FEZ, MOROCCO

This time I bought a first class ticket to Fez. It cost about 250 Dh (or $30) but for first class on a 7.5-hour train ride it seemed worth it. I found a seat and settled in and next thing I knew the car of 6 had 5 occupants. Soon after we started moving an English couple came in with a conductor and said they had reserved seats in that car. Everyone else just sat down wherever, but evidently they were bounced out of their original seats so if some people insist on their reserved seats then it starts a domino effect of people having to move. When I found my own real seat it was in a car with only one other person. I made out nicely on that deal until an hour later this huge Berber family climbed in among us. The family wasn’t actually huge, but the matriarch was this enormous old woman who was breathing very hard as she managed to wedge herself into the window seat across from me. Suddenly my first class seat was the least comfortable place I’ve been on a Moroccan train.

I was listening to my iPod and reading my tour guide and a novel so the time passed by quickly enough and the family got off about an hour before I arrived in Fez. The train left Marrakech at 9 a.m. and finally arrived in Fez at about 4:30 p.m. I climbed off the train and walked out of the front of the train station. There were many taxis there, but I just walked straight through and down Ave. Mohammed V toward the hotels I was considering. I didn’t even see the cheapest place on my list that was supposed to be the first I passed, but I was leaning toward finding a better place anyway. The second place along the road was my first choice called the Hotel Olympic. It seemed like a professionally run 2-3 star hotel and a single room was only $30 including breakfast. I checked in and dropped my stuff upstairs. A guy on the train told me the Medina in Fez closes down around 7 p.m. (unlike Marrakech) so there wouldn’t be much point in going that night.

I went downstairs and had a late lunch at a sidewalk café on the corner and on my way back a tour guide standing in front of my hotel who had seen me check in started asking me questions. I told him I had a friend (Abdellatif) in Fez who said he’d get me a licensed tour guide and this guy, Ali, said he knows Abdellatif and he is full of shit and people always try to scam people on trains that way. I kept telling him that my friend never asked for money or anything, he just said he’d help me find a good guide. Ali seemed shifty, even though he was in fact a licensed guide himself, so I chose to ignore him. The licensed guide issue is a big one in Fez because there are thousands of amateurs passing themselves off as guides and it got so bad the city cracked down and now any unlicensed guide will be fined if caught.

Ali actually called Abdellatif on his mobile phone for me after I gave him the number and Abi (for short) said we should meet at a bar near my hotel at 9 p.m. I found the bar right then so I wouldn’t get lost later and after a few hours I went back there to the Bar Centre to meet Abi. The doorman waived me right in as my friend had evidently provided a good description of me to him, even though I was wearing my new Djallaba over my clothes at the time.

Abi greeted me warmly and we instantly went into the back room of the bar, which is really sort of a members-only area. The front of the bar unsurprisingly contained only men and the back room did as well. I read that arranged marriages are very common in Morocco so I guess there is less need to have co-ed bars there. The music playing was very Arabic and sounded to me like it could have been written hundreds of years ago, but Abi got very nostalgic and said it was from the 1970s. They don’t make music like that anymore, he told me. He probably went to high school in the 1970s so I guess that theory holds up even in Morocco.

I had 3 small beers and he had a couple glasses of tea. At first I thought he was buying, but a while later he stood up and said he had to go, then paid his own part of the check as he left. He had me write down my name and hotel info on a piece of paper and said he would arrange for an official guide to meet me the next morning at 10 a.m. in front of the post office around the corner from my hotel. I left the bar right after I paid for my 3 small beers, they were a bit under $2 each.

The next morning I got myself ready and was out looking for the post office he mentioned, but I couldn’t find it. As I was looking an older black man approached me and said he would be honored to be my guide for the day. At first I thought he might just be some kook trying to make a buck, but then he pulled out the paper with my info on it and I knew he was the guy. He was tall, thin, and slow moving. He said he has known Abi for 30 years and Abi arranged this at the tourist office that morning.

