The Not So Secret Garden

I know it’s a cliché, but it really does take my breath away every time I come here.

A little background info: This is the Majorelle Garden, named after its creator, Jacques Majorelle. It is one of Marrakech’s most well known, most frequently visited and, in my opinion, most aesthetically pleasing attractions. Established in 1947, it masterfully arranges a variety of vastly different plant types from 5 continents, establishing its creator as one of most significant plant collectors of all time, apparently. After his untimely death, the garden fell into disrepair until it was acquired and restored by French couturier Yves Saint Laurent, whose understated memorial is on the premises. Coming from the noise polluted, garbage strewn, kamikaze motorcycle infested entropy that is Marrakech, it is a welcome reprieve.

I think what I love so much about the Majorelle Garden is that it’s a little bit of everywhere. From the moment you enter, you’re transported from the dusty redness of Marrakech to the bamboo forests of Asia…

The stalks of a thousand bamboo shoots rise from the ground like so many overgrown asparagus, tattooed with the names, visiting dates and relationship statuses of the millions of shitty, vandalizing tourists who came before me.

To the American West…

Cacti from 3 continents (yes, I did count them) compose the central area of the garden. Far from reminding you of the desert that encroaches on all sides, the cacti are succulently green and carefully arranged in meticulously raked sand, a living salute to the Zen garden.

To the Mediterranean…

Brightly coloured water fixtures abound. When tourists aren’t endlessly snap snap snapping pictures in front of them, they are a lovely place to sit and watch the fish frolic and the turtles endlessly hump each other. So different from the needy strays that chase and beg in the city. Soft tendrils of vines drip through the rafters, placing fragrant flowers at nose height and providing a emerald veil to shield face sucking teenaged tourists from the civilized world. The ponds radiate a coolness that seems to quell the oppressive heat of the day.

An impressive slice of the world’s flora is displayed in brightly coloured pots, arranged with such beautiful randomness that it could only have been deliberate. Sturdy succulents jutting spikily out of urns, delicate ferns spilling softly out of pitchers, palm fronds fanning between the two and everywhere bamboo. Everything is densely green with carefully placed brush strokes of vibrant oranges, blues and golds. One wonders how many days, months, even years of planning must have gone into making it all look so effortless.

It is every inch a couture garden.

In the Northwestern corner is the brilliantly blue and gold building that houses the Berber Museum.

A small but impressive collection of elaborately dressed mannequins, intricate jewelry and gadgets and gizmos of all manner and function that you can’t quite understand despite the trilingual explanation immediately in front of you. A creatively arranged crash course in Berber history, culture and language.

Just around the corner is a mini gallery showing some of Yves Saint Laurent’s paintings and collages, meditations on the theme of love.

Just the fact that this place is able to exist, completely encapsulated and independent from the rest of the city is wonderful to me.

Perhaps this is why my most precious moment thus far has been sitting here in what I have come to think of as my bench. There’s a sudden chill in the air, the sun momentarily covered by clouds, the onset of a lazy drizzle, the whisper of wind that doesn’t quite reach me. If I close my eyes it reminds me just enough of San Francisco to make me slightly homesick. Light rain drops raise goosebumps on my arms and smudge the ink on my now slightly soggy but incredibly entertaining book (I Wear the Black Hat by Chuck Klosterman, I highly recommend it). I am deliciously free of tourists, who have fled the rain hissing and growling like the sodden cats they are. For the first time I am alone outside, unhindered by leering eyes and pointing fingers and snapping cameras. And I feel something similar to comfort.