WEATHER: Hot and 37C
HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Getting our tour guide back
BUMMER OF THE DAY: It is H-O-T, H-O-T, H-O-T
BUYS OF THE DAY: Camel burger – Intrepids shout
WORD OF THE DAY: Beslema – Goodbye in Moroccan Arabic
Considering just how hot it was in our room last night, thanks to an old Darwin trick I used to do as a kid when we didn’t have air-con was wet a towel and lay it on my upper body to keep me cool. Back then at least we had a ceiling fan as well, but the wet towel last night did its trick and I slept pretty well. We had half a day in Meknes, before we headed to Fez. My roomie Susan headed out a little earlier than me at 8am, so I got some room time, shower, wrote my blog to get ready for internet load-age and just cruised till 9am where I was meeting Tom and Leslie to explore the city.
As you would expect these days, internet access seems accessible via café’s, it’s the Wi-Fi that I will have trouble with, which I need to upload my blogs from my computer. They just aren’t that far advanced yet. So I will continue to write my blog as a word doc, but you just may find I will upload a few days at a time, when I finally do get Wi-Fi, as it will be internment on this trip. I guess it’s not a bad thing and won’t kill me right?
Today is the first day of summer. The summer solstice has begun. Well I could have told you that and I rekon it started 2 days ago if you ask me! After breakfast, Tom and I caught a petit taxi to the Granaries of Moulay Ismail and ran into Amy and Georgie, so we stuck together for the rest of our time in Meknes. The Granaries are massive walls where the royal granary was built. Barrel vaults of the mighty vessel divided into 23 storage chambers, where the grain was stored from the Imperial City. They were massive and petty impressive. Adjoining the Granaries was the stables of the Imperial Palace which in its hey day had 5,000 horses!!! Imagine that 5,000!!!!!!
From there we walked around 25 minutes (part in the shade thank-goodness) to the Mausoleum of Moulay Ismail. Moulay Ismaïl Ibn Sharif who reigned 1672–1727 was the second ruler of the Moroccan Alaouite dynasty. Like others of the dynasty, Ismaïl claimed to be a descendant of Muhammad through his roots to Hassan ibn Ali
We then walked another 20 minutes to get to Place el Hedim where we were to meet the group for lunch and our CAMEL BURGER. We walked through the Medina for about 10 minutes to get to our Camel Burger restaurant, which was a little room with a table to fit approx. 8 people at a squeeze and long benches around the table. Welcome to Camel Burger land.
It was at this point that 2 guys approached Issam, a few heated words were exchanged, and then he walked off with the men. We all interpreted what we saw little differently, but to me it didn’t look good, and put it down to an altercation with which Camel Bugerman we went to? So we all sat patiently waiting for our fearless leader to return and our burgers to be served. With no breeze and no fan, it was a tad warm in the little room while we were waiting. When the grill guy next door started cooking there was so much smoke coming from his fire, we thought we were going to suffocate. It was thick black smoke and it gave us an insight into what it would be like to be in a fire, no joke, everyone except Amy and I stayed in our little sauna, it was that thick **cough cough** and watery eyes.
Out came the burgers, and I think I expected a white meat, but the patties looked just like beef, and they were flavored with herbs and spices, just as you would expect any meat patty. Served on a fresh roll with tomato and cooked onion, they were surprisingly delicious and would happily eat one again. Mmmmmmmm camel………………. Who would have thought.
At this point there is still Issam, when then the Burger guy got a call to get us out of the Medina to meet Issam back at the square. So we walked the 15 minutes back and waited another 30 minutes and still no Issam. He turned up another 15 minutes later, and he had been taken to the police station!!! As mentioned in a previous blog, Issam is not allowed to guide in Meknes at all. That is why we did the self-tour ourselves and he just met us for lunch, because he is not allowed to take us around. But the police here in Meknes are renowned for being a little corrupt, and they know that we meet at the square and they just waited for Issam to arrive and swooped in on him. It is the 5th time that they have done it, and they take him away and then charge him. He can avoid the charge if he pays a little money, but he refuses to do it, as he has firstly done nothing wrong and secondly will not pay for bribes and contribute to a corrupt system. He is quite adamant on this and when he came back and explained it all to us, out of the five times he has been pulled up, he has paid ZERO!!!! Onya Issam!!!!!
