Author Archives: Ginger

In which we leave Fes and cross the Middle Atlas mountains

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I am picking up the thread of this journey after a delay of several months during which the rest of life took a certain priority. But now…back to the Morocco story. As a reminder, this trip took place in December, 2012.

After our busy stay in Fes, Dan and I were picked up at our riad by our guide and driver, Hicham. Hicham is friendly, knowledgeable, and reliable. He works for Morocco Expert Tours, which helped us arrange our customized three-day trip from Fes to Marrakech through the high desert. Between Hicham and Youssef, who runs Morocco Expert Tours, we felt we were taken care of at every moment.

The Atlas mountains, running from northeast to southwest, roughly divide the country into a moist zone that gets enough rain to grow abundant crops and a dry, rocky desert punctuated by oases, which runs ultimately into the sands of the Sahara. We crossed the Middle Atlas mountains near the town of Ifrane, a pleasant town built by the French and with real European charm, that is a popular ski resort. (Yes. Really.) It was a day of mixed clouds and sunshine, even a flurry or two. The scenery in the mountain pass was beautiful. 

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Once we were over the pass, the clouds disappeared, and the scenery changed to a dramatic desert.

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What houses or towns there were…

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…seemed almost dwarfed by the landscape.

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Fes — A miscellany of traditional architecture

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Fes is a city of schools and universities and mosques. All of these buildings, and many of the larger ryads as well, are ornamented with beautiful architectural details. Herewith, and without much explanation, are some examples. Enjoy!

Towers and rooflines

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Doorways

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Next, we leave Fes for the mountains and the high desert!

 

Fes – the rug merchant

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After a day in Fes and with advice from fellow travelers, Dan and I steel ourselves to face the dreaded Rug Merchant. No trip to Morocco would be complete without this experience. We know he will ask too much. We know he will not let us out of his shop until we buy something. But we are prepared. We have studied our houses and the spaces where we might use a rug, and we have measured everything. We are not impulse buyers. We know what we want.

His name is Mohammed.

Our host at Ryad Salama recommended him. He is an honest rug merchant, Michel told us. He will give you a fair price. Of course, you will still bargain, but his wares are good. He is not like those other merchants. Michel buys all his rugs from Mohammed. There is, for example, this rug in our room.

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Please, says Mohammed, sit down. Would you like some tea? Mohammed assures us he doesn’t want to pressure us to buy anything. Please, just let him show us and explain the different kinds of rugs.

We have measurements, we tell him.

Yes, yes, but first you must know what you like.

And well, in fact we do want to learn about the different kinds of rugs and to see what we like. Mohammed’s young assistant rolls out rug after rug on the floor of his shop. After about ten or fifteen minutes of this, what we like turns out to be a kind of rug made from the “silk” of a cactus–sabra, Mohammed tells us.

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Dan has a slight preference for one of the patterns; I, for another.

Buy both! Mohammed enthuses. He will give us a special price for two. Only…he works his calculator…nine thousand six hundred dirhams (just under $1,200).

We demur. We don’t even know where we would put this rug. It is not our size.

Mohammed wants nothing more than to make us happy. How about just nine thousand dirhams? And…he will throw in a surprise for me. He guarantees that it will make me happy.

I give him my best skeptical squint. What is it?

He leans closer in a conspiratorial manner and says, It’s a secret!

But no, this isn’t going to work.

We’re really not in the market for a rug, even a rug we like. We have rugs rolled up at home, nice rugs, because we have no place to put them. All the rugs he has shown us are the wrong size. Where would we put them?

Nature intervenes on our behalf. We had to get back to our ryad to take care of a basic bodily need twenty minutes ago, and now that need is urgent. Even rug merchant desperation cannot hold out against this kind of physical need. With my promise to return, we make a perilous escape.

Dan and I have a chance to recover. We try really hard to figure out where we would put such a rug–but we fail. Nevertheless, I feel I have to go back. I gave Mohammed my promise. As for Dan–he made no promises. I can go back if I want, but I’m on my own, he tells me. My job is to say No.

Well–okay–if I can get one rug (one rug ONLY!!) for 1,600 dirhams (less than $200) then okay, I am authorized to buy it.

Fat chance of that!

Mohammed didn’t expect that he would ever see me again. He seems genuinely delighted that I have kept my word. He invites me into his shop, but I decline. I have come only to tell him that we can’t buy one of his very beautiful rugs as we have no place to put it.

Mohammed is very understanding. Of course, no problem. But come in anyway. Business is slow these days. Please, just have a cup of tea.

And so I do.

