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A-maze-ing Fès

Fès is known for having one of the oldest and most confusing medinas in Morocco. Though I love the Lonely Planet guidebooks, their maps of Fez need some work. RobO and I wandered around trying to find the Royal Palace and luckily came across some self guided tour signs, which helped immensely.

When we reached the doors of the palace it was well worth it.

RobO kept making jokes about how many pictures I took of the knockers.
Our Next stop on our little tour was the Jewish Cemetery and Synagogue, followed by the refreshing Bou Jeloud Gardens.
Feeling confident with our route markers, we explored the winding medina, seeing workshops where they’re carving wood, clanging out copper bowls, and etching amazing decorative patterns into silver wares. Though it is busy and maze-like, we found it so much better to manoeuvre than the one in Marrakech.  We tried to barter for a few items (I say ‘tried’ because neither RobO nor I are very good at it). Here’s how it went:
Me (looking at 2 wooden carvings): How much for these?
Shop guy: 50 Dirhams each (about $5 US each)
Me: How about 80 Dirhams for both.
Shop guy: Now the price is 1000 Dirhams for both.
Me: (Completely bewildered. Like we’re not even on the same playing field anymore.) Ummm, never mind. (Then as I’m considering walking away) How about 100 Dirhams for both.
Shop guy: OK.
We pay, knowing that we actually didn’t barter at all.
I hoped to go to the oldest library in the world, but it’s currently undergoing a restoration, so we could only see the entrance.

I think I should have been a cultural anthropologist. I love seeing how different cultures actually live, not just what tourists see from the outside. This led me to try out going to a non tourist hammam, which was a culturally rich experience, to say the least! Women in Morocco are always very well covered in cloaks and head scarves, but it’s a different story in the hammam. Basically there are cavernous sauna like rooms filled with women wearing only panties who are washing themselves and each other while gossiping and occasionally yelling (I couldn’t figure out about what). I had to work up my courage to try this experience and overall my baby soft skin is glad that I did!

And, no, I did not take any pictures of any of those knockers.
We’ve continued our good eats; RobO having an average of 1.5 tagines per day, and me trying new stuff all the time.
Here’s a ‘splurge’ meal from a popular tourist Cafe. I had a plate of falafel, hummus, and tabouleh. RobO’s is a salad with capers, blue cheese, figs, and candied walnuts.
And this is pastille, which is a phyllo pastery stuffed with chicken, onion, and almonds. On top is a sprinkle of icing sugar and cinnamon. Sounds weird but it’s delicious!
We’re now in Amsterdam for 24 hours before our flight home. It’s so nice to catch up with our friend Jente and meet her growing family.
Next blog should be in the summertime when we plan to visit Poland and Berlin!

 

 

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For Fès Sake

A few days ago we made our way to Fès on a long bus journey followed by a personal taxi that our host in Fès set up for us.  As we pulled up to a large metal gate in a skinny dead end alley, our driver informed us that our building was a palace at one time.  Though this sounded impressive, we didn’t fully understand what we were about to see.

Above is a shot of our courtyard.  There are suites along either side of the courtyard, all varying in size.  We have a nice room with a private bathroom and even an upstairs kitchen.

It took me a while to get used to our winding streets so DawnO has taken the helm and has done a great job navigating.

Yesterday we joined up with some friends from home who happened to be in Morocco. We hired a taxi for the day to take us out to Volubilis, an old Roman city full of ruins and well preserved mosaics.

The next stop was Moulay Idriss, home to the tomb of Mr. Idriss, great-grandson to the prophet Mohammed and the founder of Morocco’s first real dynasty.  Every August it is the focus of a great pilgrimage.

We had our own pilgrimage trying to find the place where we could get a panoramic view.  We were determined to not use a guide and it ended up costing us about 30 minutes of unnecessarily walking uphill.  Eventually, a local “guide” showed us the way so we could get these shots:

Pictured above is the Mosque and the Mausoleum (green pyramid) of Moulay Idriss.

We have a couple more days in Fès before we make our way home.  Which will include a visit with our friend Jente in Amsterdam!
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White and Blue

After our few days in and around Marrakech we altered our travel plans to include a quick stop in Casablanca. As romantic as it sounds, Casa is actually off of the typical tourist circuit, which is a double edged sword. The positives are that we could be more anonymous, not constantly being harassed by people trying to get us to go somewhere or buy something. I also had a day of freedom from wearing the travel money belt (we lovingly refer to it as my ‘travel gunt’). The big con is that it didn’t have the tourist conveniences like restaurants or anywhere handy to buy a snack or drink. Our evaluation is when it comes to tourist infrastructure, ‘too much’ beats out ‘too little’.

Aside from having some downtime to do laundry, relax, and drink cafe nes nes (half coffee, half milk), we visited the main tourist attraction of the stunning Hassan II Mosque. It’s the 3rd largest mosque in the world, fitting 25,000 praying people inside and 80,000 outside.

Last night we took a train-bus combination to the blue city of Chefchouen. Everything in the medina (old town) is painted various shades of blue, making it appear like a beautiful version of the ‘bedrock’ area at Calaway Park. It’s cold and rainy here, so even my lips are matching the hues of the city.