We jumped in a cab to the Medina and he began explaining bits of city history in a slow and deliberate fashion. My first impression was this was going to be a very in-depth tour that will be about a million times better than being on my own in Marrakech. The Medina in Fez is about 3 miles from the center of the Ville Nouvelle, unlike Marrakech where they are about 1 km apart on the same street. The taxi pulled up to the back of the Medina and I paid the $2 or so as we got out. The official prices for official guides are 120 Dh for 3 hours or 150 Dh for 6 hours. I had requested the longer tour, mostly because it seems like a far better value and with a one-on-one tour guide you can just bail out anytime you want. He asked again and I said that we should plan on the long tour and I will pay him the 150 Dh even if we cut it a bit short. He started to remind me that he is an old man and gets tired easily. He was in good shape and didn’t look older than 60, but he probably was older than that.

He started explaining some things as we went through the back gate into the Medina. He first showed me a restaurant we could eat lunch in later if I wanted. On the outside there is nothing to indicate that a restaurant is inside and that became an ongoing theme for the day. Evidently, Islamic culture dictates that any and all decorations and improvements for a home or building be made on the inside. The net effect of this is that the entire Medina looks shabby, decaying and plain as you walk through the winding alleys, but when you open a door you might see amazing furniture and decorations, or you might see a modest room with only a few rugs and pillows. The restaurant was empty but beautiful inside and a waitress showed me a menu in case I might want to return later. They were all set meals consisting of several courses all for around 140 Dh ($17). I had read that a dining experience in a place like that should not be missed, but that seemed pretty steep to me for lunch with an old guy. I didn’t even ask, but I am sure that if I pay full price then the guide gets to eat free and that is probably about 90% of their business.

We walked on toward the tanneries around the corner from the restaurant. This was actually my most anticipated stop since I had never seen one before and they look so odd and colorful in the photos I have seen. Once again, there was no sign out front, just a plain door and some stairs leading up to a leather showroom. The smell was already unbelievable (I had read about that part too) and upon being greeted by the salesman he hands the tourist a small bunch of mint leaves to hold up to your nose as often as needed to help mask the smell. It’s not chemical, but rather the smell of the bizarre ingredients they use to first bleach all the leather white, then dye it whatever color after that. The bleach part consists largely of pigeon excrement and other ingredients are just about as appetizing.

After walking through the showroom you are lead out to a terrace overlooking the tannery itself. I noticed there were several other shops surrounding the tannery, each with its own viewing terrace and showroom. I could never have found this place on my own. It seems the city is designed in a way that you absolutely need a guide or you wander around aimlessly through a slumy area and ask yourself, “Is this it?” (just as I did in Marrakech). After watching the leather workers for a while and occasionally holding the mint leaves up to my nose I decided to find my guide and move on. The man who gave me the brief tour insisted I look around the shop first. I told him that I was on a long backpacking trip and really didn’t have space for anything anyway and he of course reminded me they have some small items. The smallest popular item seemed to be a cigarette pack holder, but I had no use for that or anything else they had. He kept mentioning their leather jackets, but I was not interested. I found my guide and we left.

We walked down an alley and around a corner and he began telling me we were going to visit the “Most honest people in Fez” and that would have been great I suppose, but he used that exact expression about ten more times before the tour was done. Even though I specifically mentioned at the beginning that I wasn’t interested in or able to buy anything we went to one craft shop after another. In between we would stop at a mosque and look in the open door, but since non-Muslims aren’t allowed in, the door was as far as I would get. The mosques are also very plain on the outside and also sandwiched into the surrounding buildings so much that you really don’t even notice them as you walk by except for the signature keyhole doorway.

The rest of the tour consisted of walking 50 steps around a couple corners of the labyrinth that is the market area and without any announcement we would enter an unmarked door and he began saying “These are the most honest people in Fez” and before I knew it he would be sitting down on a padded chair drinking a complementary bottle of water or mint tea or sometimes both while I would be introduced to the available salesman and worked over like an amateur boxer. They would always begin by announcing how thrilled and honored they were that I would just visit their shop, then I would look around a bit while the salesman described whatever it is they sold. I would often be offered complementary mint tea myself and they insisted it was just part of their hospitality, but obviously this tea not only keeps you there a bit, but makes you feel like you owe them something. I would finally convince them that I wasn’t interested in their brass plates or blankets or whatever it was and signal my guide who would then slowly rise and lead me out the door 50 steps and the process would begin again in another showroom.

