In Morocco some of the local people are not too keen on having their photograph unless you pay them first!

In Morocco some of the local people are not too keen on having their photograph taken but just take them anyway and hope you don’t get punched on the nose!

All along the way Kim kept snapping away taking pictures of local people as they went about their business.  She had to be quick however and mostly secretive about what she was doing because a lot of people weren’t that happy about having their photographs taken.  This is something to do with being suspicious about having an image made of themselves and on most occasions when someone saw a camera pointed their way they would either turn away or wag a reproachful finger to say no.

Following directions from local people is not always completely reliable in Morocco especially when getting advice on the location of a restaurant from a rival café waiter but the man we asked seemed genuine enough and we followed his instructions and entered the fresh fruit and vegetable souk where there was the same eclectic mix of colour, the flash of flowing robes, the warnings that a donkey or a mule was coming through regardless of who might be in the way, shoppers, children, invalids all pushing, shoving, competing all along a narrow covered street with a wooden roof that blotted out the sunlight with exuberant displays of produce, spices, food, pastries, meat and local delicacies.  The Souks were busier today because Sunday is a main trading day and all of the shops were open and there was a torrent of people and activity and more noise. 

The directions were perfect and soon we came across a sign that directed us into a small alley towards the entrance to the Café Clock which is a restored building where once there was a genuine water clock on the site but is now a chic restaurant with a growing reputation as the place to be and be seen.  We climbed the stairs through the assortment of rooms but it was sunny so we wanted to be outside so we continued to climb to the roof terrace and not being satisfied even with that we climbed yet more steps until we had the most elevated table in the building which was going to be certain chore for the waiters who would come to serve us.

Here at the top was a fine table and a random assortment of benches and chairs and with canvas canopies to protect from the heat of the sun and a wide view across the roof top washing lines full of clean clothes all the way to the snow capped Atlas Mountain that were gleaming in the strong sunshine which reflected all around.

The restaurant had a tempting menu including its signature, must try, dish of camel burger.  This was too much to contemplate for the girls but Micky and I decided that being here we really must have it.  And we were glad that we did because it could easily have been mistaken for beef it tasted delicious and we enjoyed it.  We also liked sitting in the hot sun at the top of the terrace and we stayed for a while and wasted some time away mindful that we still had quite a long afternoon ahead before driving to the airport for the drive home.

Eventually of course we had to leave so we negotiated the steep steps, paid our bill and went back out into the streets.  We had had enough of the souks by now so we made our way back through the butchers’ bazaar on Talaa Kabira to Bab Boujloud and left the heaving tangle of Arab and Berber market streets behind us.

We stayed in the open streets now and away from the souks as we wandered in a westerly direction, (well, I think it was a westerly direction but it was difficult to be absolutely sure) along a narrow busy street where we had to have our wits about us not to be knocked over by the horse drawn tourist carriages that seemed to use this as a principal sightseeing route.  And then there were the motorbikes and the pushbikes that made no concessions to pedestrians which meant this was not really the place to have a casual stroll.

Lining the roads there were mostly local shops and little stores selling food and household items each with a single door and a gloomy interior with boxes and tins stacked from ceiling to floor to make use of all of the available space. 

Outside of the ochre walls of the Medina there was an open air market, rather like Meknes but without the entertainment and lots of merchandise for sale in a car-boot sale sort of way spread out on plastic sheets on the pavement.  We walked outside the city walls through a main gate to a busy main road and then returned through the next one only a hundred metres away and decided that we had seen all that we really wanted to see, had made all the purchases that we wanted to make and now would be a good time to walk back to the Riad. 

It was four o’clock when we arrived back so we ordered tea and pastries and sat on the terrace enjoying what was most likely going to be the last warm sunshine that we were going to experience for a few months as we were returning now to the UK.  Abdul was due to collect us at five o’clock and the hour just raced by as we soaked up the sights and smells of the city for the final time before handing over what we thought were the appropriate tips to the hotel staff and Abdul led us to his taxi and back to the airport.

There was a magnificent clear sky all across the city as darkness descended and the temperature began to drop with a sort of vermillion blue sandwiching the orange sunset into the bronze skyline and we all rather wished that we had another day or two to spend here before going home.  We had enjoyed Fez, the souks, the shopping (well, some of us anyway), the day out to Volubilis, and Meknes but most of all we all agreed the Riad Layali!

In Morocco some of the local people are not too keen on having their photograph taken so to get a picture you have to wait until their backs are turned!

For our final day in Fez we felt confident enough to look after ourselves and manage without the services of a guide so after breakfast we left the Riad and walked in the direction (or what we thought was the direction) of the souks where our plan was to see the sights that we hadn’t seen a couple of days before when Hussein had taken us on the unexpected shopping tour.