In RobO’s last blog he was so busy describing me as a pink convertible that he failed to mention that he has transformed into a different loveable, funny, Canadian actor. During the goats in tree viewing, RobO got so excited that he clapped his hand to his mouth. His wedding ring hit his tooth at the perfect angle and velocity to give him a handsome Lloyd Christmas (from Dumb and Dumber) look.
Thankfully it is not painful (other than in aesthetics) so we’re not having to blog about his experiences with Moroccan emergency dentistry!
Tomorrow we will make our way to Fez, which is one of our last stops in our Moroccan adventure.
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Water buckets and bucket lists

We have spent the last two days doing excursions outside of Marrakech.  Yesterday we went to the coastal town of Essaouira.  It was a welcomed change of pace from the big city.  The weather was beautiful, the noise was minimal and we had room to walk along without dodging donkeys, scooters and shoppers.
When we got back to the city we had what I might call an awkward couples hammam.  If you are long time readers of our blog you may remember a post I wrote about a rather awkward, yet amazing Turkish bath experience…  See ‘Bloggle Bloggle” for the full story.   Consider this hammam experience to be along the same lines.  If you don’t already know, a hammam is when you, a consenting adult human, allow an adult stranger to wash and scrub your almost naked body until your top layer of skin comes off.  Sounds pretty normal so far, right?  Well, the place we are staying at has a hammam so we thought after a nice day at the beach, we would come home and get a good scrub down.  We booked it and at the time I wondered, if the hammam was in our place, does that mean one of the 3 staff members gets the lucky job of hosing me down?  Would it be bachelor number 1? The manager with a twinkle in his eye?  Bachelor number 2?  The guy that can’t speak English but is fluent in all things French? Or the lady that has been cleaning our room for the last 3 days?  I had convinced myself that they probably hired outside help for that job.  Well what a jerk I was.  Not only was it the lady that was up to the task, but she was taking us both on in the same room.  Now I’m not sure how a threesome is supposed to go, but I’m certain what I saw in that room was not a show I ever need to witness again.  When she was washing one of us, the other one was sitting on the smallest stool in the world I’d like to call the stool of the scary truth.  It was so hot.  Like temperature hot.  We were down to our underwear and she was wearing pants.  The most awkward moment for me was when I was getting scrubbed a bit too vigorously and I made a face, revealing my comfort level all while locking eyes with my wife of ten years who looked like a freshly washed hot-pink convertible with her top down.  And the most amazing part?  The lady didn’t even get her pants wet.
Today we took our clean selves to Ouarzazate, a city south of the High Atlas Mountains.  It has been featured in many films and even has its own movie studio.
We also visited Aït Ben Haddou which can be seen in Lawerence of Arabia, Gladiator, and Game of Thrones.

DawnO and I have a bucket list.  While Dawn adds things to it well in advance, I find it hard to add items to the list.  I usually see or do something and then afterwards say, “That goes on the bucket list! Check!”  What I saw on the way to Essaouira was put on the list once we knew it was a thing.  We actually only booked this trip because we heard we might see this mind blowing sight.  Ladies and gentlemen, we give you goats in a tree:

Props to Peggy Nelson for telling us that this was even a thing.

Apparently the goats climb the trees to eat the nuts that grow on them.  Bucket list item, check!

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“I will cooking tagine for you”

We’ve made a couple of rookie mistakes in our first couple of days in Africa, but nothing that hasn’t turned out to be a pretty good story in the end.

On our first night we settled into our Riad (Moroccan accommodation with rooms around a central courtyard). Our little courtyard is filled with orange and lemon trees, and we get a fresh squeezed OJ every morning with breakfast. We had our first tagine, and since then RobO has had tagines steady for every lunch and dinner!
Yesterday we wandered the narrow, windy streets, staying as close to the sides as possible to avoid bikes, scooters, donkeys, horse and carriages, food carts, and the occasional truck.

We got lost a couple of times, but only because we listened to the touts who say that “X (X=wherever you’re going) is closed”, or “The big square is this way” followed by pointing in the direction of the shop that they’re promoting. Because ‘X’ was closed, we were led by a ‘friendly’ young man right to the tanneries, where they clean and dye hides of leather. Interesting process, though it would have been nice to know we were taking a $20 tour prior to the end of the tour!

We really enjoyed seeing the tile work in the Bahia Palace and Ben Youssef historical site. I could have (and did) take and endless number of photos.
And, of course, we’ve spent a lot of our day and night time at Place Jemaa El Fna. This is a UNESCO cultural heritage site for good reason. I mean, where else can you hang out in a square filled with king cobra snake charmers, acrobats, banjo playing storytellers, henna painters, strange gambling games, rows of food stalls (that include sheep brains on display), and much much more. A lesson if you’re ever planning to go: every picture you take costs money, and the amount is likely more than the pocket change you were planning to give. And they’re determined. But you can always leave your little lady hostage with the snake charmers while you go to the bank machine across the street.
(This is RobO’s worst nightmare. I’m very surprised he was smiling. When asked, he said, “I didn’t want to make any sudden movements!”.)
Stay tuned. We have some pretty action packed days planned!