When Abdo—or Abdul—dropped me off back at the Medina, I'd headed up to Bab Bou Jeloud to find some dinner. There are a half-dozen or so restaurants there that cater to tourists. I can't just drop into any restaurant as many of them are patronized only by men. I doubt I'd be turned away from a men-only establishment, but it would be awkward.
I had only been in Fez about six hours—not long enough to work out where to eat cheap and be in a non-male-only environment.
Josephine had mentioned that a restaurant called Kasbah had a rooftop terrace, so the the tout in front of Kasbah had only to wave me in. I climbed several levels of steep, ancient stairs to reach the top terrace.
Tourists restaurants don't run cheap anywhere, so though I was getting a screaming bargain by American standards, the go-local traveler in me balked at the $10-ish for the harira soup, tajine, and Moroccan cookies. But the food was fresh and delicious.
I sat right by the railing and watched life buzzing in the Medina. Men, women, and donkeys of all ages and sizes walked or waddled below. Some were in traditional gear while others wore jeans and T-shirts. To the right, bright vegetables adorned stalls. To the left, diners sat at alley-side cafes and watched the pedestrians from street level.
And then, the evening call to prayer rang out from dozens of mosques all at once, over the terraces, the ramparts, and the erratic maze down below.
Saturday, July 04, 2009
Thursday, July 02, 2009
Above the Medina
Josephine, the owner of the guesthouse I was staying in, brought out a map.
"We're here. I suggest you go on a walk up this street and back down this one."
She used a highlighter to mark the two main tourist streets. I say tourist streets because the Fez medina caters to tourists kind of as an afterthought, and only a tiny piece of the medina has tourist-oriented restaurants, and shops. The rest of it is a vast web of passages, shops, and twisting dead-end alleys. The medina is 1200 years old, except for the "new" part which is a mere 700 years old. Homes were parceled out over time and nothing seems to make much sense... parts of one house will be sitting on top of another house, for example.
Designated a UNESCO site, this place needs help. Some brave foreigners and Moroccans have undertaken huge restoration projects—one of those was Josephine—but there is so much more to do.
I read up a bit on restoring old homes in Fez on this site. It is an appealing prospect. But hey, I am not exactly in love with Morocco or Fez. Interesting, sure. But if I'm going to get knee-deep into a third kooky restoration project, it's got to be something I'm utterly devoted to.
The Victorian condo in J.C. was hard enough.
"I had two girls staying here recently who took a ramparts tour. They liked it a lot. It's where the driver takes you around outside of the medina and you can look at it from above."
"Perfect! I'm tired from traveling. Sitting in a car sounds like just the thing. I'll tackle the medina tomorrow."
A man named Abdo, or maybe Abdul, drove me around in his well-maintained classic Mercedes. We visited a pottery village—which was fascinating but everything there cost way more than I wanted to spend (no hard sell from my driver, but I think the host was a little offended that I didn't buy anything) —then went up to various spots above the ramparts to look down at Fez.
And finally, drove up to the Merenid Tombs for a panoramic view of Fez under the evening light.
"We're here. I suggest you go on a walk up this street and back down this one."
She used a highlighter to mark the two main tourist streets. I say tourist streets because the Fez medina caters to tourists kind of as an afterthought, and only a tiny piece of the medina has tourist-oriented restaurants, and shops. The rest of it is a vast web of passages, shops, and twisting dead-end alleys. The medina is 1200 years old, except for the "new" part which is a mere 700 years old. Homes were parceled out over time and nothing seems to make much sense... parts of one house will be sitting on top of another house, for example.
Designated a UNESCO site, this place needs help. Some brave foreigners and Moroccans have undertaken huge restoration projects—one of those was Josephine—but there is so much more to do.
I read up a bit on restoring old homes in Fez on this site. It is an appealing prospect. But hey, I am not exactly in love with Morocco or Fez. Interesting, sure. But if I'm going to get knee-deep into a third kooky restoration project, it's got to be something I'm utterly devoted to.
The Victorian condo in J.C. was hard enough."I had two girls staying here recently who took a ramparts tour. They liked it a lot. It's where the driver takes you around outside of the medina and you can look at it from above."
