Fez from "That 70s Show". Also a Funny Hat.
Trip Start
Nov 01, 2006
1
6
15
Trip End
Nov 21, 2006
Fès,
Morocco
Tuesday, November 7, 2006
We spent a few days to take in Fès-the most famous of the imperial cities. On our first night in Fès we visited a converted riad for dinner. A "riad" is a house or palace with an interior garden. We found out that hidden behind the high walls of the medinas were resplendent palaces whose tranquility and opulence stood out in ridiculous contrast to the calamitous and pungent passageways of the medina's public façade. We were a little disappointed at how commercialized our first riad experience was, but we still enjoyed the traditional dancing and the good grub.
01 - Volubilis
We ate our fill of tagine (a stew of meat, vegetables, fruit and nuts cooked over a charcoal fire in a conical-shaped clay pot by the same name) and pastilla (a savoury-sweet pastry filled with pigeon and almonds and topped with cinnamon and sugar-mmm ... meaty dessert). Our table was in front and Mel must have had the words "SUCKER" written on her forehead because the dancers kept picking on her to participate in the slightly embarrassing entertainment. Mel had to take a belly dancing "lesson" for which she was well-suited with her huge belly. On a second go around, she was cast as the bride in a staged traditional wedding ceremony in which she was happily married to what appeared to be a 13 year old boy. Paul strategically ducked out to go to the "washroom".
The medina in Fès is massive. We spent a whole day lost inside. Besides being the hiding place for palaces, the medina is divided into sections dominated by the different traditional trades of Moroccan industry. There are the leather tanneries, blacksmiths, craftsmen, cloth merchants, spice dealers, jewelers and food sellers. These titans of Moroccan commerce sell and, in many cases, handcraft their products from their impossibly overstuffed stalls. Their target consumers weave and duck their way through the chaotic corridors that appear to meander through the medina with no apparent purpose or destination
02 - Beautiful Mosaics
. Donkeys burdened with goods are driven purposefully through the crowds with shouts of "Balek!" ("watch out" in Arabic).Just outside the medina is always the mellah, or the Jewish district, which was and is the slum of the city. In this part of town the passageways seem a little bit narrower and the stalls a little bit shabbier. We took it all in-especially the inhuman stench that comes from the tanneries (the tanneries still use the traditional method of treating the hides in vats of animal waste and other unmentionable ingredients). Before entering the tanneries, we were given sprigs of fresh mint to hide the smell. We clung to the mint and breathed in short gasps, but we still threw up a bit in our mouths.