Mohammed, it turns out, hasn’t always been a rug merchant. He is retired military. For fifteen years he served in the air force. He seems to get a few inches taller when he tells me this, a man proud of his past. Proud, and somehow also just a little sad. I find I like him.

Which rug, he is curious to know, did I like the best?

None. No, no, no. No rug. We have no room for another wrong-size rug. No place to put it.

But which do I like?

I tell him the cactus-silk rugs.

He brings them out–the one that Dan liked and the one that I liked. Business is slow, he tells me. So he will give both of them to me for just eight thousand dirhams.

No, I say. No. No rugs. And in any case, certainly not two of them.

Well then, Mohammed asks, what would I think of giving him four thousand dirhams for just one? No? Then what would I give for one rug?

Why can I not escape this? I find I am embarrassed to tell him the low price limit that Dan has authorized me to spend. I’m probably blushing. Both of them are beautiful rugs, I tell him, and probably worth far more than the miserably low price my husband has authorized me to spend.

But Mohammed coaxes it out of me.

One thousand six hundred dirhams, I almost whisper.

He doesn’t seem ruffled by my absurdly low offer. He answers with exquisite politeness, assuring me that he is not offended. Business has been slow. So he will give me a very good price–just three thousand dirhams for this rug.

I say that maybe I can talk Dan into two thousand dirhams, but I am sure he won’t go higher.

A bit more back-and-forth, and we have a deal. Twenty-two hundred dirhams.

When I bring Dan back later, he gets the price down to twenty-one hundred dirhams, and we all shake hands.

Dan and I are the proud owners of a Moroccan rug.

And we have no place to put it.

 

Fes – a small excursion outside the gates

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Still new to Morocco, we thought we might like to see the Artisans Vocational Training Center, just a few blocks outside the gates. Here, our ryad host assured us, we might see people learning the traditional crafts in a modern setting, with a gift shop of articles made on the premises–and no haggling. We thought we might prefer to avoid the stress of bargaining while obtaining some article of genuine handicraft. We thought we might enjoy a small pedestrian excursion outside the medina.

We were wrong on both counts.

The walk was hot. Vehicles racing by on the wide roadway made it hard even to talk. The pollution was more noticeable. The walk was not pretty.

It was Sunday. Being government funded, the place kept sane government hours. It was closed.

However, the amiable security guard did take one of the better pictures of Dan and me.

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The walk back to the medina brought us past a shady park near the Royal Stables. And there we saw a most interesting sight.

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Determined to see the Artisans’ School, we returned the next day. Yes, the walk was still hot, noisy, and polluted–but this time the school was open.

The shop had only a limited selection; the prices, while probably lower than a medina merchant’s asking price, were significantly more than a well-bargained final price in the medina. And many of the workshops in the school were empty.

We did get to look at some of the work in process–plaster carving, for example–that might not be seen elsewhere. And the drawings in the window of the musical-instrument workshop beckoned.

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And we watched for a while in awed silence while a teacher instructed his apprentice in the making of an oud.

sm05 IMG_0460sm06 IMG_0461sm07 IMG_0462 We returned via a different gate–the lovely, but traffic-congested, Bab Boujloud.

smIMG_0438 Bab BoujloudIf I had it to do over again, I don’t think I’d take this walk. Certainly not twice. If I wanted to see something–a garden, perhaps–in the newer part of town, I’d take a petit taxi. If I wanted to take a walk to someplace different, I’d go see the Mellah or the Andalusian Quarter. If I wanted to watch crafts-work in process, I’d find out more about how to see workshops in the medina.

But somehow, watching a young man learning to craft an ancient instrument made the entire excursion worthwhile.

 

Fes – the leather tannery

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Without the leather tanneries, Fes would be delightful, a joy to visit. With them, it is…remarkable. Stunning. Quite possibly like nothing you will see anywhere else in the world.

Fes is the center of leather-goods production in Morocco, a country world-famous for its fine leather. And the leather is tanned and dyed in the same location using the same methods they’ve used since the Middle Ages. And before.

The way this works for the typical tourist is very easy. All you do is, you walk down any street in the medina, heading vaguely downhill toward the river. A nice young man whom you’ve never met before will volunteer to take you to a shop where there’s a terrace that overlooks the leather dying operation. That’s exactly what you’re hoping for, and so you follow him. He leads you to–you guessed it–his uncle’s shop, where you are greeted by a smiling middle-aged man who hands you a bouquet of mint.

Trust me, you want the mint.

The nice middle-aged man, all smiles, leads you up a couple of flights of steep, narrow stairs and out onto a terrace that overlooks a sight like nothing you have ever seen before.

