30.06.18
Two days to go in Morocco! 🙁
Might be only two days to go but gee whizz we’ve decided to really pack it all in for our second last day. Our day started at 10am when our guide Mohammed arrived to take us on a tour of Fes. He had pre-arranged for a driver to take us around the outside of the Medina for an hour or so to show us some of the other sites of the city and then we were to head into the Medina for a great look around the souks and artisanal workshops.
Fes was first founded in the 9th Century, with most of the current Medina being built in the middle ages. It is pretty damn big and to show us exactly how big, Mohammed started our tour by taking us to his “outdoor” mosque high up on a hill outside of the Medina to give us a birds eye view. The city is housed within the bowl of two fairly large hills which form the start of the Rif Mountains. It was founded to be exactly half way between the Rif tribes and the Atlas tribes by Moulay Idris II and to be one of the key commercial centres on the spice + gold routes from Africa.
I didn’t know but within the Islamic faith it is required that twice a year they pray in an outdoor mosque.. basically, a big paddock that is surrounded by low walls. Our driver drove us within the walls of the mosque so that we could see the city. The end of Ramadan is one of the days when they use this mosque and I can’t recall the other key date that they need to use it but they all bring their blankets and have a festival type thing within the mosque twice a year.
The view from the mosque really reminded me of the view from the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem looking over the old city. I guess both cities are ancient, walled and they are both in fairly arid areas so I shouldn’t have been too surprised to discover that they look similar from a distance. One of the biggest differences when looking from afar is the walls and ramparts of the Medina here in Fes—the walls are in much better condition (and are clearly visible) than the ones in Jerusalem.. Apparently this is because they are constantly being repaired.. I guess like the Sydney Harbour Bridge, they no sooner get to the end of fixing the walls and then they need to start all over again!
We left the hillside and started down towards one quarter of the old town- the Jewish quarter via the Royal palace. Every major city in Morocco has a palace and apparently this one is pretty spectacular (although closed to the public). Only way to know whether the king is in residence is to see how many armoured guards are surrounding the palace—not in, and only a few ceremonial, when he is in apparently they are many guards surrounding the palace and the blocks around the palace!
From the palace we walked around the corner and into the Jewish Quarter. Until the 50s many Jewish people lived peaceably in Fes. Once the nation state of Israel was founded in the 50s, many of the families moved to Israel to join the land of Zion. There are still a few families remaining and they live in harmony with the Islamic Moroccan peoples. The Jewish quarter reminded both S and I of New Orleans (we actually commented on it at the same time!). The buildings are very similar—must be the French/ Spanish influence in the 17th/ 18th C. Quite different to any other buildings we’ve seen anywhere else in Morocco- this quarter has the windows, the balconies, the wrought iron decoration, the scroll work in the brick carvings as opposed to rendered walls with almost no windows and a large door frame.
From the Jewish Quarter our driver took us around the edge of the Medina to check out the government run Pottery school in Fes. Mohammed told us that over 90% of the people in Fes are artisans and it is famed for its artisanal schools. When you do a tour of Fes it is mandated by the government that all tourists attend some of the artisanal schools so we couldn’t quite get away from the shops (we asked to see the pottery school and the tannery)!!! Fes is most famous for the blue pottery + so we stopped off to see the pottery being produced. I was fortunate enough to be given a go on the potters wheel (still no good at it M!)—it is a manually driven wheel with the potter kicking another wheel below the pottery wheel to get, similar to how you would spin wool on a spinning wheel. The guys making pots today were absolutely cranking them out.. While we watched one guy made a lid for a tajine, a candlestick, a plate and a bowl—all in the space of less than 5mins! Impressive! Our guide also showed us how they fire and glaze the pots. Interesting fact, Fes pottery is actually purple coloured before it is fired! The firing makes the cobalt go from purple to blue! The pots that really impressed me the most were those that were silver inlaid… GORGEOUS!
