Fez Fantasia*

Fez. A magical place. Full of beauty, strangeness, a smothering heat. Like Marrakech, but without the total insanity. As our riad host said, Marrakech comes to life at night, while Fez lives by day. It's a very religious city -- in fact, though I was dressed in short sleeves and a knee-length skirt, I was repeated jostled hard by men who apparently found me immodest. (Once, the guy responsible was taken to task by a passing veiled matron, which pleased me immensely.) I changed into long harem pants. Much more acceptable.

Our riad

On our first morning I was completely unable to get out of bed, exhausted and sickened by the endless drive through the desert. Our riad was a lovely place to lounge away the early hours, and by noon I was up and ready to go. We turned down the (quietly insistent, extremely persuasive) offer of a guide and set off with an incomplete map and the slightly terrifying information that there were 1200 streets within the medina. We were sure to get lost.

We found our way to the Blue Gate, the Bab Boujaloud, and then entered the maze of the souks. No vespas, thank god, but many mules. As Edith Wharton says, "The distances in Fez are so great, and the streets so narrow, that all but saints or humble folk go about on mule-back." We are humble folk, obviously. Plenty of sellers enticing, imploring, cajoling us to buy. The insistence was of a gentler nature than in Marrakech. In fact, "to Marrakech" has now become a verb in our family.

And buy we did, but with a certain intelligence that we'd lacked in Marrakech. We could bargain. We could say no. Well, almost.

We headed to the Fondouk el-Nejjarine, once an inn, or caravanserai, for travelers, now the Musuem of Wood. Many very bad jokes were made. I will leave them to your imagination. It was peaceful and beautiful, housing carved wood objects -- doors, musical instruments, and furniture.

Not far from the caravanserai, we visited the most sacred site in Morocco, the tomb of Moulay Idriss II, the founder of Fez. We were able to peer in through the door to see the tomb and the pilgrims there, but as non-Muslims we couldn't enter.

A long trek back to the riad, where we rested and cooled off (I had chosen all our riads with air-conditioning, and a good thing -- it was over 100 in the desert, and at least 95 in Fez).

Then out again to the Royal Palace area, where we strolled through a formally laid-out garden, full of fountains and cool shade, and then found a rooftop restaurant.

We ate tagines and skewers of meat overlooking the Bab Boujaloud, with hundreds of swallows darting past as the sun set and the muezzins called from three mosques surrounding us.

In the morning we set out for the Dar El-Batha Museum, Fez's main ethnographic museum. It's in the palace of Moulay el-Hassan, a ruler of Fez in the nineteenth century. We looked at illuminated manuscripts, ceramics, embroidery, and woodcarving in its cool interior. After that, we found the fourteenth-century Bou Inania Medersa, one of the ancient, beautiful schools of Fez, with a mosque attached.

We still had some time before catching a taxi to the airport, so we wandered through the souks to the El-Attarine Medersa. Built on the same plan as the other medersas we'd seen, it had a central courtyard ringed with rooms for students and for prayer. The tile and plasterwork were breathtaking. And the walk back to the riad was sweltering.

Our return trip was uneventful, though exceedingly long. Taxi to the airport, flight to Charleroi, taxi to the train station, train to Brussels, train to Gent, taxi to the apartment. I do have to give a shoutout to Ryanair. We've had four flights on the airline, and though there were absolutely no comforts provided, they were remarkably efficient. Each landed on time or early (though with considerable bouncing). And the passengers, knowing exactly what they were getting, applauded each landing and cheered at the triumphal music they played. Really, some larger airlines could take lessons. The extra charges for just about everything are irritating, but they let our overweight bag (2 kilos of Moroccan purchases!) go through for free.

So...Morocco. I learned a little something about myself there. I was not quite the world traveler I thought I was. The country was challenging in a way that was utterly new and exciting, and sometimes a little frightening. Driving through the desert, getting lost in the medinas' mazes, dealing with a completely unknown and patriarchal culture -- all was fascinating.

NOW I'm a world traveler.




*For a description of a Moroccan fantasia, go here.

Long Day's Journey Into Night

It did indeed take us 12 hours to get to Fez, as warned, and we didn't even go the way we intended. At the last minute, our host at Sawadi kasbah told us that the road to the Cascades D'ourzoude is a "piste." This was a new French word for me. It took a while for me to figure out that it means "dirt road." Change of plans.

We decided to stick to the bigger road, which would be mostly paved, and take a short detour up the Dades Gorge. Another crazy drive, with intensely beautiful views. There were rock formations known as the Doigts de Singes (because, you know, they look like fingers). There was a place way up top where we bought a stained glass lantern and a rug (there is always a place to buy stuff). It was so beautiful that we drove for an hour in it.

Then back to the desert moonscape. I'd learned that the black rocks were volcanic; I have no idea at what point the area had volcanoes. It was a very long way across the desert before we started up into the Middle Atlas. Six hours, in fact. We listened to strange Berber music on the radio. Saw Bedouin tents among the rocks. Wondered what the skinny donkeys and goats were eating in the bleakness. Marveled at the women walking along the road in long robes and head scarves, carrying huge baskets of greens from the nearest oasis to feed their livestock. Were amazed at a vivid turquoise saline lake, in a rock landscape without people or plant life around it. At a speed trap, the cops stopped us. Every few miles there's a speed trap -- you can drive 100 km/hr for about 5 minutes, then it goes down to 60. The police spent quite a lot of time looking at our papers, then informed us we were going 13 km over the speed limit, and it would cost us 300 dirham. Right now. Relieved (300 dirham is about 39 dollars) we handed it over. Then they took Phil out of the car. I pictured Midnight Express. I wondered if I could drive a stick shift over the mountains to Fez to get a lawyer. I panicked completely. Phil, on the other hand, had a nice chat with the policemen. When they found out he was from New York, they asked him what the capitol was, and when he correctly answered "Albany," they gave him back the 300 dirham and then sent us on our way.

The landscape became greener immediately. It was a relief to the eyes, reminding us that we are creatures of the north. There were cows, fields of grain, multicolored flowers. Fields full of storks (I immediately thought "Ostriches!" but luckily didn't say it.)

We passed into the Foret de Cedres, part of a national park, where I was startled by more animal life. I wasn't smart enough to stay quiet this time but shouted, "Monkeys! Monkeys! Monkeys!" The mockery was intense. They were Barbary apes, as Ben pointed out, living happily among the trees with a group of shaggy dogs, who appeared to be herding them as if they were sheep.

Then we got to Ifrane, a new, wealthy town that looks very European -- some of the houses are even half-timbered. The king has his summer palace there. We were searching for the Cascades des Vierges, or Waterfalls of the Virgins. Got very lost, but finally found them. We don't know why they're called that, but we had an interesting time speculating.

We raced to Fez, trying to get to the airport to return the car before dark, and made it just in time. The airport was sort of closed. There was certainly no one at the Budget office, though I'd made arrangements to drop the car off at that hour. Luckily, a kind gentleman let me use his cell phone to call the Budget guy, who obviously never had any intention of being at the airport at all. We worked things out (I had to pay the nice gentleman for the use of his phone, and then I had to pay him more). And finally we found a taxi to take us to our very lovely riad in the Fez medina. It was well after 10 by then, and we hadn't eaten. Our host gave us mint tea and called a friend of his who came to pick us up to take us to his house in the old Jewish quarter, a fifteenth-century structure, which doubled as a restaurant.

We had the best meal of our trip. And we returned to our room and collapsed in utter exhaustion.