Читать книгу Riches: Snog, Steal and Burn - Megan Cole - Страница 13

Chapter Eight

Marrakech, Morocco

It was just a wooden door, down a quiet street off the medina. But once the girls had stepped through into the Riad Aziz, they’d found themselves in a scene out of Arabian Nights. With a huge, domed roof and arched doorways, the centrepiece of the house was a mosaic-tiled courtyard with a pool in the middle. Rose petals floated lazily on the surface, scenting the air. Gold lanterns lit the way along the richly painted corridors. On the floor above, a marble balcony stretched the whole way round the courtyard.

The private suites were no less luxurious, with sunken baths and fireplaces, hand-stitched camel leather on the floors. The girls had landed late and gone straight to their antique wooden beds. Next morning they met on Jhumpa’s private terrace for breakfast. The plan was to have a day to acclimatise, and then go to find this Doctor Bate. Celine and Luci wanted to go and explore in the meantime, but Jhumpa had other ideas.

‘I’m booked into the spa for a massage, manicure and pedicure.’ She sat there regally in her silk dressing gown, sipping from a glass of mint tea.

‘Don’t you want to come with us?’ Luci said. Marrakech looked amazing. She’d been online first thing, checking out what to go and see.

Jhumpa sniffed her pretty little nose. ‘It looks like Mumbai, only smaller.’

‘What is that girl like?’ Celine asked, as they walked out after breakfast. ‘I can’t believe how much she loves herself.’

Luci smiled. ‘Let her be, she’s probably tired.’ Even after twenty-four hours, she could see how high maintenance Jhumpa was. She was also clearly super intelligent, so maybe Professor Adams was right about their talents coming in handy.

‘Whatever, she’s really getting on my nerves.’ They walked out into a wall of heat and Celine shoved on her fluorescent blue Ray-Bans. ‘Let’s go shopping.’

Both girls quickly fell in love with the ancient city. A bustling labyrinth of street markets, it was a riot of colour, noise and delicious cooking smells. Tiny crevices no more than three feet wide were occupied by old men, selling the traditional leather Moroccan slippers. One cave-like shop seemed to stock only old bicycle tyres. There was jewellery, rugs, spice stalls: each owner calling out to them to come and buy their wares.

Celine was doing most of the haggling and the tall, striking blonde girl who spoke fluent Arabic quickly attracted lots of attention. Luci had wandered off to look at a robed man claiming to be selling love potions and came back to find Celine surrounded by a crowd of people having a good-natured argument with a shop owner about the price of his textiles. She eventually came out looking smug with the bargain tucked under her arm.

‘There is some seriously amazing stuff here!’

Next up was a tagine stall, where Luci managed to persuade Celine that the massive clay pot she wanted probably wouldn’t fit in her suitcase. There was a shop next door selling metallic poufs. Celine wouldn’t be put off here, especially when the beaming owner said he could send as many back to Buenos Aires as she liked. Luci gave up and went outside to wait.

Twenty minutes passed before Celine finally came out. Luci looked up from stroking a stray cat that had wandered up. There were hundreds of the skinny creatures all over the city. ‘Has your thirst for shopping been quenched?’

‘For the time being. Talking of thirsts, can we go and get a beer?’

‘How about a mint tea?’ Luci said and frogmarched her over to this really cool underground café she’d seen all the locals go into. The place went quiet as they walked in. Luci wasn’t surprised; even in a place like Marrakech, Celine’s puffball skirt and striped braces were a little out of the ordinary.

The cool stone interior was heaven after the oven-like temperatures outside. After ordering mint tea in Arabic and some baklava, Celine pushed up her sunglasses and sighed happily. ‘So totally in my element. I could stay here forever.’

‘We haven’t got that luxury, unfortunately.’ Their mission was never far away from Luci’s thoughts. ‘Do you want to go check out some of the sights afterwards?’

‘You go, I’ll probably stay round here.’ Celine’s eyes gleamed. ‘There’s this silver necklace back there I have to get my hands on.’

After filling up on tea and the honeyed sweet pastry, they paid and went their separate ways outside. Luci politely refused the man selling hot snails on a street corner and decided to head back into the alleyways. She had the hotel guidebook with her, but it didn’t stop a very persistent young boy trying to show her the way. In the end she gave him a few coins because he made her laugh with a spot-on impression of Andy from Little Britain.

For the next few hours, Marrakech stole her. Luci went down into the 16th century tombs and walked up high on the medina walls. The El Bahlia royal palace was amazing, as was the Museum of Islamic Art. Streets seemed to appear from nowhere or disappear, and twice she ended up back at the place she’d started out in. Luci went with the flow, taking endless pictures. It was all part of the fun of exploring.

Last on the list was the famous Jemaa El Fna, the biggest open-air square in the world. When Luci walked out on to it, she wasn’t disappointed. It was massive, stretching away the length and breadth of at least three football pitches. Over on the far horizon she could see the towering peaks of the Atlas Mountains.

In the middle of the square was the food market - hundreds of identikit makeshift restaurants. Enticing smells wafted across and Luci realised she was starving. Giving the snake charmer coaxing a sleepy cobra out of its box a wide berth, she went to fill her stomach.