History up close and personal.
Alone again. The daughter has left on her journeying and I'm off to Fez, the name that conjures up mystique and romance! The plane is almost empty and I arrive at Fez airport which is slightly weird and small. Their are signs everywhere that say you can't take photos and I wonder who would and why you can't. The passport control person isn't as scary as I imagined he would be and he looks at me and says: Vanessa, Vanessa, welcome, welcome to Morocco with a big smile and I relax and feel like it's my late husband telling me I'll be fine.
I've arranged for a driver to pick me up and deliver me to the outside of the medina, a fortified walled city. A porter from the hotel is there to meet me and take me to Riad Rcif as there are 9,000 tiny medieval streets in this city and wifi doesn't work here to guide my way. I follow behind, trying to remember how to get back but I am lost within minutes as we wind in and out and finally come to the ancient door of the Riad.
Walking in, I am transported to another world, I don't know where to look, there is so much beauty, tiles, patterns, colour, plants, carved wood, a gurgling fountain. They sit me down and bring me mint tea and tiny almond cakes and then I'm shown to my room. It's amazing! Brilliantly coloured glass windows, carved wooden doors, an upstairs bathroom that beggars belief. I wander around taking photos and then decide to go out but I'm told at the desk that it's not a wise decision for a woman to go out on a Friday night as there are hustlers around. He suggests I go with a guide tomorrow and organises one for me.
He suggests a relaxing massage with rose oil and I agree and then I dine on the rooftop. I choose a table and then sit back and watch an almost full moon rise over this crazy citadel. A muezzin calls people to prayer, the eerily beautiful sound takes me back centuries. The food is amazing, there are six different 'salad' dishes that aren't our sort of salad (as they say not to eat salad here) but pickled and cooked vegetables and then a Tajine of olives, lemon, onions and chicken which is flavoured with delicate herbs. I order a half bottle of expensive wine which obviously is not consumed by the locals and sit back with the almost full moon in view, feeding the cat that has come for a visit in the hope of sustenance.
Breakfast is served in the internal courtyard. I am surrounded by beauty and a feast is set before me. Interesting rounds of bread, soft cheese, jams and the sweetest orange juice but I am annoyed, as an Italian guy opposite, whom I think for some reason might be the manager,(he's not but he's stayed here before and acts as if this place is his) starts chatting to me - constantly! The tour guide is late so I am stuck hearing about this guys travels. Not one question about me. I'm worried he's going to invite himself along on my tour but thankfully, he's seen it all before - of course he has.
My guide is wiry, robed and hatted, blind in one eye and with very few teeth. I think he must be in his late 70's but he's only 66. I have a job keeping up with him. The streets are a maze.
We visit the coppersmiths, the cedar man who makes beautiful intricate spools of cedar using his feet!, I'm given one to smell it's evocative scent and then told to keep it. I think I'm expected to buy something else but I'm worried that I'm on the move for a while and won't be able to carry much back with me, also I'm on a budget. He tells me there are 280,000 people living within the medina walls that were built in the 8th century and many more than 9000 streets.
We keep moving, my mind exploding with the visuals and the crafts. We go to the markets, to the street of smelly fish, we pass the rabbit man, the pigeon man, the chicken man who is so elegant surrounded by his flock that I ask if I can take a photo of him. He nods and beckons me to sit next to him on his hay bale. He's suited, hatted and is looking very debonair. I shake my head but he is insistent. I am up close and personal with his produce. And that is what it is for him. His chickens are healthy and looked after but they are his livelihood. This is a medieval marketplace, you know where your food comes from, who nurtures it and how it'll be killed rather than the nicely presented end product of meat that you see in supermarkets.
I want to take photos of everything, he's very patient, my guide but he's on a schedule. I follow his white hijab and his hat. There are sellers of argan oil and I shake my head when asked to buy, then a carpet place in an old riad. The rugs are woven by widows and some of the profits go to them. I am gestured to sit down, mint tea is brought and rugs appear and are unrolled with a flourish in front of me. I try to tell them that I can't buy anything, more rugs appear as they think I don't like the ones they've shown me. I would love to buy one but can't afford them. They finally give up and I'm left alone.