It was a beautiful morning again, the sky was crisp and clear and the sun was rising rapidly scattering the shadows and bringing a welcome glow to the streets which were surprisingly clean today after a lot of overnight street sweeping activity.  Being so obviously without a guide we attracted a lot of attention from the groups of young men who were looking for tourists like us to try and sell their chaperoning services to and some of them took some serious shaking off.  I have found that although it seems rude it is best to blatantly ignore them because if you mention a destination they suddenly attach themselves and try to provide the directions.  We ill-advisedly told one that we were looking for the City’s Blue Gate and he immediately stuck to like a limpet.  We eventually shook him off and he went away but it was a bit of a sticky moment.

We were fairly sure of where the Blue Gate was anyway and sure enough after a few minutes we arrived at the busy junction on the traffic side of the walls of the Medina and we walked through the elegant arch and into the busy Souk.  Immediately we were under assault from the traders inside, first the cafés and the food stalls and then the clothes shops, the men selling Fez hats and then the handicraft shops.

The layout of the Souks was interesting because it was set out in sections where every shop sells the same produce.  A whole Souk selling silver, another selling silks and so on which would be a bit like all of the jewelers shops in a UK shopping mall being organised side by side which I think we would find unusual but here the competing shop keepers seemed quite comfortable with the arrangement.

Soon we were the only tourists amongst the crowds of men and women in their traditional Arab clothing, the men in long gowns called djellabas and the women in colourful kaftans, headscarves tied around the hair, some with face veils and a small minority with a full burqa.  We were in unfamiliar territory now and although there was no danger and we felt perfectly safe there were no street signs to help with navigation so mindful of the risk of getting hopelessly lost we stayed on the main street running through the souk and if we ventured down a side street we were careful always to return the same way and resist the temptation to explore too deeply into the warren of confusing alleyways without being fairy confident of the way back out.

About half way through we stopped and showed some interest in an old palace, now a restaurant, and a man on the door invited us in and showed us around the interior and then took us up the stairs for a high level view of the city which was good but there was a price to pay for this and on the way down he asked for ten dirhams or about £2 each which seemed rather a lot for a skyline view of the city which was no different from that at our Riad.  Almost immediately there was another incident when a young man approached us and asked us if could take us to a tannery, or a silversmiths or a carpet shop or  just about anywhere where he could earn a commission on a sale and Micky told him firmly no to all the options he offered.  This seemed to displease him and his friendly demeanour reversed immediately and he spat out the words’ If there is nothing here that you want why don’t you go back to your own country?’ Or words to that effect – charming!

As we approached the main Mosque down this perpetually busy street there were more shops selling robes, kaftans, carpets and antiques, men serving snail soup from cauldrons of steaming liquid and with an enticing warren of alleys all with tiny shops and kiosks packed in behind.  We were near the tannery now and there were offers to go inside the leather shops for a high level view but after the lucky escape two days before we declined the invitations to repeat the viewing.

We had been walking for an hour and a half now and agreed that this was as far as we would go and as the return journey was all uphill we turned around and made our way back in the direction of the Blue Gate.  On the way Kim spotted a henna souk so went to investigate and to arrange a temporary tattoo on her hand.  It was in a little square off the main street crammed in by overstocked shops which had merchandise spread across the street and it occurred to me what a daily chore it must be to prepare for a day of trading, every morning transferring stock outside onto the pavements where it would stay for twelve hours or so collecting dust and grime, fading in the dappled sunlight leaking through the bamboo and wooden roofs of the streets before the displays would be dismantled again and taken back inside overnight. Some of the items on display looked as though they had been making the same trip back and forth for many weeks, perhaps even months.

Getting back to the Blue Gate didn’t take nearly as long and we had paid attention well because we didn’t get lost once as we negotiated our way back to the city gate stopping only once for Micky to buy a Fez.  It was around about lunchtime now and the waiters in the cafés were in full pestering mode, thrusting stained and dog-eared menus under our noses and imploring us to eat in their establishment but Kim was working on a sort of vague recommendation, actually an overheard conversation on the flight here, and we were looking for somewhere specific which we calculated was close by.

In Morocco some of the local people are not too keen on having their photograph taken so to get a picture it is necessary to be discreet!

Reunited with our driver we left the main square and drove just a short way until we reached the Mausoleum of Moulay Ismail, which interestingly (and without satisfactory explanation that I could find)  is one of only three Moroccan shrines that non-Muslims can visit.

The mausoleum was constructed during the reign of Moulay Ismail and since his death has been a point of reverence and a visit to his final resting place is believed to bring baraka, a sort of divine blessing but again I’m not sure if this included anyone or is restricted to Muslims.  Moulay Ismail was responsible for driving out the Spanish and British from Morocco, uniting the country and the establishment of the Alaouite ruling dynasty. His strict observance of orthodox Islamic ritual has also conferred a kind of salutary healing power on him and many Muslims visit the shrine in the hope of receiving health, well-being and good luck.

