dimanche 27 avril 2014

Fez Finale . . . Travel Home . . . and A Big "Shukran" to the Goddess of Travel

    Our final half day in Fez was not to be wasted.  As our flight did not leave until 4:00 p.m., we had time for a finale:  The potential purchase of a carpet.
 
     We told our riad that we were interested in looking at carpets after breakfast.  A call was made.  At precisely 10 a.m., this man arrived to guide us to a carpet seller somewhere deep in the old medina. 
 
 
He was a well-built man named Muhammad . . . about 55 years old with excellent English.  In this picture, Muhammad is guiding us through the maze:
 
 
Muhammad and Ed struck up an immediate conversation about bodybuilding.  Muhammad then revealed that he had once been a competitive bodybuilder and had been the "Champion of Morocco" in 1984.  Incredibly, Muhammad said that he had known and competed against the famous Muhammad Makkaway . . . the great Egyptian bodybuilder who narrowly lost the Mr. Olympia competition to Lee Haney in 1984.  Muhammad Makkaway was once one of Ed's favorite bodybuilders . . . . a childhood idol if you will, whose physique was once plastered on Ed's bedroom wall:
 

The Great Egyptian Bodybuilder, Muhammad Makawway
 



It was am amazing coincidence and there was much to discuss.
 
     But eventually we found ourselves at one of thousands of non-descript doors, and then we emerged into a palace of rugs and carpets . . . the ceiling must have been 50 feet high, it was adorned with intricate mosaics, there were hundreds of rugs of all sizes and designs and about 6 workers scurrying about.  Preparations were underway to demonstrate and educate us about rugs, as well as to  impress and flatter us and try to make a sale.  First, a worker took us up about 5 flights of stairs to the roof for views of Fez:
 


 
     Then it was back downstairs to the central display area where we were served mint tea.  The next hour was consumed with the display of dozens of rugs of all sizes and designs.  The rugs are not made here.  They are gathered from all over Morocco and, with a few exceptions, are what we Americans would call "used."  But with rugs, age is a quality to be desired.  We were shown Arab and Berber designs of all styles and colors.  Eventually we narrowed it down to a few we were interested in.
 
     Then the negotiations began.  These consumed the next half-hour.  There were offers and counteroffers, good cop/bad cop, and "gifts" thrown in for the kids in the form of small hanging carpets.  Eventually we settled on a price, and the rugs were compressed into an incredibly small bundle for transport to Seattle -- sewn up into a package with a handle.  We were told they would be delivered back to our riad before it was time for us to depart, and they came through just as promised.
 
     Here, Ed shakes hands with the rug seller on completion of the transaction, as a worker bundles our souvenirs:
 
 
Muhammad guided us back to our riad and we said goodbye:
 

 
We had barely enough cash left for lunch, reserving 20 Dirham tip for the driver who was to take us to the airport.  Chez Thami made for good food and people watching at a budget price:
 
 
      Someone was already waiting for us at the riad with a wheelbarrow to take our luggage through the maze to the street where our driver was waiting.  Ooops!  We forgot that we would need a tip for him too!  (Lesson:  Always have at least some spare change in your pocket at the end.)  So our 20 Dirham were spent on the cart-guy and we had to give a $5 bill to our driver with apologies.  He took it well.
 
     At the small but modern Fez airport, we showed our passports to various officials no less than five separate times.  Then it was time to walk to the plane:
 
 
 
 
It was sad to leave Morocco.  Ed was in a state of mild depression at the thought of being unable to have Tagine for every meal.  Others were mildly elated at the prospect . . . .
 
     After that, it was Fez to Paris-Orly; train from Orly to Charles de Gaulle; overnight in a travelers hotel near the airport; shuttle bus the next to Terminal 1; train/walk to Terminal 3; train/walk back to Terminal 1; 2 and 1/2 hours flight to Iceland; 8 hours from Iceland to Seattle (ugh!!); through customs; 1/2 hour home courtesy of Joan and Drew; and, finally, to our own private riad . . . .
 
     We were worn out.  But we were HOME!
 
     And now we pay respects and give thanks to Desna, the goddess of travel and journeys, for blessing us and protecting us from harm:
  • No accidents
  • No injuries
  • No serious or even moderate illnesses
  • No thefts
  • Nothing lost
  • No missed/cancelled flights, lost reservations or failed travel arrangements
  • Our home safe and secure on our return.
 
 
     SHUKRAN!   SHUKRAN!  SHUKRAN!

vendredi 25 avril 2014

A Week in Fez. . . . in One Day

     Of the many highlights of our visit to Morocco, Fez just might top the list.  It's a rich and sumptuous place that has to be experienced to be believed.

      Our day started with our typical royal breakfast.  No king or queen would eat better.  Not satisfied with the buffet of homemade yogurt, meats, cheeses, breads, pastries, fruits, juices, etc?  Order whatever you want and it will be custom made for you.  (Included with the room, naturally.)

