Aug 17 – Arrival in Fes

We actually had no hotel bookings for Fes because I thought this could be the city where we could experience sleeping on rooftop terraces. In the end, we were a little sketched out by the LP descriptions of the facilities at hostels offering terraces, so we decided to try calling for a room. We are in luck and actually land a 3-person room in a well-rated budget hotel due to some no-shows. It was by the famous gate called Bab Bou Jeloud pictured here.

Once at the hotel, we decide the first order of business is to pack up our washing and find a laundry facility (we have no clue what these will be like). On our way out, one of the hotel guys asks us where we our headed with our backpacks so full. Side note –all the hotel employees we saw were male, many of them were young (20-somethingish) and doubled as security, as they slept in rooms by the door of the hotel. We tell him we are looking for laundry. He tells us that we can have them done by the woman who comes to clean everyday. We look at each other… ok… The cost is 5Dh per item. Paying for laundry by item? Eeks… I pull out all the underwear and socks, leaving a total of 10 items, coming to a total of 50Dh or ~$7CAD. Still cheaper than the load I did in London.

And so, backpack free, we explore the souqs of Fes as the night settles in. They are a maze of narrow cobblestoned streets, better designed for heat (i.e. shaded) than Meknes and just filled with people. A and I buy our first pair of simple leather sandals here from the cutest little boy (maybe 10-12 yrs old?) who tries to teach me Arabic phrases as A bargains. Shukran – thank you. Marhaba – welcome. Final price – 30Dh a pair.

Our next task of the night was to find dinner. Looking for a restaurant at night in tourist-districts of Morocco is a very different from choosing restaurants in Canada. At home, it is a pretty one-sided venture – flyers and advertisements aside, the restaurant plays a relatively passive role in getting customers in through their doors. In Morocco, this is far from the case.

Here, servers double as hawkers (for lack of a better term). Mid-range priced tourist-oriented restaurants generally have large outdoor seating areas, nicer place-settings and menus in several languages. There are generally many in the same area, and differ little from one another in terms of service, price and fare. Thus, to ‘entice’ tourists to a particular restaurant, they have at least one man working the streets, shoving menus at every non-Moroccan looking person, asking “Are you hungry? Are you looking for a restaurant? Japon?” It takes some getting used to. When in a better mood, I would politely fend off proffered menus with a smile or “Thanks, but we’ve eaten”. When I began to get fed up with being seen as a walking money bag, I would walk past them as quickly as I could, making no eye contact.

This system would not be so bad if the hawkers were not also the servers. Since they are constantly working the streets in addition to the tables, once they have snared you, service is inattentive and slow. You can always tell the newbie-tourists. They always have this slightly stunned expression as they are taken by the hawker to their table. They look distrustful of their hawker, thinking they might have just been taken in there, but not completely certain what happened.

In Fez, there is a large cluster of restaurant close to Bab Bou Jeloud and we are still new to this aggressive canvassing by the waiters. Wanting to make our own decision, we finally chose to eat at the restaurant with the cool plates. The hariras were served lukewarm, but the tajines were excellent. This close-up shows a veggie tajine containing the Moroccan trademark flavours of olives and preserved lemon.

Next - Aug 18 – In Fes

Aug 17 – Continued exploration of Meknes

On our way out, we are waylaid by the cooperatif manager, who took us up to the roof of the building to see the view. Naturally, on the way down, there is a carpet shop on the second floor. We begin another carpet session but try to escape after the unfurling portion. He does his best, even showing us the guest-book with all the wonderful comments from past customers (from Quebec no less!), but we are done with carpet-shopping.

Continuing our exploration of Meknes, we saw passed Bab El Mansour (pictured here) on our way to the Museum of Dar Jamai. The word ‘Bab’ refers to the massive gates set into the walls of all the cities, they are all name Bab something or other. El Mansour means golden so Bab El Mansour means ‘golden gate’ I guess - the Moroccan equivalent of Kim Moon. The museum had all sorts of large old carpets on display, but the building they were housed in was more interesting to us having been the former lodgings of some important minister.

After this, we attempt to explore the souqs but get more than horribly lost when we wander out of the touristy area into the local souqs. There is plenty to see, but after a while we are very hot and thirsty (it is noon-ish) and we cannot make our way back! More wandering later, we finally get directions and find ourselves back in the touristy square where we are accosted by our first sketchy waiter. The cooked salads are not too bad, though the brochettes were completely lacking in seasoning. All the cats hanging around the table meowing at me for meat make me a little nervous, I could never tell whether they were diseased or not.