Moulay Ismaïl was an interesting character and by all accounts a man of excesses.  It is said that he personally killed over twenty-five thousand men but to compensate for this he is alleged to have fathered eight hundred and eighty-nine children and this is generally considered the record number of offspring for any one man throughout history that can actually be verified. It is estimated that to father that number of children Ismaïl would have had to have sex several times every day for sixty years so that must have been a real chore!  When he wasn’t slaughtering or shagging he was building himself  his new capital city at Meknès which took twelve years as he dismantled the Badii Palace in Marrakech and removed the treasures and relocated them in his preferred location.

Being unexpectedly allowed into this place we walked through a series of courts and chambers decorated in bright yellow tiles and spiralling stuccowork. Behind the courts is the sanctuary that holds the remains of Moulay Ismail and his family members and after we had taken off our shoes at the door we were invited into the mausoleum but not the Mosque.

After the mausoleum visit we went next to the Heri es Souani, the site of Moulay Ismail’s stables. We paid the reasonable entrance fee and were allocated a guide.  He asked if we understood French or English, we told him English and he looked at us with a face that said ‘That’s a shame because I do this tour in French’ and he set off on his commentary to our appropriately blank faces.  He took us through a remarkable system of high-vaulted chambers with a series storerooms and granaries. In the time of Moulay Ismail, these were used to hold provisions in a case of a drought or a siege and behind these chambers were the stables for seven-thousand horses.  That’s an awful lot of horses and an awful lot of equine shit to shovel so there were living quarters over the top for the hundreds of grooms and labourers that would have been required to support an operation such as this.

At the completion of the tour the guide said goodbye but rather like a barnacle on a rock stayed close by, we set to walk off but then suddenly he seemed to remember that he could speak a bit of English after all, he coughed an attract attention sort of cough, held out his hand and asked if we had forgotten something.  We had of course and we rifled our pockets for some loose change to give the man his deserved tip.

That was the end of our visit to Meknes and in the late afternoon Abdul steered the taxi out of the city and quickly joined a toll motorway that was straight and quick and soon we were back in the suburbs of Fez.  There were a lot of police check points to negotiate and Abdul explained that they were speed cops who were collecting tax revenues, much the same as in the UK but here they don’t have sneaky cameras to do the dirty work!  The checks didn’t seem to apply to Abdul who seemed to know all the police officers personally and he waved to them and smiled as they inevitably beckoned him through the bollards.

It was a sort of rush-hour in Fez and Abdul joined the lines of undisciplined traffic as he bullied his way through traffic lights and junctions, impatiently blowing his horn or flashing his lights at anyone that he considered was holding him up, which was pretty much everyone else out on the road this Saturday night.

He returned us safely to the Riad and we had a rest and a beer and Micky ill advisedly went out for a walk where he was accosted by a youth who insisted on taking him to a restaurant recommendation and told him that he would meet us again later to escort us there.  It seems that this is an important part of the Moroccan economy which works on introductions, tips, bribery and corruption as we had discovered the day before on Hamid’s walking tour of the Souks.  Actually Hamid had already recommended this very restaurant and was legitimately entitled to the 10% commission if we dined there and we had already decided that was what we would do.

We left the Riad and walked into the streets and Mick’s new pal was thankfully nowhere to be seen but along the way we attracted the attention of another local boy who, sniffing the 10% for himself, insisted that he was taking us to the restaurant that we were already going to anyway.  He was a nuisance and a pest and it could have become unpleasant because when Kim explained this to him and told him to go away he became indignant and threatening and told us not to tell him to go away when he was in his own country and we were only visitors.

It turned out to be a nice restaurant but the boy dropped by to say that he had brought us there and then Micky’s pal turned up claiming the same thing and suddenly there were three people after the 10%.  We explained to the restaurant staff that Hamid had made the recommendation and he should have the commission but Micky went outside to see the boys and although he didn’t own up to this I suspect he gave them a few dirhams just to go away.

 The meal was excellent and we enjoyed three courses of traditional food and to our amazement Sue demonstrated that the lunchtime plate clearing surprise was not a one-off phenomenon and she ate everything again and declared it delicious.  I began to worry that one of my favourite materials for my journals – Sue’s fussy eating – might be in jeopardy here in Morocco!  As we finished the meal and the wine there was some entertainment as the waiters joined a couple of traditional musicians in an impromptu singing and dancing routine which was excellent and we joined in and enjoyed it.