"Perfect! I'm tired from traveling. Sitting in a car sounds like just the thing. I'll tackle the medina tomorrow."
A man named Abdo, or maybe Abdul, drove me around in his well-maintained classic Mercedes. We visited a pottery village—which was fascinating but everything there cost way more than I wanted to spend (no hard sell from my driver, but I think the host was a little offended that I didn't buy anything) —then went up to various spots above the ramparts to look down at Fez.
And finally, drove up to the Merenid Tombs for a panoramic view of Fez under the evening light.
Check-In
Morocco has two kinds of taxis, grand and petit. The grand are the Mercedes taxis, which you can rent by yourself for a lot of money, or you can go on a shared ride in them. That's what I had just come to Fez in—a leapfrogging string of grand taxis.
I walked across a dirt lot, past a mass of people waiting on a bus, and got into a petit taxi. That's just a little sporty car, licensed for in-town jaunts.
Best thing about a petit taxi? It's got a meter.
"Bab Ain Az-ul-ton," I suggested as my destination.
The driver looked perplexed, so I tried different pronunciations.
"AzLEton. AZleton."
I was supposed to get dropped off at a gate (bab) called Ain Azleton. But it's all in pronunciation.
The driver's eyes widened and he said "Ain Az-LET-ten?"
"Nam! Oui! Bab Ain Az-LET-ten."
Phew.
We drove through the calm and orderly streets of Fez's Ville Nouvelle. So far, so good, though it was awfully hot out.
At Ain-Azleton, I took a right, thinking I was farther up the bab than I turned out to be. I wandered up a hill in the heat, carrying my backpack and demonstrating unaesthetic sweaty wet patches for the Fez shopkeepers. Kids hounded me, hoping to take me to their choice of hotels. Restaurant owners gave me directions, then reminded me to visit them at dinnertime.
When I was good and truly lost, a kid led me to Dar Al Hana, the little guesthouse I'd booked a room in.
And the owner, a charming, affable Australian woman, let me in and informed me that I was the only guest for three days. And she lived elsewhere.
That'll do then.
I walked across a dirt lot, past a mass of people waiting on a bus, and got into a petit taxi. That's just a little sporty car, licensed for in-town jaunts.
Best thing about a petit taxi? It's got a meter.
"Bab Ain Az-ul-ton," I suggested as my destination.
The driver looked perplexed, so I tried different pronunciations.
"AzLEton. AZleton."
I was supposed to get dropped off at a gate (bab) called Ain Azleton. But it's all in pronunciation.
The driver's eyes widened and he said "Ain Az-LET-ten?"
"Nam! Oui! Bab Ain Az-LET-ten."
Phew.
We drove through the calm and orderly streets of Fez's Ville Nouvelle. So far, so good, though it was awfully hot out.
At Ain-Azleton, I took a right, thinking I was farther up the bab than I turned out to be. I wandered up a hill in the heat, carrying my backpack and demonstrating unaesthetic sweaty wet patches for the Fez shopkeepers. Kids hounded me, hoping to take me to their choice of hotels. Restaurant owners gave me directions, then reminded me to visit them at dinnertime.
When I was good and truly lost, a kid led me to Dar Al Hana, the little guesthouse I'd booked a room in.
And the owner, a charming, affable Australian woman, let me in and informed me that I was the only guest for three days. And she lived elsewhere.
That'll do then.
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
The Road to Fez
"Get your bus ticket out of Chaouen the day before," warned the guidebook. "The buses originate elsewhere and are often full when they arrive at Chaouen."
But it had been late and I hadn't, and didn't want to trek out to the bus station only to find there were no seats to Fez. So walked down the hill to the shared taxi—grand taxi—rank instead.
"Ouezzane?" That's the halfway point. There would be no taxis directly to Fez.
The attendant motioned me into the last seat in a Mercedes. Grand taxis in Morocco are Mercedes sedans. They leave when full, and "full" means four people—fat or thin—crammed into the back and two in the front with the driver. You can buy two places, but not if you are the last one to arrive and five people are waiting to leave.
I was squished between a rural middle-aged woman and a young man in his early twenties. I hate not being able to shift. Last night, I had thought my feet were falling asleep and would never be the same. But they had been fine.