My guide, at times like this, deserts me to go and smoke I think. I wait for him to collect me and he asks what I have bought. I confess and he shakes his head, but you are a widow, he says. Guilt ridden, I ask him not to take me to places that I have to buy from and that I want to go to another vegetable market that I've heard of. He nods and moves off, taking me to see the trickle of a river that runs sluggishly through the town. We go via the Jewish quarter where golden jewelled carriages and thrones for weddings fill shops and then past the exquisite gold jewellery stores.
And then we're out of the Medina and I'm taken to the Tanneries, more hard selling but they're very nice about it. I'm given a sprig of mint to hold near my nose to offset the smell of the leather tanning and am left again. I look out through the arched window at the oldest tannery in the world, immersed in the colours, the whiff of leather going through it's process. I'd love to buy the shoes but again, I have a small suitcase because of my back surgery and I leave empty handed.
I ask about the vegetables again and he nods and then we're in a taxi that's covered in dust, the window screen cracked halfway through, windows open, the driver smoking and we're transported to another tourist stronghold where I'm taken on another tour and shown beautiful but expensive ceramics. I decide that this time I have to buy something, I choose a small green tajine, wrapped around in silver wire that is supposedly wholesale but I later find it's double the price of those in the streets. Americans are buying up big and having them shipped back. I'm given more mint tea and then we're in another decrepit taxi back to the medina. I've had to pay for the to and fro but I'm upholding the economy. I begin to wonder if he understands the word - vegetable.
I'm taken to a restaurant and left again at this tourists only restaurant, not a single Moroccan in sight. Luckily the food is good, ending with the sweetest green melon and mint tea but there's no sight of my guide. He's probably eating with the locals, which is what I had been hoping to do.
He finally returns and takes me to a jewellery and etching place , I shake my head and they talk and shake their heads, they're probably saying how me I am but I'm at the beginning of my journey here, I can't start buying everything I see. I'm starting to get pissed off and then finally we round a corner and there is the vegetable market! He is forgiven.
Pink pomegranates, quinces, preserved lemons, young dates, strings of dried figs, mats of fresh herbs, rounds of soft bread, woven baskets of okra and the softest jammiest figs which he helps me buy a bag of. Then there's the camel meat shop with a camel head staring into the market place.
And then we weave in and out of the backstreets, visiting a school for Muslim studies where my guide used to stay and learn. The walls are muted, ageing beautifully, the tiles of old still deep with colour.
Then we go to a street where the dyeing takes place, the men stirring vats, women bringing their clothes for a quick change of colour; wool and cotton wads of soft hues, lavender, light teal blue, rose. Then to material and cotton shops with spools of the most glorious colours, ruby, rose quartz, bronze; silked and shiny.
We pass by a mosque where women are not allowed, I have a sneaking look into where men rule and where women in brilliant peacock colours sit on the steps of the doorway, backlit by the light from the open courtyard of the church. The doors, the tiles, the woodwork. I am in awe of the beauty of this place.
Finally, I am taken back to the Riad. Whilst talking to the manager and happy that I have not run into Beppe, the talking Italian, suddenly he is behind me. He suggests we eat together, he's booked a place but I tell him I'm eating here. He says he'll no doubt meet me for drinks later. Little does he know that Australians are done and dusted by 6.30 and he won't eat till 10. I'll be safely in bed by then.
I take my usual table, the waiter is friendly, the muezzin is doing his thing, my friend the cat has found me. I have a sweet chicken and almond dish in layers of phyllo with sugar and cinnamon on top which is amazing and tonight I have 9 small dishes of the Moroccan salad! I try them all, I must have done 30,000 steps today. I finish the other half of my half bottle of wine as the full moon rises over the medina. Moroccans don't drink but the French have a 1500 hectare vineyard near here. It's 9.30 and I'm worried the Italian might find me so I retire for the evening. Tomorrow, I'll be going to Chefchaouen, the blue city. I'm so excited.
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