Adventures in Fez

As our petite taxi turned up a steep dusty road toward the walled city of old Fez, I silently hoped (with fingers crossed) that I'd made the right decision to book a room in a traditional riad in the thousand-year-old medina rather than a room at the stylish Palace Jamai. It was romantic, yes, but was I sacrificing comfort and security?

The taxi stopped at the entrance to a narrow lane. We'd have to walk the rest of the way on foot. A man with a wooden cart appeared from nowhere and began loading our luggage. Neighborhood children stopped kicking a soccer ball and accompanied us the two short blocks to a plain wooden door. Above the door, a plaque read "Riad Maison Bleue: one of the most romantic hotels of the world." See there, I needn't have worried!

We identified ourselves through a speaker and were buzzed into a garden courtyard filled with fruit trees, comfortable couches with deep cushions, and a tranquil plunge pool. Security and comfort all sorted out. We snacked on almond stuffed dates and listened to the chattiest birds ever to grace a riad as the staff brought us orange-blossom scented milk...

Riad Maison Bleue




Up a narrow, winding flight of steps and through a low doorway, a skeleton key (that took me our entire stay to get used to) opened the door to a beautiful room with a canopied bed, colored-glass windows, and a Moroccan salon complete with another comfortable couch with deep cushions. The floors, walls, and ceiling were decorated with intricate Zellij tile patterns and lacy plaster carvings.




Just outside our door, the rooftop garden overlooked the medina, a sea of peeling gray and white cubes that receded toward the Rif Mountains, all flat-roofed buildings similar to ours. The nearby Mosque's minaret announced the afternoon call to prayer, and a neighbor woman several rooftops away leaned over big mounds of sheep's wool, gathering them up in her arms. Except for the overwhelming number of satellite dishes, I felt as if we'd stepped into a Bible story. In fact, the medina has changed very little in over a thousand years. Donkeys still transport goods. As they make their way through the narrow streets, people shout "Baleek! Baleek!" to warn each other, and Jonathan and I learned very quickly to hug the walls along with the others.

Our Rooftop View



Inside the Medina



Baleek!



A few blocks away near the river, the tanneries look like a child's giant paintbox with rows of colorful vats. The tanners dunk prepared sheep skins in brightly colored dyes and hang them to dry. To the left of the dye vats, large vats filled with pigeon droppings are used to separate the fat from the animals' skin. Curious tourists, with fresh mint sprigs crammed to their nostrils to mask the overwhelming smell, watch from a second-story balcony as the less fortunate tanners work knee-deep in the milky vats.

Jonathan and I resisted the mint sprigs and were rewarded for it. A tannery guide invited us down to the dye vats for a closer view. We were encouraged to step out onto the vats and walk from one dye to the next, balancing on the thin lip in between. We sighed with relief that the pigeon vats remained safely off in the distance. After our tour was nearly over, a tanner came to us with a hefty-looking bag. He opened it for our inspection. "Pigeon shit!" he explained as white dust wafted our way. Backing slowly away, we nodded politely and held our breath. Pigeon shit indeed!

Stepping gingerly through the muck, we headed back upstairs to the mint-bearing tourists. "Is it good?" our tannery guide wanted to know. "The best!" we assured him, hopeful that someday we would be able to exorcise the smell of pigeon shit from our nostrils and our memories.

Fez Tannery




UNESCO has designated the Fez medina in its entirety as a World Heritage Site.

Postcards From Rabat

We arrived in Rabat by taxi, a four-hour drive through scenic farmland and never-ending speed traps with emphatic Arabic shouted into a mobile phone as our soundtrack. Our speed altered alarmingly, slowing for an incoming call as often as for the highway police. As our driver's voice rose to near hysteria, our car slowed a crawl. Each call finished with a courteous "goodbye," and we were off like a shot, back in the fast lane.

Rabat has an old-world charm as well as new-world sophistication. The white stucco and brick buildings in Ville Nouvelle (New Town) have a style and grandeur befitting a capital city. And the contemporary brown and red Parliament building decorated with flags of the world took our breath away. We saw as many people dressed in jeans and polo shirts walking along the palm-fringed Avenue Mohammed V as we saw in djellabahs.

A few blocks away, the medina suggests an intimacy of another era. We seemed to be the only tourists as we wandered by open-air fruit and spice stands, past children pedaling home carrying freshly made bread, a small barbershop where a man reclined for an afternoon shave, and tea houses where elderly men swapped stories over sweet mint tea.

Walking farther, past the sprawling cemetery where thousands of white gravestones lined in tidy rows face Mecca, we came to the centuries-old Kasbah des Oudaia perched on the cliffs overlooking the Bou Regreg River. After climbing steep steps, we reached a doorway that opened to a maze of narrow alleyways painted a vibrant blue and white. Under the praying hands of Fatima, the Prophet Mohammed's daughter, I realized I was lost. Perhaps with Fatima's help, my muffled call was immediately answered through thick walls, and minutes later Jonathan and I were reunited.

Later that night, we had dinner at a fairytale restaurant in the medina. A tall broad-shouldered man in Aladdin-style clothing led us with a lantern through a maze of dark alleys to an indescript door. Inside was a garden oasis, the courtyard of a traditional Moroccan riad (or stately home), where we dined beneath the stars as musicians played gently behind us.

(Happy birthday, Kerry!)

Avenue Mohammed V in Ville Nouvelle



Avenue Mohammed V in the Medina



The Rabat Cemetery



A Kasbah Alley and a Kasbah Kitty



Self Portrait in Kasbah des Oudaia



The Beautiful Hotel Villa Mandarine





Decorative Doors



Dinner!

On the Road to Morocco

No camels, no kitschy sand-dune Hollywood sets, no Dorothy Lamour shrouded in veils singing a siren song, and, alas, no Bob Hope and Bing Crosby leading us to fabled Karameesh. But like Bob and Bing (and Webster's dictionary), we're Morocco bound.

We ferried from Algeciras, Spain, skimming past the monolithic Rock of Gibraltar, and arrived in Tangier, Morocco in just over an hour. What a cultural difference an hour makes! Spanish is replaced by undulating Arabic on road signs and billboards, and shorts and t-shirts are replaced by long and flowing djellabahs. Starbucks is nowhere in sight, but roadside juice stands run by women in colorful, wide-brimmed hats spring into view at every curve. And in the fields, round wheels of hay are replaced by hay stacked in neat square packages. It's a whole new exciting world.

On the Straits of Gibraltar
















The Road to Hotel Club Le Mirage

An Afternoon Stroll













Street Signs

Hotel Club Le Mirage