We wound around the Rif mountain roads, up and down, back and forth on the snake-like road. The radio played the news in Arabic, which I didn't understand, so to me it sounded something like this:
"Blah blah blah Michael Jackson blah blah blah Michael Jackson."
About 45 minutes into the one-and-a-quarter hour trip, the woman next to me moved. So we all moved in unison.
She pulled out a plastic grocery bag and started to vomit. Carsickness.
We all looked out the window. I waited for an awful smell.
No smell, but she did barf again. She closed the bag and held it tightly.
A half-hour later, the Mercedes stopped in a dusty lot in Ouezzane. We spilled out, all six of us at once. Riders in grand taxis barely let the car stop before they're scrambling out, because the ride is so uncomfortable.
I approached the attendant in the Ouezzane grand taxi lot. There's always one man in charge. You can identify him because he's the man carrying the stack of receipts and paperwork.
"Fez."
He nodded slowly.
"No Fez right now."
He thought a moment, then drew a diagram on the receipt pad. "Ouez," he wrote. Then an arrow to the word "Meknes." Last he wrote the word Fez and drew and arrow between Meknes and Fez. I'd go the long way 'round, Ouezzane to Meknes to Fez.
"Oui. Naam. OK. Whatever." I got in a taxi. Again, the last one in. We all squished.
Off we went to Meknes, overtaking trucks and speeding along the mountain lanes. We passed by Volulibis, ancient Roman ruins near the small town of Moulay Idriss.
"I'll be back," I thought. I considered asking the driver to stop and let me out, but I didn't want to risk being stuck there with my pack, unable to get a lift back to Moulay Idriss.
We descended into Meknes, where the driver motioned me across the street to a new set of taxis. This time, I was first.
"Ca va?"
"Oui, ca va. Deux places a Fez, s'il vous plais." Twenty dirhams later, I had the front seat to myself as we driver past a tremendous inlaid bab, or gate, and down the road to Fez.
I silently thanked Mademoiselle Evans and her ninth-grade French classes.
But I'm going to need to learn one or the other, French or Arabic, if I'm going to see more of this part of the world. At least to the point here Spanish stops coming out of my mouth.
But it had been late and I hadn't, and didn't want to trek out to the bus station only to find there were no seats to Fez. So walked down the hill to the shared taxi—grand taxi—rank instead.
"Ouezzane?" That's the halfway point. There would be no taxis directly to Fez.
The attendant motioned me into the last seat in a Mercedes. Grand taxis in Morocco are Mercedes sedans. They leave when full, and "full" means four people—fat or thin—crammed into the back and two in the front with the driver. You can buy two places, but not if you are the last one to arrive and five people are waiting to leave.
I was squished between a rural middle-aged woman and a young man in his early twenties. I hate not being able to shift. Last night, I had thought my feet were falling asleep and would never be the same. But they had been fine.
We wound around the Rif mountain roads, up and down, back and forth on the snake-like road. The radio played the news in Arabic, which I didn't understand, so to me it sounded something like this:
"Blah blah blah Michael Jackson blah blah blah Michael Jackson."
About 45 minutes into the one-and-a-quarter hour trip, the woman next to me moved. So we all moved in unison.
She pulled out a plastic grocery bag and started to vomit. Carsickness.
We all looked out the window. I waited for an awful smell.
No smell, but she did barf again. She closed the bag and held it tightly.
A half-hour later, the Mercedes stopped in a dusty lot in Ouezzane. We spilled out, all six of us at once. Riders in grand taxis barely let the car stop before they're scrambling out, because the ride is so uncomfortable.
I approached the attendant in the Ouezzane grand taxi lot. There's always one man in charge. You can identify him because he's the man carrying the stack of receipts and paperwork.
"Fez."
He nodded slowly.
"No Fez right now."
He thought a moment, then drew a diagram on the receipt pad. "Ouez," he wrote. Then an arrow to the word "Meknes." Last he wrote the word Fez and drew and arrow between Meknes and Fez. I'd go the long way 'round, Ouezzane to Meknes to Fez.
"Oui. Naam. OK. Whatever." I got in a taxi. Again, the last one in. We all squished.
Off we went to Meknes, overtaking trucks and speeding along the mountain lanes. We passed by Volulibis, ancient Roman ruins near the small town of Moulay Idriss.