One reason why this is a tricky call is that I am touring an ancient city which happens to mostly be a marketplace. In other words, it’s like touring a mall but insisting you don’t want anything no matter what. Most of the sales people would realize pretty quickly that I wasn’t going to buy anything, but the first big carpet shop I went into was a bit different. My Lonely Planet guidebook had a special section on carpet shops in the book and described the ritual. The very first line was “No matter how averse you are to the idea, at some point during your trip to Morocco you will find yourself in a carpet shop.” I had to laugh because the book was right and it would be impossible to be less interested in buying a carpet than I was. The next thing the book said was ‘you’d be greeted by a friendly language expert named Mohammed, or Hassan’ and sure enough my guy was named Mohammed (but to be fair about 1/3 of the men in the country have that name). I started laughing and told Mohammed about the book and he had me read the entire page to him and the staff who had gathered there. I read it and he got quite offended, even though the book was exactly right about the next things that would happen as well.

Mohammed then kept trying to get me interested in a carpet and when I told him I didn’t even have a home he suggested I should buy a few then sell them for 4 times as much back in the States and pay for my trip that way. He was insulted that I chuckled at that suggestion. Then he told me that I am not a real tourist if I am not interested in buying anything and I shouldn’t be traveling at all. I was laughing pretty hard by that point and finally convinced my guide to put down his tea and leave. The mint tea there was excellent, by the way. Most other salespeople didn’t take it so personally that I wasn’t interested, but I was growing frustrated with my guide. Between stops he kept saying “Thank you for helping me feed my family,” which first I thought was because he was beside himself with joy over the fact that I hired him for the day, but I later started to think that was his way of prodding me to actually buy something so he would get his 20% commission.

We came to an outdoor group of shops and I saw an herb shop that interested me. The guy there had these various scented rocks that smelled great and I believe are some of the raw ingredients in perfumes and colognes. After some bargaining I bought a bag of 4 of them for about $9 and just as we were walking away the guy’s assistant handed something to my guide that I am pretty sure was about $2. That is a huge problem with that whole situation. There is no way you can get a really good deal on anything with a guide because there is an automatic 20% commission right off the top.

I had originally asked for the six-hour tour even though he said it could be done in three. The difference in price was so small I figured I would give the guy the 6-hour price even if it was only 4 or 5 hours. After about 2 hours he started reminding me he was old and was getting tired even though he was sitting down the majority of the time. After two and a half hours he said he was exhausted and would show me one last place and then show me the long road that leads out. He walked slowly from the very beginning, so it was hard to judge, however I am positive that if I was actually buying things he would’ve been able to run from store to store all day. About ten minutes short of three hours he walked up to a stand selling weird meat and asked to be paid and also asked that I be generous. I told him it wasn’t even three hours yet, but I would give him the flat, official 3-hour fee of 120 Dh (about $14) and that was it. He took 50 Dh of that and bought 4 lamb’s brains from the weird meat guy and then asked for cab fare home. If he had done a longer tour I would have paid for the cab for both of us, but he was stranding me! I grudgingly gave him another 15 Dh and said goodbye.

I slowly walked up the long, narrow road that leads to the front gate, then I walked all the way back to my hotel, which was about 2 miles away and is really like walking along a busy highway since there are no shops or anything along that road. I should have taken a cab, but I didn’t see an available one until I was half way and then it seemed silly.

To sum all of this up, the Medinas in Marrakech and Fez are probably the most popular tourist attractions in the country, aside from the Medina in Tangier on the northern tip. Inside each medina is a famous marketplace where the locals buy and sell everything they need to live and much of it is of interest to tourists. If you go on your own you will get harassed by people calling at you almost every second you walk down the street. If you seem even slightly interested in anything for sale you’ll get even more attention, although they are 99% nice about it. Alone, you won’t be able to see inside many places, but there is the potential of getting a decent deal on something, although I still think just about everybody ends up paying a higher price than they need to. The architecture is crowded and dumpy on the outside for the most part so just staying on the outside of things seems very underwhelming.