Within the pottery school is also the school for the creation of mosaics and here both S and I were even more impressed with the quality of the products being produced. Everything is made by hand—there is one group who make the tiles, the next group chip the tiles into the correct shapes, then finally someone puts the chips together upside down before concrete is poured over the upside down shape to create the table top/ fountain or whatever they are making. I loved the tables and would have dearly loved to take one home but with the smallest starting at 1000E I thought maybe not!
Last stop was the shop (of course) and we would have really loved to buy a silver inlaid plate or a table or something but all of the stuff was just too expensive… I couldn’t even justify something small for my wall o tack.
After shopping our driver left us and we started our tour of the Medina! Again, we were really struck by how clean the streets of Fes are and how much easier it is to get around than in Marrakech—we’ve put that down to no motor bikes in the alleys. I am glad we had a guide because it would have been pretty difficult to see everything we saw today in one day but it isn’t as bad as the guide books make out.. At least we didn’t get hassled every step of the way (helps to have a local shoo them away)!
The Medina is really just one big shopping mall.. you name it you can buy it here (excepting big items like cars or buses or something) but anything that can fit on a donkey’s back is for sale in this huge souk. The souk surrounds the big mosque built by Ismail when he founded the city and the different artisanal groups have areas surrounding the mosque. We went through the souk that Bunnings would be envious of, the wedding planning souk (yep one stop shop for everything wedding based), the food souk (of course) and ended up in the carpet weaving souk… hmmm.. As I said earlier it is mandated that all tourists go to see some of the artisans on each tour and Mohammed took us to see the weavers (we’d been pretty clear that we wouldn’t buy one)… well of course that didn’t happen! The guide of the weavers turned out to be a lovely man who was more than happy to explain all about all the different rug types and in particular was willing to tell me about the rug I have at home in my lounge room that I’ve wanted to know more about its origin. (Apparently it is a Jewish rug and at least a hundred years old—fine workmanship was the comment from the guide—although not sure how he can tell by looking at a photo….All of the staff actually commented on and yabbered away to themselves—they all wanted a look so I guess it was interesting for them). It also meant that they knew that I sort of knew what I was talking about and so they didn’t stuff around showing me the cheap ones but went straight for the jugular and showed me their oldest rugs that have been sold to the souk….. My banker did the bargaining and organised for the shipping of my newest addition to the collection, a blue Jewish rug. I’ve got no idea where it is going to fit in our super small house in Melbourne but I guess I’m going to have to find a spot!
Our guide then walked us down to see the tanneries. What a setup! The tanneries have operated in the same way for over a thousand years. Fifty or so concrete and tile vats are scattered over the ground in one section of the Medina, filled with different dyes. The leathers are first soaked in the white vats (an awesome mixture of Lime, Ash, Water and Pidgeon poop) for a set period of time to bleach the hide of its natural colour. The hides are then dried before being soaked in the coloured vats to create the different coloured leathers. The coloured dyes are made from pulverised rock, water and some other special ingredients. Once the leather has soaked for a number of days (and taken on the correct hue) it is then pulled out, dried off and turned into a handbag, jacket or pair of shoes.
The tanneries definitely have a distinct odour but fortunately our guide had given us a big sprig of mint on arrival so we had something to sniff to keep the smell at bay. Really impressive to see how leather is dyed and particularly that the leather is dyed in the traditional way (out in the broiling sun, with guys using their legs to really work the soaking leather).
Of course, viewing the tannery meant that we had the obligatory “walk through the leather shop” and it was during this walk that it was time for S to buy himself a souvenir to take home. A gorgeous black suede goat’s skin jacket.. Very nice and will be super useful when he gets back off the plane in Melbourne! 🙂
With our bank balances now precariously low we told our guide “no more artisans” and he agreed to take us home. Our last stop of the day was back up above the city (although this time on the other side of the city) for one last glimpse over the Medina before our guide dropped us back at our digs for the evening.