"I'll be back," I thought. I considered asking the driver to stop and let me out, but I didn't want to risk being stuck there with my pack, unable to get a lift back to Moulay Idriss.
We descended into Meknes, where the driver motioned me across the street to a new set of taxis. This time, I was first.
"Ca va?"
"Oui, ca va. Deux places a Fez, s'il vous plais." Twenty dirhams later, I had the front seat to myself as we driver past a tremendous inlaid bab, or gate, and down the road to Fez.
I silently thanked Mademoiselle Evans and her ninth-grade French classes.
But I'm going to need to learn one or the other, French or Arabic, if I'm going to see more of this part of the world. At least to the point here Spanish stops coming out of my mouth.
Awakening
On Saturday morning, I didn't know what time it was. The difference, everyone told me, was two hours behind Spain. But it wasn't. It was only one hour. Confused, I checked my watch, my phone, and my Mac. My gadgets could not agree with each other. Chalk it up to the random implementation of Daylight Savings. Time for breakfast. A selection of wheat products and brightly colored jams, accompanied by instant coffee.
I'd forgotten about this too, like I'd forgotten about clinging-backpack-sweat. Hotel breakfasts are frequently expensive and disappointing. During MariesWorldTour.com, I used to carry my own coffee and always picked up a muffin or croissant the night before.
I thought wistfully for a minute about the spread at Hotel Flamenco, where I'd lived two summers before. Omelettes! In Cairo. But that's another time, another life, and partially responsible for my trip now. A birthday is coming up and the only thing worse than sitting at home being uninvited would be to actually be invited, to make nice with Important People who passively informed me that I was just a lowly blip in a series of blips.
I don't do blip well. Being erased put me on slow boil. For others, time heals all. For me, the longer I'm ignored, the more furious I become.
Like New Year's in Bolivia, the goal here is distraction.
After my meal of bread and bright red corn syrup gel, taken in a dark, padded room of Moroccan tchochkes, I walked back up the hill to the main square of Chaouen.
The car-free, pale-blue center was even more beautiful by morning light. I climbed the stairs of the Kasbah tower and looked out over the town and mountains in the morning light.
Stunning.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Chefchaouen
"Ou est la... um..."
I wasn't sure what to ask for. I needed to find the part of town with the cheap hotels. Two taxi drivers, seated on a wall outside their cabs, waited for me to finish.
"...Hotel Madrid? Ou est Hotel Madrid?" I made a snap decision. I'd stay at a place I'd seen in my guidebook.
"Directo." They both motioned straight ahead.
Oh.
I walked straight on, the heavy bag slowing my normal clip. A block later, I came to medina walls. I hesitated.
"Can I help you?" A young man walking by, who for whatever reason I trusted instantly and knew was not a tout, slowed down just enough to get me walking along next to him.
"Is this the way to Hotel Madrid?"
"Yes, come on. I will show you. I work at Hotel Marrakesh, right up the hill."
He walked me to the hotel, not even the one he worked at, and along the way managed to invite me to a concert.
"We have a big concert at three in the morning. We are like Spain in this way."
"I'm sorry. It's been a long day. I won't be awake at three."
He smiled and shrugged. My loss.
Hotel Madrid put me on a 4th floor walk-up. Just like home. I showered quickly in the pink bedroom, tried to figure out what the time difference was with Spain, and then headed out for food. The hotel clerk directed me up a hill, also marking up an internet cafe on the map he gave me.
Up the hill was not THE entrance to the medina, but it was one entrance to the medina. The right one for a tourist new in town. This entrance to the medina opened onto a cobblestone open space, lined with shops and restaurants. Chefchaouen (just called SHA-wen, really) is a gorgeous, atmospheric, whitewashed little town with pale blue accents. In the center was a kasbah-turned-museum, and the main square was fed by dozens of small pale blue alleys.
Beautiful.
I collapsed into a chair at the first outdoor restaurant I saw, ordered a tagine, and watched tourists and locals wander the main square of the Chaouen medina.
More photos of Chefchaouen here.
I wasn't sure what to ask for. I needed to find the part of town with the cheap hotels. Two taxi drivers, seated on a wall outside their cabs, waited for me to finish.