We tried to find the Christian prisons after this but never did locate them. Finally, the heat and lack of shade drove us to taxi back to the bus station early to relax at a tea salon. This is our first true experience of midday Mediterranean type heat – I completely understand the concept of the siesta now. The bus ride on the government-run system is fairly smooth once we finally get our tickets. For whatever reason, they do not sell tickets before the bus arrives, so we sit around until the ETA. As the bus pulls up, everyone lines up at the counter (crowds around is a more correct term, Moroccans have no concept of queues) – but there is no one to be seen! No one else in the line/crowd seems to think this is unusual, but we are rather confused. Finally, we realize that it is prayer time and that the ticket-sellers have gone to the back office to pray. Once they finish, I am able to snag 3 tickets to Fes.

Next - Aug 17 – Arrival in Fes

Aside on building interiors - Mausoleum of Moulay Ismail

At the center of the room was a fountain – these serve not only decorative but also functional purposes. The ones in mosques and madrissahs are used by people to perform their ablutions before going to prayer. They are set in mosaic tile floors – the entire floor is tiled and the mosaics extend up to about eye-level on the walls. Islamic art is all about intricate patterns, since they can’t portray life-forms, and they even have these complicated knot structures that somehow prove religious things – I forget exactly what.

Floor and wall-work can be as simple as repeated patterns through large square tiles, or very complicated tiny geometric shapes that interlock and fill the plane. In Fes, they showed us how these wall mosaics were done at a pottery factory, but I’m not certain the floors are done the same way. Basically, they fire the pieces initially as large coloured squares; firing is done in these giant kilns where they burn olive pits, so the whole place smells like olives. These large squares are chipped manually into appropriate smaller shapes. These are laid face down in the final patterns inside large frames, cement is poured over them, and when you flip them over, you have the final product. For tourist purposes, they make these into tabletops for patio furniture. They were beautiful, but way out of our price range.

Moving upward, the tilework gives way to plasterwork. These are not molded but carved in situ – the builders form the walls and pillars, and then the artisans come in and carve and paint the designs in by hand. Chandeliers or lanterns hang down from the ceiling and show off the handiwork of the blacksmiths.

Finally, the plaster gives way to ceilings of carved and painted cedar wood as well as stain-glass windows. The windows in this particular room were not too complex, but you can get some with really colourful glass and fine patterns.

Next - Aug 17 – Continued exploration of Meknes

Aug 17 - Meknes

After another breakfast of bread, jam and mint tea, our first stop was the bus station where they had a left-baggage service. We were only in Meknes for the one day, so we were planning to take a bus to Fes in the afternoon. From the station, we walked 2km to the medina seeing some of the newer parts of town along the way. Wide streets, wide sidewalks, lined with hair salons, gas stations, tea salons, banks etc. At one point the road ran parallel to a small valley planted with crops – here, the sidewalk disappears into rubble and there are lime trees planted along the rubble.

Once inside the medina, we get rather lost searching for the major tourist attractions – it may be that the numbering of the sites in the guidebook was inaccurate. In any case, we were finally able to locate the mattress-stuffers’ stalls which was supposed to be near our first stop. People would bring their mattresses here to be stuffed with the dead wool (wool shorn from dead sheep – lower in quality) which was piled high inside the shops.

Next to the stalls was an artisanal cooperatif, into which we were invited when the owner saw us looking at his carpets outside. In cooperatifs, there are many different tourist-targeted items gathered under one roof and sold for a marked price (which means no bargaining). These are a good place to survey the items available in the region as well as getting a gauge of good workmanship and price before trying to bargain yourself in the medina. He gave us a demonstration on how the iron plates inlaid with silver wire are made and offers to show us carpets and the wonderful view from the rooftop. We decline the offer but tell him we may come back after visiting the mausoleum.

Finally finding the mausoleum of Moulay Ismail, we were properly impressed by our first glimpse into the richly decorated interiors of Moroccan buildings. The interior courtyards of this building are often seen in tourist literature, postcards and so forth due to their rich yellow walls, the contrasting tile and plasterwork and the door-within-door effect.

Removing our shoes, we enter the antechamber of the mausoleum – this is as far as we may go as non-Muslims. The next pictures show the interior of the antechamber and serve as an example of the décor typically found in grander buildings.

Next - Aside on building interiors - Mausoleum of Moulay Ismail