We were transferred back to the hotel in 2 minivans to collect our bags, and hit the road for Fez with a few stops on the way. One of them was the Roman Ruins of Volubilis 2 hours’ drive away. We were told to have hats, scarves and plenty of water as the ruins are in the middle of nowhere and there was no shade for the hour that we would be at the ruins. I cannot stress just how hot it is today. When we left Meknes the temperature was 37C, so I know it was at least that at Volubilis. The ancient city that stood here. The Romans evacuated most of Morocco at the end of the 3rd century AD, but unlike some other Roman cities, Volubilis was not abandoned. However, it appears to have been destroyed by an earthquake in the late fourth century AD. It was reoccupied in the sixth century, when a small group of tombstones written in Latin shows the existence of a community that still dated its foundation by the year of the Roman province. We were out in the ruins for 90 minutes and by the end of the tour we were standing in each other’s shadows to try and keep out of the sun! In saying all that, they were certainly an impressive ruin and definitely worth seeing, the condition of the mosaics, which are 2,000 years old was super impressive – the upside – still working on that tan!
A further 2 hours and a photo stop at the Sidi Chahed Dam near Nzalat Beni Amar, got us into the city of Fez. We are going to be spending 2 nights here, so it will be nice to not have to pack again so soon. We currently are travelling in 2 minivans, but come Thursday when we leave, we will all be in one bus and I will be able to leave a bag on the bus for the duration of the trip. I really don’t need to be lugging thermals, beanies and dresses around to each hotel. I just hope the bus won’t get broken into and all my stuff stolen, but we won’t put a jinx on that okay!?
Our hotel in Fez has AIR-CONDITIONING!!! I would be happy to stay in a one star hotel as long as it had a bed, toilet and AIR-CONDIIONING!!!! You just need somewhere to escape the heat and our room will do just that. We had time to pop some washing in at the Laundromat as well, we know how I feel about machine washed clothes, which is going to have to happen a lot more on this trip, as you just get so sweaty is hard to re-wear anything without at least rinsing yourself. We are all drinking around 3L a day of water and not many of us are having to go to the toilet; we are just sweating it all out and trying hard to keep up with it, as we don’t want to de-hydrate.
We splurged on dinner tonight and Issam took us to this really nice restaurant that is renowned for a Fez specialty dish called Pastillia which is chicken, onion, herbs and spices wrapped in a pastry and then sprinkled with icing sugar. Sounds weird right. I was a bit unsure whether to get it or not, so Lesley and I decided to go halves in the dish, so I ordered a starter of Pil pil which was basically loads of garlic and shrimps served in a tangine dish. Issam told me to hold off on the seafood till Essaouira, which is a seaside town, but I just couldn’t pass on the garlic and ordered it anyway. It was DELICIOUS and it was loaded with garlic, sorry Susan, you will need to out up with that smell as well now! Then out came the Pastillia and I have to tell you this was also delicious. It was a savory and a sweet dish all rolled into one. I am glad that I only had half as it got a bit too sweet at end but it was really good all the same. The total cost for this fancy dinner was 15AUD – see I told you that we had lashed out!!! This also included tip and a drink!
Walking back to the hotel there was talk of going for a few drinks and a shisha. I decided to pass, I was dead tired, besides being another massive day, the heat I think is starting to take its toll and I just need to rest up.
Fez has a great feel to the place. It seems cleaner, more modern, well where we are staying anyway, as the massive city is broken up into 3 sections. We have another massive day planned tomorrow with most of it walking around the Medina which is the oldest and largest one in Morocco and still has 14,000 people living there. Let’s hope the weather won’t be as hot as the last 2 days, but it shouldn’t matter too much being in the Medina I guess where it will be partly shaded.
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