   

Oh, did I mention why you need that bouquet of mint? It’s because this work is as odiferous as it is messy. One of the main ingredients in the tanning process is cow urine. And the individual tanners and dyers immerse themselves in their work.

         

The next phase of the tour involves climbing another set of narrow stairs to the shop above, where anything you ever wanted made of leather will be offered to you. And if they don’t have it here on the premises they can get it for you by tomorrow. And, the smiling middle-aged man assures you, the price is very reasonable.

It isn’t, of course.

We didn’t know yet how much negotiating room there is, so we didn’t bargain very much. We just said no. But trust me, gentle reader, the merchandise is lovely; you are right to want it. And the merchants are friendly, eager to please. And you should pay less than half of whatever  they’re asking.

 

Winter Wonderland

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So, they’re saying that this may equal or exceed the Blizzard of ’78. But I’m a skeptic. I mean, it could, but how many of these young whippersnappers pontificating on this topic were actually *alive* during the Blizzard of ’78? Well, I was here, and I’m not saying this one won’t make it, but I am saying it still has a couple of feet to go.

Regardless, it sure is pretty.

 

Fes – shops

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Of course a person could hardly stay out of the shops in the medina if she tried. (I say “she” here because Mr. I-Hate-Shopping, a.k.a. Dan, did not seem to share this problem.) Everything was interesting, desirable, and infinitely photogenic. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Herbs and essences

Spices and herbs

Olives and pickles

Chickens and eggs. (So *that’s* where all the crowing was coming from!)

Camel’s head and other meats

Hand-loomed fabrics

The loom in the back of the shop, where some of the fabrics were made

Musical instruments

Antiques and odd objects. Cat not for sale.

Yes, of course, rugs. Beautiful rugs in a beautiful space. What’s a medina without rug stores?

Fes – streets of the medina

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What gives the medina of Fes such character are its streets. They are narrow and intense. And almost completely pedestrian. There was the occasional donkey delivering goods to the shops–“medina taxis,” the natives joked.

We hardly knew whether to look at the people, or the shops, or the wares arrayed attractively in the streets, or the architectural gems that appear here and there–or just to sink into the experience, the world’s complete opposite of a sensory-deprivation chamber, and enjoy everything.

This broad square is just inside one of the gates.

 

Here we look down from above at the texture of the light, the street, the wares, and the people.

   

Maybe these few examples provide a good idea of the beauty of the busy market streets. And it turns out that the quiet side streets have their beauty, too.

 

 

Fes – Ryad Salama

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Our experience in Fes, though short, was so dense that I hardly know where to begin. Probably the easiest thing is to begin with our “home” in Fes, the peaceful Ryad Salama.

The cat is a real cat–one of Fes’s many charming feline inhabitants–and not part of the signpost.

Ryad Salama is a “ryad” or “riad” converted into a bed & breakfast, and run by the charmant Michel Trezzy. A ryad is a large structure oriented around an interior courtyard. This one offers six rooms and a suite; our room, the Amandine, had a king-size bed, a sitting area, and a private balcony overlooking the courtyard and pool area. Lovely! Here are pictures of the door to our balcony and the rug in the sitting area (made of “cactus silk, a fiber spun from a variety of agave cactus, this rug inspired us to purchase a rug made of the same fiber in the same soft colors).

 

Here are views of the courtyard and pool from our peaceful balcony.

   

I should add that the food here–both French and Moroccan menus are offered–was very good. As was the Moroccan wine.

 

Fes – view over the medina

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On our second evening in Fes, and having discovered that with the help of our map, we were capable of handling the challenge of finding our way through the medina’s maze, we made our way over to the Sofitel Palais Dar Jamai to watch the sunset from the terrace.

Of course we were not quite capable of handling the challenge of fending off friendly medina residents who wanted nothing more than to help us get wherever we were going–with stops at their father’s shop and their cousin’s restaurant along the way. So somewhere en route we picked up a boy of maybe ten years old who knew enough English to be a voluble guide to the district, but hadn’t seemed to have learned the phrase “No thanks.” He did an admirable, if slightly roundabout, job of guiding us to the hotel that we were perfectly capable of finding on our own, and we paid him 2 dirhams for the assistance. And, frankly, for the delightful company.

The view from the terrace of the hotel was expansive, as the guidebook had promised. And the patterns of the rooftops and towers of the medina were entrancing.

What we hadn’t expected was the smog. We should have, of course. Even though no cars or motorbikes are allowed in the medina, the rest of the city is busy with them, and air pollution knows no boundaries. And the smog seemed to get worse as the dusk deepened. It’s sad, really, in such a beautiful city.