Harvey Flea | Mosquito. Travel Writer. Sleuth.

Marrakesh Adventurer

The bandana is over my face as I leave Djemaa el-Fna, Marrakesh’s main square, and get ready to get lost in its labyrinth of markets. The hot dust is an irritant for most people. For little mosquitoes like me, it can mean total respiratory blockage. And my asthma makes it even worse.

But I didn’t come to Morocco to nurture my health fears. I came for adventure. And adventure I will have. So to the markets I go.

Just so you know, I have lots of experience with stores. Before my wild success as a travel writer, I had a stint as a mystery shopper for a mosquito consumer group. We created great buzz for the stores we reviewed. Get it? Buzz? Sometimes I kill myself.

Djemaa-el-fna

If mystery shoppers monitored Moroccan bazaars, they’d probably be an endangered species. That would be a shame, because sterile, air-conditioned stores with price markups so high you could get a nose bleed have nothing on the life that courses unchecked through these bazaars. Nothing is censored, not even smells - especially not smells. I almost collide with a lamb shank hanging, uncovered, unrefrigerated, from the rafters. Its fat is glittering in the shaft of sunlight. Monkeys choop insanely as they hop from rolled carpet to carpet.

The other thing about Moroccan markets I love is that people aren’t so concerned about insects, so I can generally wile my afternoon away without any death threats. That never happened at Saks.

This is how spices are displayed in Moroccan shops - for reals!

I turn into the first stall I find and stop cold. I see dunes upon dunes of one of my favorite things in the world: spices. They beckon to me: Rust red follows Sahara yellow before turning into sunset orange. There’s only one thing left to do.

I back up into the corner of the carpet stall across the way, get my wings in gear and turbojet myself into the saffron. I bounce out, flutter my wings to shake off the excess powder, back up and aim for the cumin. Wheeeee! Then the black pepper. Wheeee! (sneeze) Then the paprika! Wheeeee! (sneeze, sneeze). Then the cinnamon and the white pepper and back to the saffron and the ginger and (sneeze, sneeze, sneeze) back to the cumin. Wheeeeeee! (wheeze, sneeze, sneeze) Psychedelic color meets powdery heat and the heady, meaty smell!

Some people like bouncing around in a mosh pit. Let me bounce in and out of spice pits. But it aggravates my asthma, so don’t tell my mother.

Haggling, what fun!

I take a swig from my inhaler and dive again into the cumin. Suddenly, I hear a piercing scream. As I bounce out of the spice, I see a lady berating the meat vendor. My ears are kind of clogged with spice mix, but I think she’s calling the vendor a thief. Ooh, fun. Price haggling. The vendor screams back and calls her cheap. By the time I come back up from the paprika, the lady’s saying his fingernails are dirty. I get a peek at them as I fall into the black pepper. She’s right. This is great. You never see this at Saks, that’s for sure.

I come back up for air. Now their hands have gotten involved in the argument, but I think the lady is caving. I can see it in her eyes. Or maybe that’s just the cumin.

I’m getting ready for my last dive into the ginger before I need my inhaler again when suddenly - thwack - the lady’s hand smacks me in the nose.

Well, it’s more of a graze, but when you’re tiny like me, a graze feels like a thwack.

Ouch.

I look down. Oh no. Blood from my nose is dripping onto the vendor’s cumin.

I gulp. Where can I hide before I get caught?

I can see it now. The vendor stops short. He turns his gaze to the contaminated spice. He sees me, covered in blood and paprika and ginger and cinnamon and cumin. He takes a butcher’s knife, slices me through, and sells me as his day’s special.

Worse yet, it’s all in slow mo.

Thank God for my overactive imagination. The vendor is too busy breaking his customer down. I lurk off, putting the bandana back over my face. I need to get back to my air-conditioned hotel to nurse my nose and kick back with an asthma inhaler.

You know, I never got a bloody nose when I was a mystery shopper, but I wouldn’t trade this for all the Saks in the world. Unless they had cumin in them.