Marauding in Meknes

  Meknes, Morocco
Friday, October 24, 2008

Not feeling up for the grind and hustle that Morocco's larger cities provide, we debated heavily about heading straight from Marrakech to Fes. Looking through our guidebook, we came across a chapter on Meknes. Meknes is a smaller city that sits about an hour's train ride from Fes, and lacks the volume of tourists that roam Fes' chaotic streets, maintaining a more honest Moroccan charm and laid back atmosphere. Deciding that this was more our speed we headed for the train station and the seven hour trip.

We ran into Loubna, the young woman that we shared a train car with on the way down to Marrakech, who was returning home to Casablanca after visiting her sister. She joined us on the train, chatting non-stop in a mixture of French and English the whole four hour journey to Casablanca, telling us all about her boss (a jerk that briefly courted her), her future husband (met online, he's from Syria), her family, and her frustrations in Marrakech. Apparently Loubna was unable to get a taxi for hours on arrival, every taxi driver refusing her service saying 'we only work for Europeans'. Loubna also found the prices in Marrakech incredibly expensive, and the people fairly cold. Strangely this made us feel better about our time there, knowing that the hassle wasn't solely directed at us, as travelers, but it did make us very sad for the city itself.

Upon arriving in Casablanca, Loubna invited us to get off with her and stay with her family for a few days, saying that she had family in Fes and would take time off work to take us there and be our guide in the city. Honoured and torn we eventually had to politely refuse. After her tales of the difficulties she was having with her boss, and the state of her family, we knew that the hospitality she was offering was beyond her, and her families, means, and that to accept such a generous offer would in the end be to her detriment. Loubna gave us a small photo of herself and a kiss goodbye, leaving us feeling incredibly humbled once again by the generous spirit of the ordinary Moroccan's we've met.


We continued on our train journey to Meknes in relative silence, watching the countryside outside slowly turn from barren, hard land into a lush oasis as we neared Meknes. Arriving late in the evening to a combination of stiff joints, raining skies, and grumbling stomachs, we took a taxi to our distant hotel. The rooms smelled of mothballs, and were filled with faded and mismatched linens. Despite the dated furniture, the room was functional and about as clean as we could hope for from a budget hotel in Morocco.

Dashing to a nearby food stand, an enthusiastic restaurant tout offered us some seasoned hash brown things. He then deliberately misunderstood (and ignored) our request for sandwiches and cooked up what we think were goat kebabs. Too hungry and tired to argue, we wolfed down the spicy, filling pita sandwiches.

Meknes Square

This morning the rain had settled into a light, but persistent misting. Not to be set off, we but on the rain gear and went in search of breakfast. First we stopped by a local bakery where we discovered chocolate covered, custard filled pastries that exploded in your mouth with every bite. Our next stop was at what is best described as a 'juice bar', a small whole in the wall store that sold freshly made fruit juice and small sweets. We'd seen many of these stores all over Morocco but had never stopped in before. We sat down at the tiny bar with freshly squeezed orange juice and a slightly sweet yogurt type thing that seemed to be a common local food.

Gabrielle and the Gate

Sugared up and ready to go, we hit the town for some sight-seeing with a light, drizzly rain still falling. We headed for the main square, with two large gates facing towards it, each of them striking to the eye with their incredible detail breaking up the otherwise barren, brown wall of the old town. The square itself was lined with cafe's and shops, and had smaller decorated archways that led down to the souks (covered markets).

Streets of Meknes

We visited a museum that sat on the opposite side of the square, formerly a mansion of a 19th century aristocrat. We wandered through the rooms, filled with small displays of pottery, cloth, and jewelry, but the museum was as much for the rooms as for the displays themselves. Each room was sumptuously decorated with Islamic design, and an open, airy feel.

Gabrielle and the Sweets Seller

Back on the streets, we dodged crowds of people and cats as we dove into the markets. We past spice sellers with cones of brightly coloured spices and women sifting piles of deep red paprika onto bright blue tarps. We walked past sweet sellers with elaborate piles of decorated candies and honey-soaked pastries stacked so high that the buyers could barely reach to pay. The most shocking, to us, was the meat market, where sellers, disconcertingly, sold live chickens and rabbits by weight while others stripped carcasses, cut meat, or sat in boredom watching over cages full of chickens, boxes of rabbits, or buckets of slowly fleeing snails.

Stacks of Sweets

Slightly queasy from the sights and smells, we came out into the open market streets, full of people buying their daily goods. The open market sold the majority of the household items and food that local Moroccan's would use day to day, such as clothes, fruit and vegetables, baskets, lamps, cd's, shoes, dishes, and cleaning supplies. We wandered for hours, exploring the back streets and eventually finding our way to the musical instrument workshops, with wooden lutes and beautifully painted drums hanging from their ceilings. We were tempted to buy some, but decided that they probably wouldn't get through customs. Walking back, we past shops filled with craftsmen, mostly welders and iron workers, many working without goggles or safety equipment of any kind, as they created intricate fences and bed frames.

Sweets and Mint Tea

We finally found ourselves back in the main square, so after a brief stop at one of the sweet vendors, we sat at a cafe, with a cup of mint tea, and people watched as the drizzle continued to fall from the sky.

A late lunch took us back to the same sandwich stall as the night before, but we came in prepared and managed to get our egg and potato sandwiches without the pushy restaurant tout trying to sell us mystery meat kebabs. With the rain picking up we spent our evening in the all too rare internet cafe, tapping out emails on the funny keyboards, many of the letters sitting in unfamiliar places.

Meknes Gate

We'd heard that Meknes had an excellent night market at the main square, but the rain had reached torrential proportions so we settled for a very light dinner at a juice bar and skype calls home before calling it a night. Tomorrow we set off for Fes, fingers crossed that it goes better than Marrakech.

All our best from Morocco

Dan and Gabes