     Thus fortified, we met our guide at the door of our riad at 10 a.m.  Good thing too.  Had we turned left or right out the front door and walked more than 100 yards we would have been lost immediately.  There are 350,000 people in the old medina of Fez.  It is a maze of narrow alleys, 4-10 feet across on average and twisting and turning every 25 yards. 
 
     We were extraordinarily lucky in our guide -- Galid.  Galid has lived his whole life in Fez.  He told us we would be seeing the "real Fez" and that we should expect a very long day.  He was not exaggerating.  Galid took us everywhere -- off the beaten track, where few, if any tourists ventured.  We saw behind hidden doors   We were out from 10 a.m. until 7 p.m.  It was extraordinary in every way.  Galid was a wealth of knowledge and gave his tour in a mixture of excellent French and English. 

Lobby of our Riad Before Departing on Tour

Outside Riad on Commencement of Tour

Galid Explains Something

     We saw behind hidden doors -- into hobbit-like homes and the tiny artisan workshops where real residents of Fez work every day in rooms no larger than a small bedroom and many as small as walk-in closets.  We saw embroiders, tailors, woodworkers, metal workers and craftsmen of every kind working by hand alone or in small groups.  We saw communal ovens where residents take their bread to be baked for them.  We saw real food markets where residents buy their food -- from butchers of camel meat and goat meat, to live chickens and snails and pigeons.  We saw traders of wool, sellers of ruit, nuts, dates, mint, vegetables and other herbs.  We saw makers of cookies and confections.  Although many merchants and workers spoke only Arabic, we were able to speak French with some of them and ask questions of the rest through Galid.  We looked into the courtyard of an elementary school.  We saw palaces, former grand homes, orange blossoms, spices, mosques and minarets. 




     We saw mosaics of amazing detail.  We went inside a madrassa.  Ford bargained for, and purchased a Fez for his friend.  He bargained for and purchased a candle-holder from a merchant (and got a great deal, btw).  Asha and Le General bargained for and purchased Moroccan blouses inside the shop of a dress seller. 
 
Snails for Sale

Live Chickens for Sale (Turkeys and Pigeons Too!)

Women Sort Snails Into Different Sizes



Mint for Sale
 
 
     We went to the INCREDIBLE and famous tanning pits of Fez, which have to be seen to be believed.  Pits of lime and dyes, where leather is softened for days on end and soaked in cow urine and pigeon droppings in a process essentially unchanged in this location for 1000 years.  We were given sprigs of mint to hold to our noses to kill the smell.
 
Tanning Pits -- 1000 Years Old

Worker in the Pits

Skins on Back of Donkey Being Removed from Tanning Area

Worker in the Pit
 
 
It was sight after sight, smell after smell . . . 


In Madrassa
 
 
One of Many Minarets


Goat Head and Brains

Human Head and Brain

Camel Meat for Sale (Note the Sign)
 
 
     We saw pottery and tiles being made and mosaics being laid.  We ate cookies and coffee about 1:00 and had the most amazing feast of cooked Moroccan vegetables and cous couse and chicken and almonds and pastilla and fruit and tea at 4:00 -- gorging ourselves while we sat on cushions in what could have been the interior of a palace. 
 

After Candle Holder Purchase

Tiles Being Made by Hand
 
 
    In contrast to Marrakesh, Fez is surprisingly clean.  There are few if any motor vehicles inside the old medina -- animals are used for transportation of goods.  There is little diesel or dust and it is far quieter and less unnerving, given the far lower likelihood of being run down by a motorcycle or tuk tuk.  The "roads" are simple too narrow to allow vehicles to pass each other.
 
     But the most amazing feature of all was the friendliness of the people.  Everyone in Morocco has been friendly and welcoming, but the residents of Fez were the warmest of all.  Everywhere we went, we were greeted in French, asked where we were from, and given a warm welcome and a huge smile.  This applied not only to merchants, but to random pedestrians who had no ulterior motive and sellers of meat and other products and who knew we would not possibly buy anything and that there was no prospect of renumeration.  One butcher engaged Ed in a broken conversation about bodybuilding (consisting of nothing other than the mutual offering and recognition of the names of famous bodybuilders) and then offered his bloody hand for shaking as Ed parted to rejoin to group.
 
     In the evening we were taken high above the city for views of the city through which we had walked:
 

 
     Then, finally, it was back into the maze, through a warren of alleys until, suddenly, we rounded a bend and there we were at the door of our riad.  A tip of 150 Dirham to our guide . . . goodbyes said . . . and we flopped into bed, still stuffed from our afternoon feast.
 
     Wow!

mercredi 23 avril 2014

Here and there . . . and Finally Fez. (Two Day Catch Up.)

