First full day in Fes

 We woke up in Fes on a day we knew would be full but did not know how. After breakfast, we headed into town, starting in the Mellah, the Jewish quarter. I should back up a bit to give some context. Morocco was not a place where Jews were persecuted the way they traditionally had been in Europe. The religious outlook, set by the king, is one of tolerance and moderation. Morocco has been conquered and reconquered enough times that there is a cross-cultural current that you can almost feel. In all likelihood, the location, kind of between the Middle East and Europe, brought all types of people through here. Jews had to live in designated areas, but they served important government functions in some of the reigning dynasties. 

There are not many Jews left now, mostly because emigration to Israel was permitted and eventually supported in mid-20th century. There are normal diplomatic relations between Morocco and Israel at present, and the king has committed to restoring a number of Jewish historical sites like cemeteries and synagogues. This has been a long way of getting to the point that our first destination of the day was the Jewish cemetery in Fes. It's very large and still in use.

After that, we entered the Medina and walked through the souks. There are lots of places you could describe as sensory overload, and then there are the souks in Fes. At least in Grand Central at rush hour, crowded and crazy as it might be, you can see your way out and the main hall is big and open. Here, it's a tangle of narrow passageways, many covered with rough wooden roofs and all crowded to the limit of available space (though tour groups are partially responsible for that) to the point where people were literally pushing each other to move in their chose direction, that seem to go on endlessly and then dead end. I can't imagine trying to navigate it myself and I'm usually pretty good at keeping myself oriented. Maybe I could have managed, but probably not and it would have been totally stressful. 

It was an endless market. Meat, fruit and vegetables, herbs and spices, bakers, snacks and sweets. More nougat than you've ever seen in your life. Shoes and sandals, faux mosaic plates, wedding clothes and whatever else you might want. One after another. Each barely distinguishable from the previous one. And no rhyme or reason to the narrow passageways and even narrower alleys where there are pieces of lumber inserted between buildings, I'm guessing to keep them from leaning onto each other. 

Eventually we got to one of our top destinations, the tannery. This is a very famous thing in Fes and it's a little hard to properly describe. The tanning is done using all natural materials in vats that contain a mixture of water, salt, limestone, and pigeon poop, which does not smell very good. The bad smell is almost as famous as the tannery itself. Men scramble along the edges of square tubs full of chemicals first to tan it and then, after it dries, dye it. Sometimes they stand hip deep in the tubs to manipulate things. It's quite something. The smell was kind of medium level subway passageway ugly, so not worst than anything we'd smelled before, though others there clearly felt differently.

I enjoyed watching Ronnie photographing all of this. She got a least one great photo and I'm guessing there will be more.

We had to go into a store with someone who had guided us through and examine a couple of things ("Camel belly is the best! Waterproof and fireproof!" He poured water on the thing but did not try to set it on fire), but it wasn't pushy.

We then had lunch at a nice traditional Moroccan restaurant. Things got a bit dicier after that though, because we were brought to a carpet showroom where we got to see a variety of the rugs they make here, followed by a very slick, smooth, gentle hard sell trying to get us to buy something. Once you hear someone say "no obligation, of course" for the 5th time, you know what's going on. We were angry because we had very specifically told both the person designing the tour and the guide that we were not buying anything and did not want to be put in exactly that kind of situation. The guide got the message and apologized, and when we visited a pottery workshop and buying opportunity (which was clear from the ATM on site) the guy who showed us around took us to all the showrooms but like the leather guy, wasn't pushy.

We also saw the entranceways to mosques and the university (oldest in the world!?) though we could only peer inside. There will be more of that tomorrow. The Moroccans love their grand gates and doorways and there's clearly a certain amount of competitiveness in their extravagance. We saw a prime example of that at the mosque in Casablanca, but it's everywhere. This is a museum entrance. The detail work is incredible.

Eventually we came out of the Medina and back to the hotel, where I wanted to do a workout, though I couldn't find the gym. Once given instructions, I found it, but I might as well have not, because it was nobody's idea of a gym. It was a large room with a tile floor that had 5 machines. That's it- a couple of mats, but they were covered by a big pile of outdoor furniture cushions. No weights- there was one of those multifunction weight machines but it was complicated and lacking instructions, so I stretched and did some pushups and went back to the room. Interesting mixed bag of a day.

