Where’s Megan?

First, some background: Many cities in Morocco have two parts: a medina and a ville nouvelle. The medina is the old city where markets, shops, and food stalls are found in a maze of winding streets or, more accurately, alleyways. These medinas are surrounded by a medieval-style wall, and outside of which is the ville nouvelle, which is a more modern-style city built by the French when they occupied Morocco.

The medina in Fes is one of the largest in Morocco, and I spent a good couple of days just wandering around and getting lost. It’s the best way to see it, and you can easily find your way back by walking until you reach a wall, gateway, or one of the many helpful (and persistent) kids offering to show you the way for a few coins.

There’s crafts, fruits, spices, meat, and supplies of all kinds in here.

This woman is giving me a weird look, but I would probably do the same if someone took a picture of me at the grocery store, picking out breakfast cereal or something.

Hidden in the middle of it all, there is a huge tannery where skins are processed and dyed for leather goods. If “scratch-and-sniff” pictures were possible on this website, I would definitely subject you to its unique aroma.

I apologize in advance if locals are offended, but I found Moroccan museums and other attractions pretty disappointing. The real experiences are in the medina and meeting people. One night in Fes, I went to the main gateway to the medina, Bab Bou Jloud, where there is a huge open area. There were people gathered around various entertainers, from musicians and storytellers, to impossible ring-the-bottle games. There was a guy with a monkey that got big laughs whenever it jumped up and bit someone. I backed away slowly from that one… The biggest crowd was gathered around a guy coaching his 2 sons to fight:

I waited around in horror, but thankfully the main entertainment was the dad making a big show of it and there was little actual fighting.

The next morning I took a cooking class to learn how to make some of the delicious Moroccan food. It was just me, the chef, and another girl, and we worked our butts off to create a huge lunch of yummy dishes.

There was a music festival that week with free concerts in the evening, so I grabbed some snacks and sat on the steps to enjoy the music. A few minutes later I was surrounded by 4 extremely cute little girls whose mom was sitting near me. Of course, we couldn’t communicate, but gestures and sharing snacks always work. I also remembered that I had some stickers in my bag for just this purpose – endearing small children. So they all got little fish stickers, and I was totally their best friend.

This girl was really shy, but then suddenly wanted me to take her picture and was completely adorable.

I post these pictures solely to use as evidence against those that believe I don’t like kids (for a few minutes, at least.)

So I left Fes and headed south to meet up with Lisa, who I met while couchsurfing. She’s a PeaceCorp volunteer working with women weavers in a small town called Boujad, and graciously allowed me to crash on her Moroccan-style couch and gave me the grand tour of Boujad. I survived her crazy attack cat, and had lunch with her friend Halim’s family, but forgot to take any photos. But Lisa and Halim are awesome, and if you ever find yourself in Boujad, I give the accomodations 5 stars! Thanks guys!

And finally, Marrakesh. Well actually, the first day I got out of town.. I met some other girls at the hostel I was staying at, and we took a day trip to a little Berber town at the foot of the High Atlas mountain range.

We hiked up (straight up, at times) to a series of waterfalls. It was quite a hike, but the breeze was cool and the water refreshing. The water was so cold, in fact, that all the restaurants would put their drinks under the falls to keep them cold.

By the way, Morocco has the best. oranges. ever. I drank at least 2 glasses of juice every day, and it’s probably safer than the water anyway!

There’s not a lot of water in Morocco, so waterfalls are quite an attraction. Plus, the scenery at the top was amazing and you could look down on the village below.

Back in Marrakesh, the main event is the night market in the big square. It’s huge, at least the area of a football field, full of food vendors of all kinds, orange juice stands, dancers, musicians, fortune tellers, henna women, and snake charmers, all aggressively vying for your attention.

I ate some snails. It was a lot like picking black snot from someone’s nose and eating it, and it didn’t taste much better. I’m sure French-prepared escargo is better, but these were dirt-cheap, and tasted accordingly.

Fun Random Fact: Morocco was the first country to officially recognize the US as an independent nation.

Here are some more pretty market pictures:

And then I finally had to say goodbye to Morocco. I definitely felt like I saw a lot in my 2 weeks, but there were still plenty of places I didn’t get to, like the beaches or desert. It’s a good excuse to come back someday… or maybe I’m just addicted to the oranges. I flew back to London for a day of running errands and enjoying simple pleasures like cold milk and clean water. And tomorrow morning I’m off to Mumbai, India, for an entirely different experience. Wish me luck!

Tags: Fes, Fez, Marrakesh, medina, Morocco, Travel

This entry was posted on Friday, June 8th, 2007 at 2:50 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.