WEATHER: Hot and 37C
HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: The Fez Medina and lunch at a local café with a pretty cool non speaking owner – lots of kisses and handstands
BUMMER OF THE DAY: Getting the runs at a bad time – but making the toilet on time should be a highlight
BUYS OF THE DAY: Lunch at 6AUD was pretty insane for what we got
WORD OF THE DAY: Balak balak – WATCH OUT - handy word for the medina and GUT BUSTER
Ahhhhhhhhhhh what a great sleep with AIR-CON, I know I keep harping on about this, but until you are in Morocco in 40C heat to understand just how important that little box is that blows cold air, you just can’t say a word and I can talk about what an awesome invention it is.
We went to a local little café cum dodgy shop that was recommended by Issam last night. I ordered, well Susan did with her wonderful French, a cheese omelet and an OJ and she ordered a mint tea and a croissant for herself. The croissant and tea came from the shop across the road, my juice from the shop on the corner and the omelet was made by him! They must all co-op their food to get business, but good for them if it all works. The juice was awesome and the omelet was pretty much fried to the crap and 2 laughing cow cheeses thrown on top. It was delicious though and it was all eaten within 10 minutes as we had to be back at the hotel by 9am. We had no idea on the price of what we ordered but when it came time to pay, get this it cost us 2.00AUD each which included the tip!!! Isn’t that just insane!!!!!!!!! Things are so CHEAP here.
9am departure for our day tour around Fez and the exploration of the oldest Medina in Morocco. Our first stop was at the magnificent gates of the Royal Palace. Then onto one of the forts that overlooks Fez, and gave us a magnificent view over the 3 sections of the city and also a bird’s eye view of Morocco’s largest Medina. It covers a massive area, containing 10,000 streets, 350 mosques and 14,000 inhabitants still live in the twists and turns of the Medina.
Our next stop was the ceramic workshop. One of the designers walked us through the process from start to finish the process of getting a piece of pottery to the finished product. They need to soak the clay for a week before they can even use it, it them goes to the potter (the guy that sits on the wheel and re-enacts Demi Moore) to make the piece, which then goes to the kiln to get fired, then to the painters (these guys were amazing and a steady hand required) to then refiring again to the final piece. What a process, Naji Art don’t use lead in their paints, they are all from natural products. Which is good when you plan to use some of the pieces for cooking if serving food? WE also got to see the process of mosaic tile making. You just don’t appreciate what goes into making a single tile till you see how they are made. All the pottery and tiles are all hand made, and these guys spend 8 hours a day making some tiles the size of a 10c piece. Just amazing. They need to sharpen their knife / hammers 3 times a day! And I stress this is all done by hand! I decided to buy some nice pieces for pottery and I’ll just post it home, so I got a set of 4 tangines to eat from, a smaller tangine for my jewellery and 2 baby tangines for my god-daughters, which I am sure they will like.
Now starts the entry into the Medina. There were some rules that were explained to us before we entered the unknown. As people still live here, it is a working Medina, so there are donkeys, horses and carts also sharing the same alleyways as us, so be mindful and Balak balak (watch out and move to one side) was the word of the day for us. Always ask for permission before taking photos of the shop vendors, if you barter for something and they do agree to your price, you MUST buy the item, watch your bags, especially in crowded places and with small children, if some-one poses for a photo you will be required to pay for it – noting is for free and most importantly enjoy the ‘life experience’.
The Medina is truly an amazing experience. The Fez Medina has been there since the 9th century (818AD) and it is so hard to explain the sights and especially the smells associated with each section as we walked through. The fruit section was the first section and probably the busiest, as all the locals were busy buying all their groceries. There was a lot of pushing and shoving at some points, I think their tolerance for tourists is very low, but I guess they are busy and if we are dawdling away and taking pictures, I guess maybe I would get a little pushy as well. There were a lot of fruit and veggie I recognized and some that are only local to the area. Lots of olives, but that is one of the main agriculture stables of Morocco.
The fish and meat section was next and I do have to mention the flies. They weren’t everywhere, but the shop keepers had palm fronds that they were swishing around to keep the flies off their meat. They literally hang legs of lamb off hooks at the front and then they have the other meat already cut on their bench. As prissy as I am, I wouldn’t be buying my meat from there, but then where have my meals been coming from I wonder. Two things that need mentioning are the snails they sell here. The ‘snail’ guy had bags and bags of them in his shop and then 2 plastic containers of them out front for purchase. They were also climbing his shop walls and were also on the roof. Thank goodness I don’t eat snails. The other thing was the ‘preserved meat’ guy. He cooks the meat in fat and then it is also preserved in fat and then he stores them in these long plastic barrels with a glass lid. The interesting fact is that this meat can last up to 6 years in these containers and still be edible and this is with no refrigeration – needless to say no taste test here.