Second day in Morocco- Casablanca to Rabat to Fes

The one problem with doing this kind of blog is that you're constantly weighing whether to do something or write about what you've done. Fortunately, I suppose, the hotel we're staying at now in Fez has pretty much nothing to do and it's not in an area where you can walk someplace. We have the guide and driver, but I like to go walk around in the early morning to get my bearings and see things differently than what happens when we have destinations in mind. So at least now I get to catch up. 

After Friday's touring, we ate dinner and then did our usually searching on TV in a foreign hotel for something in English aside from BBC News or CNN International. Last year in Greece there was a sports channel that had wall-to-wall coverage of snooker. On this night we found reruns of the remake of Hawaii Five-0. I hadn't watched much of the original, and the remake was about the son of the original McGarrett. It was kind of entertaining, with a wide cast of characters, all of whom seemed to be in a state of crisis, written and/or directed by someone who either has no idea how to deal with women or who think women should act just like the men- stoic and unsmiling and completely flat in tone. It was weird. We eventually went to sleep and I managed to not have nightmares about what was happening to all these poor people.

Saturday morning I took a walk along the strand, which looked typical. Restaurants, watersports rentals, surfing lessons and such. Not a ton of housing or hotels, though as we left Casablanca, we could see that many of the former industrial sites that lined the shore had been torn down and I'm guessing at least some of those sites will become something like that.

We had breakfast, which went somewhat more smoothly than the previous day, where our order took a long time to arrive and then the check was completely wrong, at which point the manager (I think) apologized and said they were comping it. Today was easier. We packed up and headed off on our trip to Fes, via Rabat. Rabat is not necessarily the most interesting place for visitors, but the king lives there and we were able to look at the palace from a respectful distance, which here means about 100 yards.

The grounds were pretty and pristine, with some great topiary action.

We then went to a nice little archaeology museum that had some cool Bronze Age and neolithic stuff. It also had examples of primitive tools used for making jewelry, which made me think about how all of the museums we've visited do not have any kind of gift shop. If we were seeing things like the jewelry in the exhibition case at an American or European museum, you could buy a replica in the shop or shoppe. It's a lost money-making opportunity, so I think I should say something to someone about it. I could say it's not in the Moroccan character, but there are plenty of people selling things everywhere else. We then visited the Mausoleum of King Mohammed V, grandfather of the current king. It's not what you'd call modest.

After that, we drove to Fes, which took a bit more than two hours by highway through some pretty mountains and some agricultural lands. I asked the guide if the trees I saw were olive trees and was rewarded with a detailed overview of the Morocco olive industry. There are apparently several types of olive trees, but I don't remember anything else after that. I will say, I gave him a signal at some point when he was telling us about Moroccan history that it was enough. He sheepishly nodded and stopped. I told him that it was all interesting and that I wanted to know it but that too much at once made it hard to remember. He's been better since, and he's incredibly knowledgeable and very sweet. Our driver is cool- he speaks English very well and he's a baseball and NBA fan.

We arrived at our hotel, which is called Palais Faraj. It's clearly built as a palace of some sort and converted into a hotel with detailed and beautiful mosaics on the walls and floors. It's a funny mix, because the room is a small suite with a comfortable bed and a nice view, but it's very dark and it was difficult to find even one available electrical outlet. I brought a travel power strip, so that was enough. The darkness? Not sure what to do with that except enjoy it. More about the hotel tomorrow.

We spent much of the evening in the bar, waiting for our food to arrive and listening to a couple of musicians. A theme we've seen throughout is a general lack of organization and follow-through, which particularly manifests itself with food service. There are lots of people working, but none of them seem to be doing much of anything. It should not take 20 minutes for an order of hummus and pita chips to arrive, and some of the hot food arrives lukewarm, presumably because it's been waiting to be picked up by someone. We'll see if this continues in subsequent destinations. We had some food and drinks and went to bed. Tomorrow we tour the market!

First day in Morocco, April 26, 2024

 I don't know what, if anything comes to mind when you think about Morocco. Some of us think about Lawrence of Arabia, which was indeed filmed here. Aside from that, I had no idea of what to expect. 

