She Says - Fascinating Fes

2-3 September
I’m really liking it here in Fes. We had a great tour yesterday with our guide Ali; he was funny, had excellent knowledge, and gave us a brilliant insight into the city and the Muslim way of life. It was a tiring day though – our half-day of guiding actually ran from 10am to 3.30pm without stopping! That’s great value for only 200 dirhams, equivalent to about 17 euros. We got whizzed around a good portion of the medina, which is huge and twisty. We got taken to the usual shops (clothes, rugs) but with low hassle. To see the famous tanneries, you have to go with a guide from one of the surrounding leather shops, who gives you a talk about the process – it’s free but they try to get you to buy something at the end. Xander desperately wanted a sheepskin for the bike seat as it seems to have collapsed AGAIN and he’s been very uncomfortable. In the second shop we visited (complete with second tour), he managed to get a great bargain for about 35 euros – ouch, but comfort is important! We later got an amazing tour of the tannery pits themselves, where the skins are defleeced and washed, then dyed for up to 10 days. We were whisked around the whole series of pits, skipping along the thin walls, which was absolutely exhilarating – not in the least because by that time I was tired from the heat and walking and it certainly woke me up to think I might suddenly dive into an alkaline pit of dye!!! We almost got defleeced ourselves, when the tannery guide said we needed to pay at the end ‘whatever you like’. We had no idea what the tour was worth, so we asked the guide and he suggested an enormous price, 3 times what our day guide was charging! We got it down to the same as our day guide, but felt a little stiffed by this, being trapped in the middle of the pits and not being forewarned about charges. On the flip side, the money (supposedly, always the sceptic) goes to all the people working in the pits as it’s a cooperative, so I felt it was worthwhile and man, what amazing shots we got so close up! I felt really thankful that I was wearing my big boots and not my hiking shoes – it was pretty messy in there and they gave me extra grip and balance. We got to see everything in Fes in a nutshell, and to work out what we wanted to come back to see on our own, which really only left the medersas (which you can enter as non-muslim), the theological colleges attached to the mosques (which you can’t enter but can look inside and even take photos in certain ones).

So the plan today was to head into the old Jewish quarter (mellah), which wasn’t as interesting as I had hoped but I got to visit my first synagogue. In the lower level was a bathing pool, for cleaning for prayer I think, and on the wall was a large black scorpion holding a huge cockroach! I’ve no idea if it was dead or alive, but it never moved. We somehow managed to end up in the new town, giving us an opportunity to price out a new portable hard drive, as ours is misbehaving more and more. We also looked at memory sticks, as ours got an irremovable virus in a library in Portugal, plus camera memory cards as we are running lower than expected but good quality ones are in very short supply. Everything seemed priced much like Europe, so no cheap options here! We bought some sunscreen, which cost a lot for a small tube of nasty thick zinc-cream-like stuff, and Xander finally found the strap mounts he wanted to attach to the outside of the panniers so we can strap on extra bottles of water or fuel. He could not find what he wanted for an acceptable price in the UK, and always laughed he would get them made in Morocco – funny that we found them in a shop!

The new town had a more western feel than the medina, with proper shops and restaurants. We had a big lunch, which was easy in such a westernised place and we didn’t feel so bad for eating in front of those observing Ramadan. Tired and needing a rest, back in our room Xander decided to test the DVD burner as we haven’t used it yet on the trip. We really need to back up our computer files and photos at the moment, and create some room on the camera memory cards! Something is wrong though, either the burner is not working or the burning program isn’t, which is massively frustrating and leaving us wondering how best to take care of photo and file storage. Anyway, it was late once we left the room and the medersas were closing, so we pottered around the twisty little streets of the various souks (markets). We had surprisingly little hassle, and bought an embroidered prayer hat as a thankyou gift for Andy in Spain It’s a shame we couldn’t buy a proper red fez hat, but they are solid structures made from cardboard and we have nowhere safe to carry one around! We’re still looking for the perfect gift for Alison, so it will be a while before we can post anything too. It’s not going to be easy to find Morocco sticker for the panniers either, but we have found something that would do the job if needed.

We decided to have a lighter dinner tonight for two reasons – big meals at night are not great, and we’ve been seeing a lot of interesting snack food coming out for the end of the each day’s fast and want to try some. It was delicious! Little fried fish with spicy sauce, fried chillis, fried breads stuffed with onion and herbs (paratha style if you know your Indian food), thick fried breads like a layered pancake (similar to what we’ve been getting for breakfast at the hotel but without honey, and I understand it is a traditional breakfast pancake) and pastilla, a stuffed fried bread full of vegetables and chicken or pigeon and dusted with cinnamon and icing sugar. Delicious! (or hadid as Ali taught us yesterday :-) ) It was much cheaper than our other meals so far, which is good as we are finding costs are running higher than expected - we’re running on about 450 dirhams for our basic daily costs (room plus garage parking for the bike, meals, a lot of water, but no fuel), which is almost 40 euro, not good!!! We need to look more into more basic rooms (currently we have our own bathroom and hot shower, free wi-fi internet and breakfast) and camping as we move around, but I have to say it is worth being right inside the old city to really experience it and not worry about the safety of the bike and our gear.

A quick wildlife note - there have been amazing flocks of swallows each night over this area of city. Several hundred birds swoop and swarm just before sunset, and it seems they are nesting in holes in the old city wall!