We both hit the sack for 30mins and then got our skates on to head to our hammam session at the public/ private hammam. It was certainly an experience! I had the public hammam + S had the private. On arrival I was whisked into the changing area to shuck off my clothes and store them in the storage locker. The lady provided me with some flip flops and took me in to see my hammam lady for the evening. Unlike the last hammam it did not start with “relaxing” in the sauna. In fact, I wouldn’t use the word relaxing at all when describing this hammam experience. For starters, the public bathhouse was packed. Mainly Mum’s with their small children so there was plenty of background noise: constant chatter, the occasional baby crying, kid running around, kids splashing each other and the continual noise of running and splashing water as people scrubbed themselves down.
For me, it started with the hammam lady patting the big marble slab and gesturing for me to lie down on my back. She then soaked me down using small ladles of warm water and then applied the black soap to my skin. At this point I got up off the slab and started to walk into the sauna (as every other session I had, had after black soaping I had “relaxed” for a period of time with the steam). Not at this occasion! I was pushed back down on the marble slab for my scrub down with the hammam mit. Ok I thought a real one is clearly a bit different. After the scrub my lady walked away so I again got up thinking “now I go to the steam room” as I started to head to the steam room, my hammam lady came back and lead me not into the steam room but out into the washing room! She then washed me down (including my hair) and then just left me! So I thought to myself, ok, hammam must be over, now its time for the steam room. So no mud mask for my face or body as I headed into the steam room. Thinking back on it now, I think I was supposed to wait for the lady to come back to mud pack me but because I was feeling a bit self conscious about not knowing what to do (and getting sort of scolded every time I’d go to the wrong place) I hurried away. Any who, the sauna/ steam room was nice and empty and not raging hot so I did get some relaxing time. I was however quite conscious of time (although in hindsight I shouldn’t have been). From the hammam both S and I were having a massage and of course I didn’t want to be late for my massage. No one had told us what time the massage was, “it is after your hammam” is all we had been told, and me not knowing how long it should take was a bit worried. So I probably “relaxed” for less time than I should have.
Finally I decided to rinse myself off and go find my towel so that I could dry off and get ready for my massage. Rinsing off was no issue because of the big showers on entry but finding my towel proved to be interesting. I came out of the entry way dripping wet (because my towel was int eh locker—I should have taken it into the entry way with me) and practically naked (you only wear undies in the hammam) and walked over to the locker area to get my towel.
Immediately one of other hammam ladies started jabbering away in a mixture of French + Arabic to the locker lady (and my hammam lady) as obviously they hadn’t looked after me properly. I was supposed to be wearing a bath robe because I was going for a massage straight after. She bustled around quite stressed that I was dripping wet in the drying room and mother hen-ed me until I was wrapped up in a bathrobe and had my clothing returned to me. She then made one of the cleaning staff take me upstairs to the massage area. All in all, I think she was appalled that no-one had shown me properly how to organise myself for a hammam. Personally, it didn’t bother me too much, although I hope I didn’t create a slip hazard with all the water I was dripping on the floor!
Up in the massage area and it had only been 30mins since I arrived! So I knew that I was going to be finished well before S! My massage lady came out (her name was Bushara) and she took me in to have my thirty min “relaxing” massage. Finally, I got to have a relax! Massage felt fairly pedestrian—similar to the type of massage any old person would give you, she didn’t feel overly well trained, but having some argan oil rubbed into your skin after your skin has just been polished feels pretty awesome so I wasn’t complaining.
25mins of waiting later and S had also finished his massage + we both headed out to get some dinner. On exit of the hammam, we did, however, re-book for our final morning in Fes… I’m getting in as many hammams as possible before we leave! Public this time for S (so he can test out the real experience) and private for me.
We returned to Cinema Café and ordered pizza and Nutella and banana milkshakes…. Heavenly! The pizza really hit the spot and the milkshakes were amazing!!! A massive day in Fes (certainly an expensive one) and now only 1 day left in Morocco……