searching on t’interweb I can find nothing of its origin, country, brewery, fabulous list of ingredients, nothing, zip, nada. What I can tell you is that it’s a lager or lager beer or similar, its yellow, very gassy, has little or no aroma and tastes ever so slightly biscuity. Despite this, sitting 42 degree sun around the pool I’ve drunk gallons of the stuff, no beer snobs here, its thirsty work and needs must…

We’re hoping to venture out into the Souks, Medina and up into the Atlas mountains in the coming days, so I’ll try and pop a quick whistle stop tour of that on here too, don’t touch that dial..

Cheers