"...Hotel Madrid? Ou est Hotel Madrid?" I made a snap decision. I'd stay at a place I'd seen in my guidebook.
"Directo." They both motioned straight ahead.
Oh.
I walked straight on, the heavy bag slowing my normal clip. A block later, I came to medina walls. I hesitated.
"Can I help you?" A young man walking by, who for whatever reason I trusted instantly and knew was not a tout, slowed down just enough to get me walking along next to him.
"Is this the way to Hotel Madrid?"
"Yes, come on. I will show you. I work at Hotel Marrakesh, right up the hill."
He walked me to the hotel, not even the one he worked at, and along the way managed to invite me to a concert.
"We have a big concert at three in the morning. We are like Spain in this way."
"I'm sorry. It's been a long day. I won't be awake at three."
He smiled and shrugged. My loss.
Hotel Madrid put me on a 4th floor walk-up. Just like home. I showered quickly in the pink bedroom, tried to figure out what the time difference was with Spain, and then headed out for food. The hotel clerk directed me up a hill, also marking up an internet cafe on the map he gave me.
Up the hill was not THE entrance to the medina, but it was one entrance to the medina. The right one for a tourist new in town. This entrance to the medina opened onto a cobblestone open space, lined with shops and restaurants. Chefchaouen (just called SHA-wen, really) is a gorgeous, atmospheric, whitewashed little town with pale blue accents. In the center was a kasbah-turned-museum, and the main square was fed by dozens of small pale blue alleys.
Beautiful.
I collapsed into a chair at the first outdoor restaurant I saw, ordered a tagine, and watched tourists and locals wander the main square of the Chaouen medina.
More photos of Chefchaouen here.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Fun with Overland
I'm a tremendous advocate of local transport. It's how you meet normal people, non-tourist local citizenry in foreign countries. I've been singing this song for years. "Get on the bus. Get in the share taxi." But you know, I sometimes forget how utterly inconvenient local transport can be.
Yesterday, I was reminded.
I got up at five, packed up, showered, and got out of the apartment by 7 a.m. Left the keys on the kitchen table, put on the big old backpack (lighter than usual), grabbed my garbage (part of the deal with the apartment is that you have to take out the trash when you leave), pulled the door shut behind me after mentally going over each one of my possessions (phone? Laptop? Extra shoes?) and headed to the metro.
I dropped the trash off in one of Barcelona's Dalek-looking trash cans en route.
Down the stairs into the metro. Old knees aren't what they used to be once I throw on that pack.
I took the train one stop then walked a block to the airport bus. Up the stairs to the bus, pack off and onto the luggage rack, wait 35 minutes or so while the bus goes to the airport, back on goes the pack, down the stairs, into the airport, off goes the pack onto a wheeled cart.
I got to the Clickair line. Ugh, what a mess. Clickair is the budget brand of Spain's Iberia airline and they were a check-in nightmare. Worthless signage. Masses of clueless customers milling about. Took me ages to get through the "Web Check-in, Baggage Drop-off Only" line.
I'd been aiming to fly on jet4you.com when I decided to fly out of Barcelona. It was only 20 euros from Barcelona to Tangier, Morocco, when I started trying to buy a ticket. It had gone up to 60 euros a few days later, after I'd been repeatedly shut out at the credit card stage. I'd both called the airline on Skype (and butchered both French AND Spanish in a single call), and e-mailed (receiving a BS response that my card(s) must be over limit—certainly not, and I'd tried several). I finally gave up on the old Mac and went to an internet cafe. I made more progress with a PC but still my card couldn't get through.
I've had this problem before. I called my card company and they weren't even getting the ping to accept or reject the card. It's to do with how the address is laid out on the web form, and how a USA address is structured.
Anyway, I gave up once I realized the only way to get on that plane was to give my credit card number to my Moroccan subordinate and have him call, or to ask a European friend to use the site. Enough already. Getting through to jet4you.com proved harder than dealing with multiple inconveniences for a whole day.
Or so I thought at the time.
Back in Barcelona, Clickair finally got me processed and onto the plane to Malaga. That's a city on Spain's southern coast. I disembarked there and had to choose: commuter rail to bus (39 minutes), then 2-hour bus ride to Algeciras with just a 4-minute change window? Or city bus to bus station and take the 1 hour, 45 minutes direct bus?
