Can You Take the Heat

The heat today in Marrakech is rather epic – bellicose, taunting, spiteful. A sorceress strangling us in her miserable clutch. A she-devil sucking the air from our lungs. “Be afraid,” she whispers, and we are.

How often does one pause to contemplate if a pair of sunglasses could actually melt to one’s cheek bones. Or if it’s possible for the skin to bubble and blister even beneath one’s clothes?

One hundred and seven degrees doesn’t sound that hot, but coupled with a dry wind and a paucity of shade, the effect is scorching. Heat mirages? Oh, yeah. Given that Marrakech is a city that boasts a lot of pavement, we’ve got the Bellagio fountain burbling up at us every 100 meters. Imagine what it’s like for the much-maligned mules! This is a day for laying-low, for long siestas in an air-conditioned room, or barring that a darkened lower-floor salon. At least it promises to cool to 91 degrees by midnight.

We knew that yesterday’s house-buying giddiness would fade as the reality of the work ahead of us dawned; we just didn’t expect it to combust in a dusty poof so soon. But today, instead of hiding from the heat’s wrath, we hurtled headlong into the fiery day to deal with the financial mishigas of yesterday’s rash act. Bank to internet café to teleboutique to bank to internet café to teleboutique we went. Oh, how we wanted to curl up on the marble floor of Societe Generale for a few hours of reprieve. No, no, onwards.

We’d scoffed when others warned about the heat of the Moroccan summer, especially inland in Marrakech. Wouldn’t you rather wait to go in the fall, they asked? We’re from LA we grumbled, we know from heat. Our comeuppance, it seems, is coming to a boil.