The trip here was fine aside from being long. It took us over three hours to get from our house to JFK airport, which is the kind of traffic you usually get around Thanksgiving. Not the most fun I've ever had driving, but at least the weather was OK. We dropped our car at the parking lot and shuttled over to the terminal where Royal Air Maroc flies out of. This terminal looks like international terminals anywhere in the world. Big wide open convention center-sized space with 15 or 20 different airlines spread along the length of the floor, incomprehensible signs, and many more people than need to be there. But we made it through. The flight itself was unremarkable. It left on time arrived on time. The food was decent, the seats were as comfortable as any business class international seat I've had. The food and drink service was extremely odd in that there seem to be a lot of people serving and yet from the time they started bringing dinner around it took about a half an hour until I got my food. I was able to sleep a little bit and then we landed at Morocco at about 8:15 on Friday morning.

We had decided we didn't want to try to navigate Morocco on our own, so we engaged Abercrombie and Kent, a high-end international travel service. We had used them to go to China 15 or 20 years ago and had a good experience and my parents used to use them when they travel all the time. Anyway, when we arrived, we were met by a young man who led us all the way through fast track immigration, and customs, and brought us outside. We were met by another young guy who connected us with our guide and driver, both of whom will be with us throughout. Our guide is very nice but talks a lot in a pretty discursive way. He noted that Berbers (more on them later) talk a lot, so I take that into account, but the perfect example of what it was like was that we passed an official building with the Moroccan flag flying outside. The flag looks like this. 

Ronnie asked what that flag was, as I was thinking that I really should've looked and seen what the Moroccan flag looks like. His response was first that it was the Moroccan flag, and then he went into a five minute long history of the various flags of Morocco over the years, which is not at all what we are interested in and honestly, after having been traveling for 18 hours straight, we weren't really in any condition to absorb it. As is usual, we arrived sleep deprived and unable to get into your hotel room for some number of hours. We anticipated this and scheduled massages for the interim and were lucky enough to get in our room and take a nap before we started touring.

So here's what I've learned about Morocco so far. First off, it's not all hot and dry and deserty, though some of it is I guess and eventually we'll see that part. But we flew into Casablanca, which is the main international airport and the only place that has non-stop flights to and from the US. If your impression of Casablanca is that it's dark and mysterious like in the movie, you'd probably be surprised to find that (1) Casablanca is a bustling modern city and (2) Casablanca is a beach town, located on the Atlantic coast. Even the iconic Rick's Cafe', renovated 20 years ago for the tourist trade, is across the street from the beach. 

It's a bright, open city and one thing that will be familiar from the movie is that it remains very French. It was a French protectorate until around 1950 and French seems to be the primary language. Almost every shop sign and billboard is in French and at our hotel, everyone, including the housekeeping staff, greeted us with "bon jour." The weather here is temperate, high around 70 degrees today, with occasional showers.

So a couple of other things I noticed. There are tons of McDonalds around- there are two within a 5 minute walk from the hotel. Also, I was relieved to see that there are no billboards for injury lawyers. I guess people don't get hurt as much here.

Anyway, we took a nap and then the guide picked us up and we toured a bit, visiting the Hassan II Mosque. There are a lot of things here named after Hassan II and Mohammed V, father and grandfather of the current king. This mosque is unusual a couple of ways. First, non Muslims can enter; a definite no-no in general and second, and I hope I'm translating the French properly here, it's ginormous, The inside holds 25,000 people, about 5,000 more than Madison Square Garden, and if you include the plaza outside, more like 100,000. It's pretty new but you get the sense that they brought every craftsman in the country (or in Africa) to work on it. Massive mosaics and carvings and plaster casts cover every square inch of the place. Each section is beautiful in its own right; overall it's chaotic in a good way, a riot of design. 

That was enough for the first day. We drove around to see a few other parts of the city and then returned to the hotel. One observation about driving- I had no intention of driving here, even beyond the not knowing where I was going. I kind of assumed that traffic would be insane and that cars would be speeding all over, but there are lots and lots and lots of speed cushions at every crosswalk and then along any street that looks conducive to driving fast. I know if I was driving I would be hitting these without expecting them constantly, but our driver doesn't miss any of them.

More to come, of course.