Walking through the Medina is like stepping back into a living museum. People are pretty much doing what their ancestors did hundreds of years ago. Men walking around with live chickens in a hessian bag and eggs in the other, donkeys carrying 3m pipes, horses with chairs and tables on their backs, shops selling live chickens while the shop keepers played cards out the front. It was amazing to feel like you had stepped back in time. Carts were the other form of transport in the small alleyways. They also carried everything and anything, I saw a TV getting transported for a lady, a cart full of melons, one of eggs, veggies, leather, silver plates, ceramics, animal skins, you name it these carts moved it around the Medina. This way of life has not changed much over the centuries.
We saw the blackhand section of the Medina where the silversmiths and blacksmiths still use traditions passed onto them by family members. Nothing is done by machine, everything is still hand made from large silver dishes, with the imprint made by a stamp the size of a 5c piece to the hammers and screwdrivers that are all still hand made from the handle to the iron blade still placed in the hot embers and banged into shape, and these guys are working in the 38C heat – they deserve a medal.
Our last stop before lunch, yes we have had a busy day, all that before lunch, was the Tannery. This is also something that has not changed over the centuries and it was an amazing photo opportunity for us. We climbed 3 flights of stairs to get to the top of the leather shop and as rounded the last set of stairs, as the smell can be a little overwhelming, we were given a sprig of mint. The view that greeted when we got to the top was awesome. It is a classical Morocco shot of guys inside large iron tubs, coating and treating the hides in preparation for the leather making process. These guys are literally knee to waist deep in the brown the barrels which are for the coloring of the leather and the barrels are filled with pigeon droppings which removes the hair from the skins and makes the skin softer. They then hang the treated leather to dry. I would say there had to be at least 100 tubs and men just going about their business in and around the tubs. What a sight! The pictures look awesome! The prices for the leather goods looked okay; we had people from our group buy some bags, foot stools and a leather jacket. I wish I could have bought something, but just don’t have the need or the room at this point in time. I did get a free leather Moroccan key ring slipper though!
Finally lunch – Khobz Darrou Joua - we were all starving. We ate in a local restaurant located in the Medina. It was an old house that they have turned into a restaurant. It was a set menu for 6AUD, and we got a choice of what we had for the main. Starters was made up of chickpea……eggplant….and an onion based dip, to put an Aussie word on it, served with bread and my main just for a change was a chicken tangine with fried potatoes. They were all so tasty, like delicious, but at the back of my mind was where the food had come from after walking through the food section hours before. Oh well Issam keeps telling us of the ‘Real Life Experience’ so I just sucked it up and tucked into my meal.
After lunch visited a carpet place that was housed in an old Caravan Serai (Foundouk). These buildings are amazing. They were hotels used by travelling men when they used to ride on camels. The downstairs area was where the camels slept and their owners slept on the levels above. So they are quite tall buildings and quite beautiful. The carpets were hung from the top of the railings and stacked throughout the whole building, even though I didn’t buy a carpet, it was a great experience to go inside one of these buildings. We did get shown the spiel from one of the carpet guys, and their carpets are amazingly beautiful, and I can understand why they are so expensive, with the work that goes into them, but firstly I don’t have a home to put a rug in and secondly I don’t know what my colour scheme is, so what shade would I buy? They did get 3 carpets from the group though – so I am sure that was a good day for them. It was here that my stomach started to feel a little upset. Hmmm should I go to the toilet now or wait 45 minutes till the hotel? I’m pretty good with that stuff and decided to just wait and we headed to the silk factory.
The silk factory was the second last stop for the day thank-god. Even though it has been a massive day, I wouldn’t take anything out for the world, but enough was just about enough. Anyway we got show the silk factory and explained to about the 3 types of thread used, cotton, silk and wool. They do something really cool and they each wrap a turban around all our heads to get a group photo, and after a few snaps, I went white and I had to go to the bathroom – NOW!!!!! Our guide Hakema saw straight away that something was wrong and we made a dash back to the carpet place to use the toilet, and all I can say was we made it in the nick of time! How bad did I feel I was using the carpet stores toilet and I didn’t even make a purchase. I had a thumping headache (which I never get headaches) and I felt like I was going to vomit, add that to the runs and I am putting it down to either something I ate at lunch or I had a touch of heat stroke? Either way, I felt just terrible and I couldn’t get back to the hotel quick enough. I took some nurofen for the headache and had a sleep for 2 hours and I felt so much better. It wasn’t from lack of drinking water, by 7pm I had consumed 3L of water and 3 soft drinks – that is how hard it is to keep up with the sweating.
I bypassed dinner tonight and decided to take it easy and pack all my stuff for our departure tomorrow to Midelt in the Atlas Mountains. I have now separated all the stuff I won’t need and this will now stay in the bus. Fingers crossed the bus doesn’t get broken into. I am now thinking that I may use the Royal National in London to store some of my stuff for the 3 months that I will be in Africa. At only 50p a day, it will only cost me like 30GBP to store it all, rather than having to take it all with me. This idea only dawned on me today – smart thinking 99!!!
So the day ended with a touch of heat-stroke. Morocco 1 – Bernie 0. The trip has only just begun, so stay tuned for further scores.
No comments:
Post a Comment