On the short walk back to the Riad, Micky’s pestering pal appeared out of the shadows of a doorway and complained that he had been cheated out of his commission by Abdul and he had made no money tonight.  We might have guessed that Abdul would be involved somewhere in this.  He accompanied us all the way back assuring us that he would keep us safe in a dangerous neighbourhood but we didn’t feel at all threatened so we ignored him and back at the Riad we rang the bell and when we were inside the heavy door was closed in his face and we certainly didn’t give him the tip he was hankering for.

The journey from Moulay Idriss to the UNESCO World Heritage city Meknes took about thirty minutes and when we arrived in the city Abdul stopped first at a lay-by on the edge of the city with a panorama of the city.  The word panaroma makes it sound picturesque or interesting but I have to say that from here it didn’t look terribly exciting at all, just very similar to Fez with a jumble of off-white concrete box. buildings and a forest of satellite dishes and TV aerials.  

Fortunately we didn’t stay long and Abdul drove us into the centre of the city and took us directly to the central square of the Medina, which, although much smaller reminded me straight away of Marrakech.  Abdul parked the taxi right outside the gates of the Royal Palace and I was concerned about that, but I needn’t have been because Abdul seemed to know a lot of people, probably even the guards and there was no problem.  He certainly knew the owner of the restaurant the ‘Terrasses Pavillion des Idrissides’ and before we knew very much about it we had been led to a terrace table overlooking the square by a couple of eager waiters.

Mindful of yesterday’s expensive lunch we examined the menu carefully before making our selections and then we enjoyed a simple meal at a far more agreeable price and it must have been good because Sue, who is a notoriously fussy eater, finished everything on her plate.

The main square was moderately busy but didn’t feel crowded and we walked past the snake charmers and the men with Barbary Apes all trying to sell photographs, fortune tellers and soothsayers and my favourite the tooth puller who would have provided dental surgery at a fraction of the cost of the National Health Service if we had been brave enough to allow him.  There were rows of market stalls selling fresh and dried fruits and others competing to sell a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice and all around the square were cafés and restaurants with high level balconies where people were sitting and just enjoying the random entertainment.

A bit like Al Stewart in the ‘Year of the Cat’ we slipped into the souk and walked past carpet shops, elaborate lampshade shops, slipper shops, silver and pottery shops, shops selling leather, silks, ceramics, spices and pastries and our senses were under constant assault from the colourful sights, the rich aromas and the constant chatter and noise of the traders.  Occasionally a donkey and cart would send people scattering as new supplies were delivered and the shop owners were probably glad of this because the only place to go to get out of the way was inside the shop doorways where someone was waiting to pounce.

Threading our way through the heaving twisting lanes we elbowed our way through the crowds and nodded politely as we rejected invitations from all sides, trying all the time not to make eye contact and declining inducement to go inside the shops and look all the time trying hard to remember the way that we had walked so that we could get out again without getting lost.  We seemed to be the only tourists here so we weren’t too adventurous and soon we were back on the sunny street which led to another souk, this time the food market which, maybe because it was Saturday, was extremely busy. 

There was large butchery section here and there was a smell of blood, offal and sawdust.  Whole goats hung from metal hooks, there were bull’s heads in various stages of being dismembered and sheep’s heads carelessly discarded and lying on the floor for anyone who wasn’t paying attention to trip over.  Along one of the internal lanes there were cages and cages of live chickens just waiting to be selected, purchased and killed.  The process was swift but brutal – the selection made and the price paid the butcher deftly cut the bird’s throat and shoved it unceremoniously into a plastic bucket, head first so that the blood would drain away.  The poor thing struggled for a short while but when it was dead and drained it was dunked first in boiling water and then freezing water and then plucked on a primitive but effective plucking machine.  Micky, a butcher himself, and Kim stopped to watch the macabre process but Christine, an animal lover, and Sue, a bit squeamish, walked on without stopping.  I went with Sue and Christine.

As we turned a corner there were herbalist shops with spices arranged in colourful pyramids and baskets of dried flower heads and quack remedies.  Kim went inside to look at the jars of colourful potions and perfumes and to enquire about the spices and the prices each time making a promise to return later.  I imagine that this is a promise that shopkeepers in Meknes hear hundreds of times every day and probably don’t take them too seriously but after a few minutes we did return to one of them and this probably took the owner by surprise.  We bought a few bags of spices and I began to worry about taking these little multi-coloured bags of suspicious looking powder through customs especially bearing in mind that Morocco has a reputation of being a big producer of illegal drugs.

Our heads full of the sights and sounds of the busy souk we pushed our way out through a main entrance and made our way again across the main square which was beginning to fill up and I imagined that it was going to be a big night in Meknes tonight.  We wouldn’t see this of course because now we had to find Abdul who had promised to take us to see the other important sites in the city.  We found him chatting to the restaurant owner – presumably negotiating his commission!