I caught the city bus. And when I got downtown, it turned out the bus was running at 12:30, not noon as it said on the website.
Okay, noon it is. Should be there by 1:45, plenty of time to catch the 3 p.m. ferry to Ceuta. That's a Spanish enclave on the Moroccan coast. I'd catch a taxi to the border, walk across, and take share taxis to Chefchaouen. I'd be there in just a few hours.
Or not.
The bus was delayed by traffic. I got off the bus at 2:40. Yikes.
I could see the port from the bus station. I hustled down there and passed by an agent's office on the way.
"Will I make the three o'clock?"
"No way. But there is another ferry at 4:30 to Ceuta. And a 5 p.m. one from Tarifa, but it goes to Tangier."
"Are you sure?"
"Absolutely. It's not possible. It's more than ten minutes walk from here, still."
Okay. He was right.
"There's nothing sooner."
"Yes, but it is the slow ferry. It arrives after the fast ferry."
"Are you sure I won't make the 3 p.m.?"
"Sure. Take the one to Tangier. There are more transportation options from there."
I did as he suggested. A bus took me to Tarifa, where I boarded a ferry with what seemed like hundreds of Moroccan women, all making an awful lot of noise. I retreated to an upper deck full of tourists.
I was running really late now.
Through the magic of time zones, I arrived shortly after 5. I steeled myself for an onslaught of touts and taxi drivers.
It wasn't so bad. I was fleeced by a taxi driver who suggested 5 euros was the going rate for going anywhere in Tangier. I knew it wasn't but didn't have the energy to haggle. We stopped at an ATM and then he dropped me at the gare routiere—bus station.
"Sorry, the 6 p.m. bus to Chaouen is sold out."
Crap.
I went to all the bus companies. The next bus was at 8.
So I caught a bus to Tetuoan, which is an hour in the right direction.
The bus crawled over the steep, windy mountains. NOT an hour.
I stepped off the bus about five minutes after the last bus to Chaouen had left for the night.
I caught a taxi to the "grand taxi" station. That just means shared taxi.
For 30 dirhams, I was crammed into the back of a Mercedes sedan with three others. That's normal. Four in the back seat, two and a driver in the front. You can buy two seats for yourself, but I hadn't worked out yet that this was normal and desirable.
Two healthy-sized women and one skinny buy were in the back seat with me. It was cramped and awful. I thought my foot was going to fall off from being asleep for so long.
Finally, the taxi pulled up to a public square in Chaouen.
Now what?
Friday, June 26, 2009
Doesn't Look So Tasty Though
What is interesting here--besides my problems trying to type on a Moroccan keyboard--is that the sculptures in these photos are made out of chocolate.
They are all at the Museum of Chocolate that I went to in Barcelona yesterday.
Today was a long day of metro, airport bus, plane, city bus, intercity bus, walking, another bus, ferry, taxi, bus, share taxi, and finally walking again. Time for some sleep. A nice young man invited me to a 3 a.m. concert. Afraid he's on his own.
They are all at the Museum of Chocolate that I went to in Barcelona yesterday.
Today was a long day of metro, airport bus, plane, city bus, intercity bus, walking, another bus, ferry, taxi, bus, share taxi, and finally walking again. Time for some sleep. A nice young man invited me to a 3 a.m. concert. Afraid he's on his own.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Shopping at BCN
In the weird-but-true department... I was just in a Barcelona boutique and I stumbled over a Daniel Johnston "Hi, How Are You" frog T-shirt.
People who have known me a long time will remember I wore one of these frequently some 15 years or so ago. I still have it, but I'm not so into boxy T-shirts, so it sits in a bag along with my Tattoo You concert shirt, my Slacker T-shirt, and my Otis Ball T-shirt from the early 90s. Or whenever it was.
Daniel is way more popular now than he was in the early 90s, but here's the weird part.
The shirt is branded as a Kurt Cobain shirt. Cuz he was seen wearing one on a number of occasions.
That seems a little odd to me.
(I'm just trying to distract everyone from my shopping expedition here. I bought 9 shirts today. None of them "Hi, How Are You.")