     Good evening readers. This report is brought to you from the Alhambra . . . a.k.a. our riad in Fez.  But I digress.  Let's start at the beginning, as this post is a two-day catch up.

     When we last left off, we were at the amazing Jardins des Skoura.  We had a wonderful dinner with a half bottle of Moroccan wine.  We came to realize that there were only four families in the entire riad . . . one Swiss, one German, one Italian, and then us.  All dined in the interior near the fire, as it was cold and windy that night.  An impeccable meal of Moroccan soup, Tagine (which Ford and Ed ate barehanded at the invitation of the waiter) and wonderful accompaniments and dessert.  All included with the room.


The next morning dawned clear, sunny and perfect and we dined on the terrace -- yet another wonderful meal:
 
 
It had snowed during the night high in the Atlas Mountains above us, but it was already warming up on the desert floor where we would be driving that day:
 
 
We rolled along for miles through canyons and gorges, through small Berber villages that offered the most amazing sights -- there are almost too many photos to choose from, but these are typical scenes -- the valley floor is green and lush but the surrounding area is harsh desert, and it is the valley where the Berbers make their homes:
 
 
 
 
 
We were told that we would need turbans for our excursion into the desert, and this made perfect sense since we had already had a taste of wind and sand.  So we stopped at a shop and bargained for four.  After 15 minutes of haggling, we had our four turbans and lessons in how to tie them:


     We continued driving through settlement after settlement.  There is a sense of semi-poverty pretty much everywhere -- at least to our eyes.  The roads are lined with people just sitting around . . . this seems to be the main activity, followed closely by crouching in the dust or standing in small groups in shady spots.  Children as young as 5 wander freely along the sides of the road, sometimes alone or in pairs and sometimes with older siblings.  Dogs and donkeys are everywhere.   And there are all manner of pedestrians walking slowly, or standing in the middle of nowhere, sometimes miles from the nearest town, presumably waiting to be picked up for a ride and leaving one to wonder how they got there in the first place.  Virtually all women and the majority of men wear traditional dress and as we got further and further into the desert, many women wore full burkas.  There is dust, diesel, grit and half-completed construction of sorts everywhere, much of it appearing haphazard and abandoned.  In town, kids ride bikes to get to and from school, often 2 to a bike, and sometimes you see entire families on a single motorbike.  Here are just a couple of shots taken from the car window as we passed through towns, the first showing girls in their school uniforms on bikes, and the second showing how the animals share the roads with the cars, trucks and motorcycles. 



     We continued to drive into the desert which looks very much like the Great Basin of the U.S.  Think "Middle of Nowhere, Nevada."  The primary feature of the desert, aside from the remarkable geology, is the overwhelming presence of plastic bags.  Millions of plastic bags litter the desert floor . . . blue, white, black, pink . . . like Christmas decorations.  They blow forever, miles from any town or village, until they get snagged on a piece of rock or a scraggly plant.  And there they stay.  They are simply everywhere:


     We were headed in the direction of the famed Erg Chebbi dunes.  At lunch we met some people from Boston who told us of their previous night in the dunes . . . a sandstorm as they described it; windy and very difficult.  We hoped we would fare better.

     Finally, late in the day, near 5:00 p.m., we arrived at the edge of Erg Chebbi.  We pulled up to a ramshackle "hotel" and met our desert guide -- Bekkar.  We later learned that Bekkar is 26 years old and has spent his entire life in the desert.  He has never visited a major city, even in Morocco.  He speaks a Berber dialect, but has been guiding in the desert for 10 years and has picked up a lot of French and English.  So we had no trouble communicating.  Bekkar told us we had 10 minutes to put a few things into our backpacks and then we would set out into the Erg Chebbi dunes with the dromedaries.  He told us we were very lucky -- the weather could not be more perfect.  And he was right.  As we set out, it was as still as could be, about 80 degrees, and the sky a perfect blue:

 
 
     Erg Chebbi is a collection of truly massive sand dunes in the middle of the desert.  They are hundreds of feet high and many square miles in area.  It is just what one thinks of when one thinks of the Sahara desert.  Without a guide, one could be lost in these dunes in an instant where it not for following tracks of the dromedaries. 
 
     The plan was to ride for about 90 minutes into the middle of the dunes, where there were several camps at a small oasis at the base of the largest dune -- more than 600 feet high.  We would camp there that night, sleeping in semi-permanent tents, and then return the following morning.
 