On the other hand, with an official guide you get to see everything and many of the shops were extraordinary on the inside, in a traditional way. The other half of the equation is that you are constantly reminded that you are, in fact, touring a MARKET-place and the whole point in it being there is they sell stuff. The vast majority of the shops are simply locals selling everyday stuff to other locals, but the fancy and interesting places are definitely there to sell to tourists so there really is no such thing as a tour without the sales part.

If I were to recommend what to do for someone planning on going I would recommend Fez OR Marrakech rather than both. I would pick Fez mainly because it’s closer to Spain. Marrakech has an easy walk from the medina to the new city, but the taxis are cheap so that isn’t a big deal. The things that set Marrakech apart are the evening festivities in the huge square and the food stalls. I personally found the food thing to be aggravating and mediocre and the “performers” to be annoying and disappointing.

When back at my hotel I was reflecting on the day while I had a few hours before I was supposed to be back in the Medina to meet my friend Abi for dinner at his place. It was Abi who had arranged for this particular guide so I thought seriously about not going that night. It wasn’t that I was upset with him, it was that I was pretty disappointed with the tour and I figured that whining about it all evening would ruin the night for both of us. The time to leave got close and I went back and forth, but then remembered the saying that says something like ‘The only regrets I have in life are the times I said no.’ In other words, if I just got my own dinner at some random restaurant or hung out in my hotel room I might have a decent night, but there is no telling the surprises in store if I went to the Medina.

I went downstairs and got in a cab that took me to a movie theater in the Medina that Abi told me he’d meet me in front of. I was 2 minutes early and Abi showed up right on time and he started leading me to his place in the heart of the maze of pedestrian streets. I had no idea where we were going, but suddenly he opened a door and said we were going to visit his brother-in-law. We went inside a basic house that seemed more like a workshop on the inside and there were his brother-in-law and another guy with a large plate with Marijuana on it. The other guy was sifting the stuff he liked from the stuff he didn’t like and the brother-in-law took that and then chopped it into tiny bits, then did the same with some tobacco. I had heard that Morocco was a marijuana haven, but I was still surprised that I was suddenly standing in front of two guys processing the stuff. It got even weirder when Abi left to go to the store to buy some ground camel meat and left me there with these guys. I speak no Arabic and only about 10 words of French and those languages are all these guys spoke. The other guy communicated to me that he was shocked that a tourist would know so little French, but I read that is a common thought for Moroccans because they somehow think French is the international language in the way that English really is. All French children take English in school these days so even THEY speak English, but the Moroccans are unaware of this.

Abi returned and we walked a few more blocks to his place. It was run down on the outside just like all the rest and not much better inside. Evidently it’s a family house with an open courtyard in the center and the rooms off to the sides are used by different family members. Abi said he actually lives in another place, but he has sort of a bachelor pad set up there since his mother lives with him in his other place. He brought over some olives and then turned on the TV. He was peeling tomatoes on a cutting board there in the living room for a while, then started forming the meatballs while we chatted. Next he got a large gas canister and lit it like a gas grill and then placed a ceramic dish with the food in it on top, right there next to the coffee table. I brought a bottle of wine that we shared.

About thirty minutes later dinner was served and by that time his brother-in-law had finished what he was doing and had joined us. They don’t use utensils at all. They take these disk-shaped loaves of fresh bread and tear them into small pieces that are used to sop up some sauce and grab a meatball. It was fun and easy and the food was very good. I would never have guessed that the meat was something exotic. There are no camels in that part of Africa by the way, but I guess they eat the meat there anyway. Not long after dinner I thanked him and he walked me back out to the movie theater and hailed me a cab. The cab already had a passenger, but as long as one is on the same route as the other they take new fares as well and I was fine with that.