Snake charmers, camel rides, and fun in Marrakech!

I ended my recent trip to Morocco with the third city of our visit, Marrakech. This was after experiencing Rabat and Casablanca.

Marrakech is the third-largest city in Morocco, after Casablanca and Fez. It lies near the foothills of the snow-capped Atlas Mountains. It also lies a few hours from the foot of the Sahara Desert.

The city is divided into two distinct parts: the Medina, the historical city, and the new European modern district called Gueliz or Ville Nouvelle.

Our experience of Marrakech started with a trip to the Emerging Business Factory (EBF), a creator hub and startup incubator space! Housed in the heart of the Sidi Ghanem industrial district of Marrakech since 2015, EBF is also the gateway to a community that brings together: entrepreneurs, creatives, startups, experts, trainers, researchers, consultants, associations, and many others. other actors working today for the reinvention of business models and for the development of innovative and sustainable ecosystems

MIND7 provides creative services for resident and external businesses, including serving as a creative agency for the Marrakech region! My highlights of the visit include observing how technology can be applied to tourism monitoring.

We ended the visit to EBF with Lunch at La Cantina and then headed out to the Agafay desert, located 30 kilometers south of Marrakech. The rocky desert extends over several hundred acres and can be likened to a sand desert. Indeed, its white dunes stand, and the landscape is like the Sahara dunes.

Here, we experienced quad biking and camel riding in the desert, staring at the Atlas Mountains!

Before leaving Marrakech I made sure to experience the sights and sounds of Jamaa el Fna, a square and marketplace in Marrakesh’s medina quarter (old city). It remains the main square of Marrakesh, used by locals and tourists. During the day it is predominantly occupied by orange juice stalls, water sellers with traditional leather water bags and brass cups, youths with chained Barbary apes, and snake charmers.

I also returned to the Jardin Majorelle for a second time. It is a two-and-a-half-acre botanical garden and artist’s landscape garden.

It was created by the French Orientalist artist Jacques Majorelle over almost forty years, starting in 1923, and features a Cubist villa designed by the French architect, Paul Sinoir in the 1930s. The property was the residence of the artist and his wife from 1923 until their divorce in the 1950s. In the 1980s, the property was purchased by the fashion designers, Yves Saint-Laurent and Pierre Bergé who worked to restore it. Today, the garden and villa complex is open to the public. The villa houses the Berber Museum and in 2017 the Yves Saint Laurent Museum opened nearby.