     It was breathtaking and we were all in awe as we set out on the backs of these dromedaries, which are massive and strong animals perfectly suited to the task.  Ed was in front with the camera, and Bekkar led us on foot:
 


 
Our Shadows in Late Afternoon
 
Another Caravan in the Distance


 



Bekkar



 
     It was awesome to ride those dromedaries into the dunes.  But after 90 minutes our inner thighs were feeling it big-time, and we were only too happy to arrive at camp:
 
Arrival at Camp
 
Camp the Following Morning
 
Bekkar encouraged us to climb the 600 foot high dune behind our camp while he made tea and prepared dinner.  We did it, and somehow we made it to the top.  It was unforgettable:
 
Averil on Massive Dune Above Camp
Ford on Massive Dune . . . Note Camp 600 Feet Below, to His Right

Asha on Dune . . . Camp is the Spec in Lower Right of Picture
Ed and Ford Atop Dune Ridge
 
    
     We found a piece of metal -- a makeshift sled -- and Ford used it to sled down the 600 foot face of the dune:
 
 
     That night, Bekkar made an incredible meal of tagine, soup and fruit.  The sky was white with stars.  We slept like rocks:
 
 
     The next morning we woke up early and climbed part-way up the big dune to watch the sun rise:
 
View from Tent on Waking

Sunrise Atop Big Dune
    
   
      Then it was 90 minutes of dromedary-riding back through the dunes.  We arrived on the edge of the dunes about 8:30 to the ramshackle "hotel."  We were given a nice breakfast, Le General had a shower, and we said goodbye to Bekkar and left him a tip of 100 Dirhams.  He was a good guide.  By 9:30 we were on the road to Fez.
 
     The ride to Fez was exceptionally long.  In distance it was about 350 miles.  But much of it was over mountain passes, slow going, along sheer cliffs and windy roads with hairpin turns, behind trucks and through town after town after town.  Ford and Asha slept.  Books were read.  Music was listened to.  We stopped for lunch and a few rest breaks.  Over time, the scenery changed.  The desert greened and became pasture for sheep and goats.  Pasture became forest.  In one section, we saw monkeys by the side of the road.  Forest turned back into pasture.  As it got greener, it was hard to believe we were in the Sahara desert that very morning.  We passed through one town -- Ifrane -- which was designed in the 1930s by the French to resemble as Swiss ski resort.  It was weird!
 
     A word about our driver, Addil (earlier I spelled it with a "b," that needs to be corrected).  We came to learn in our four days with Addil that he can barely speak French or English.  He's been faking it!  He is an excellent driver, safe and courteous and he did a good job getting us where we needed to go without our getting killed.  That was his main mission.  He was always pleasant and helpful.  But he wasn't really able to talk with us . . . we came to learn this over time because, like someone who can't read, Addil was very good at pretending and we were initially fooled into thinking he was just a man of few words.  But we began to suspect he couldn't really understand us and came to believe that his "yes" and "no" answers were largely random.  When Le General asked him how many times he had ridden a camel, and he answered (in French) "50 years," our suspicious were confirmed.
 
     In late afternoon, the radiator problem reared its head again and, as before, luck smiled on Addil as we were very near a stream.  He was able to drive the car to the stream bank and filled up the radiator with about 8 liters of stream water:
 
 
But c'mon Addil!  He has known for four days (at least) that there is a radiator problem.  And he assured us that it was "no problem" after the first incident.  But rather than fixing it (at one of the many towns we passed during our four days together), or even carrying spare water (there was nothing in the car but a couple of liters of drinking water), he just waits until the radiator became completely empty and then hopes to be near a stream?  If this had occurred (on either occasion) in the desert, it would have been a different level of problem.  It's a funny thing.  This habit of not fixing things until they're broken is something we've read about in books about Morocco culture.  Not to stereotype a nation of 30 million people . . . but a little advance planning might be a good idea.
 
     Finally, at about 7:00 p.m., after nearly 10 hours on the road, we arrived at Fez.  We made our way into the new city (very cosmopolitan!) and toward to old medina (ancient part of the city where our riad is).  Finally, our car could go no further.  Not that we wanted it too.  We were done with car riding!  The most dangerous part of our journey (the road) was over!
 
     We reached a dead end in a narrow street at a small alleyway.  Our luggage was put into a cart and wheeled though a maze of alleys. We reached a door.  The porter gave some sort of secret knock.  The door opened . . . and we entered . . . THE ALHAMBRA.  THE TAJ MAHAL.  PARADISE.  A riad that is simply incredible . . . we are speechless.  We again have two rooms, and the room of Le General and Ed has a private terrace that overlooks the rooftops of old Fez.  But the interior of the riad is the most amazing part . . .  and pictures must wait. 
 
      Maybe interested readers can see it online:  www.riadfes.com
 
      After the 10 hour drive, Le General decided that a bath and bed sounded better than dinner.  But Ed and Ford and Asha ventured out into the alleys and had a fantastic meal and an even better desert of sweets and nuts purchased from a street vendor.  So far, Fez looks pretty inviting . . . we'll know more tomorrow as we venture out for the penultimate day of our adventure in Morocco:
 
     Fez on Foot . . . .