Happy Anniversary to Us. We wake up to a rainy day in Fez. We must meet our guide at 10 am, so we arrange to have breakfast downstairs in one of the dining areas at 8:30. To our surprise, there are four other people staying in this Riad. We haven't seen or heard any of them at all since we arrived. We arrange to have dinner here tonight because it makes our life easier and we are tired now. The jet lag and the plethora of banquet-like meals in India has really ruined our appetite. We arrange to have soup. That's it. Nineteen years of memories and we just need soup!
The guide arrives and is dressed in a traditional caftan with a hood. This is not for appearances because the majority of the locals still wear the caftan as their choice of habit. It is only the young adults that are sporting jeans, sweaters and cell phones. Many of the adult women wear a head covering, but many of the young women are seen without them. A transitional time in Morocco's customs or more diversity in religious choices? Never got the answer.
Off we go, umbrella at the ready and excited to see the medieval architecture in daylight. And I use that term loosely, because the streets are very narrow and the sky is very grey. This is the Medina and it truely is a step into the past because some areas were constructed in the 11th century. The guide takes a brisk pace and merely points in the direction of interesting spots that I would have delighted in studying for several minutes. All will be clear very shortly. As in India, the man has a mission. To get us to visit as many places with shopping opportunities as is possible in five hours. He will get a "cut" of the proceeds and probably has his "favorite" places to haunt where his acquaintances allow him to sit and have mint tea while the "tour" of the facility is given by a local artisan. Luckily, many of the establishments we will visit today are totally interesting and unlike anything we could see anywhere else in the world. Later on, we tire of the pressure to buy goods in every corner of the Medina. When the guide realizes that we just want to look around, the tour comes to a quick end. It was still a memorable way to spend our anniversary.
The first visit we made was to a "donkey hotel". It is a mud floor enclosed area with "rooms" for out-of-town merchants and their donkeys to use for a night or two before making the trek back to their villages. Donkeys are the "delivery trucks" of the Medina. They carry everything in and out of the old walled city because the streets are too narrow for any motorized vehicle. In fact, a human being must become accustomed to dodging into doorways to avoid being trampled by the beasts and their burden. I found it fun because it was one of the few things we could do to experience the life style of the locals living within the walls.
Next visit was the tanneries. You can smell the tannery well before you arrive. Donkeys pass loaded down with hides of goat, sheep and camel. We climb a flight of stairs and are on a balcony looking down into a kind of "city within a city". Rows and rows of concrete vats are filled with colored liquid and hides. The dyes are made with natural substances and there are men standing in the vats, pant legs rolled up to mid thigh, stirring and rearranging the pliable leathers. Some of the vats contain a white lye that takes the remaining hair and flesh from the new pelts. Many storage areas around the perimeter are piled high with new arrivals for the vats. The odor is almost overwhelming. An acrid mix of rotting flesh and stringent potions. I buy shoes and a purse.
We visit a pottery and mosaic factory. The potters are still using the type of wheel that is pushed with the foot and all of the glazes are painted on by hand in complicated arabesque motifs. The tessari for the mosaic tables and fountains are cut by hand in painstaking fashion with archaic tools. The kilns are fueled by dried olive pits. The system may be old, but it still works. Each piece is an individual. Many people are given gainful employment. We buy a few small bowls because they will pack well.
We are taken to the oldest mosque in town and have a look at the university area that is being totally refurbished by UNESCO. The doorways are fascinating and beautiful. The Moorish archways give the brick and mortar walls character. The Islamic stories "written" on the walls of a courtyard are actually individually cut pieces of inlaid mosaic. Remarkable accomplishments with basic tools. Water channels hold water that has trickled down from the surrounding hills and has been fed, underground, to the open courtyard.
And then we pass throught the Souk. In Fez, this large area of merchant stalls runs almost all the way through the center of the Medina. The smell of garlic and spices and raw meats and vegetables and herbs mixes with the truely exotic nature of the visuals to give you the most exhilarating experience. It is as if one had been able to travel back through time and literally touch history. Camel meat is available. All types of "cousins" to the vegetables we are familiar (these are just NOT quite the same kind of carrot or turnip or cabbage or bean we've eaten) Carpenters cut wood on old machinery in a tiny stall and then carry the pieces on their backs to the work site. Children run in between the legs of adults on their way back to school. More eye candy than a person can digest when the guide is racing ahead of you at a good clip.
The Medina is such a labyrinth of tiny alleyways that one could not negotiate around without a guide. It would be possible to be lost, like a mouse in a maze, for days on end. The guide tells us that he is still learning his way around. And then he tries for one more cottage industry/shopping experience and we balk.
When we arrive backat the Riad, the windows to the room have been half closed and the room has a damp and musty feel. I become aware of a strong smell of sewer gas in the bathroom that I will not be able to get out of my nostrils. We watch a little TV, just to get a flavor of the media in this country, and try to stay awake until 7:30 for soup. We are alone in the hotel again this evening. Or perhaps we are just not able to dine properly...late. I watch as Muhammed ties one end of his cumberbund to the door handle and then "twirls" around and around until it is wrapped about his middle. (He is changing his costume from doorman to waiter!)
It continues to rain and the bathroom smell has infected the entire room. I will not sleep well and this will give rise to our next great Moroccan adventure.
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