The Atlas to the Atlantic Via Rome

We'd taken a very roundabout route to get to Meknes, which is really only about a 45 minute trip from Fes.

At first, and over much of our stay there it seemed a world away.  Things were busy when we arrived, but as soon as Friday Prayers began everything quietened down to almost nothing.  The streets mostly emptied. The hotel we'd checked out earlier and decided to stay at was unattended for a couple of hours.  Even the Medina was almost deserted, with almost no one walking its alleys and virtually every shop shuttered.

Our street, just outside the Medina and forming its southern boundary was one of the livelier ones, so after eventually managing to check in to our hotel and taking an extended walk through the Medina-cum-ghosttown, we did find several open restaurants.  The place we ate in Meknes became, if not our favourite in Morocco then at least the standard against which we judged all others. We had two bowls of Harira (delicious thick lentil, chick pea and noodle soup), a vegetable Tagine (a Tagine is pretty much anything cooked in a wide, shallow clay dish with a conical lid of the same name and is ubiquitous in Morocco) and a plate of deep fried potato patties, all of which came out to about NZD9.

We went to bed early in our basic, but clean and prettily tiled hotel, as we had a big day planned for Saturday.

We were up and out of our hotel before sunrise (at this time of year, a few weeks before the vernal equinox, this was surprisingly late, around 07:45).  The city was slowly getting going for the morning, and we were some of the first few people on the city bus headed out to the town of Moulay Idriss. As in Fes, we were surprised by how suddenly the city ended, and most of our journey was spent speeding along country roads, somewhat incongruously in a jam-packed city bus filled  with passengers and (further incongruously) goods for sale in Moulay Idriss including big piles of clothing and mannequins.

While our primary destination was the ruined Roman city of Volubilis, Moulay Idriss was a worthy destination in itself.  The first capital of Moulay (Mullah) Idriss, founder of the Idrissid Dynasty who introduced Islam to Morocco in 789, scarcely 150 years after the religion was founded a continent away.  Not much remains of its former glories, but the tomb of Moulay Idriss is an important shrine and pilgrimage site. And the town itself is postcard pretty, spilling down the slopes of two adjacent hills with the tomb and main square sitting in the saddle between them. We had a coffee on said square, and then paid a young man near the entrance of the tomb (non Muslims can't go inside) a few dirhams to lead us up the beautiful winding streets and alleys to a view out over the town.

Normally we'd have been happy to wander til we found it ourselves, but it was now almost ten o'clock and we still had the 5km walk out to the Volubilis site in front of us.  I can hardly imagine a more pleasant way to spend a sunny spring morning than strolling along the wide shoulder of the road through rolling fields and olive groves, the pillars and arches of an ancient city growing closer over the hour-long walk.

The Volubilis site began in pre-Roman times as a Phonecian city, and carried on well after as an Arab one.  But most of its legacy is Roman. It was a prosperous agricultural centre, manufacturing olive oil and flour for export.  The ruins of the common houses, gateway arches, public baths, mills and temples were impressive in size and fun to explore, but the real highlight were the mansions of the city's wealthy merchants, which contained an impressive collection of mosaics.  They were in great condition, some of them showing colours that looked so bright and fresh that they might have been laid a few weeks before.

There were lots of tour buses there, and plenty of Moroccan visitors who'd arrived in private vehicles or taxi.  But they tended to clump together in large groups so you really just needed to stop for a while or walk extra quickly whenever you encountered one and soon enough you'd have it to yourself again.

On our way home the walk was a bit hotter and sunnier, but still pleasant enough.  And as we boarded the bus down below Moulay Idriss on the main road, it was much busier when we got aboard.  Buy hospitable Moroccans fairly quickly insisted that the visitors ought to have seats, with no hope of refusal, so we made the 50km journey back to Meknes in relative comfort anyway.

Back in town, the day of rest behind them, merchants, snake charmers and storytellers  in the square were doing a bustling business with large crowds of locals and visitors alike.  The Medina was once more a hive of activity. And our previous day's afternoon coffee spot on a sunny terrace looking over the new town, had plenty of custom as well.

We visited all of these, as well as the (remains of the) palace complex and tomb of Moulay Ismail, the 17th century king who had made Meknes his capital.  The whole experience was like a toned down version of Fes. Smaller and less energetic, but almost entirely without the (limited) hassles of its more famous cousin down the road.

The next morning we woke up even earlier, once again well before sunrise and walked to the nearest train station in the new town to catch a 07:53 service to Morocco's modern capital, Rabat.

The train ride was great.  Smooth, quick and quite comfortable in a nice modern carriage (even in second class).  

Rabat is often written off as a bit boring and lacking in the grandeur of Morocco's other imperial cities.  But it was on our way, so we decided to stop for an afternoon and evening and have a look around. It was definitely worthwhile.

Our walk to our Airbnb took us along the main drag of colonial and modern government buildings, monumental, white and palm fronted.  

The Atlantic was sending big swell onto the shore and the waterfront was coated in salty mist by the huge waves smashing into the rocks.  Further north past a breakwater, the bay was filled with surfers who simply walked to the end and hopped into the water, saving themselves the trouble of paddling out. Then in the blue-painted Casbah (fortress) looking over the oceanic turmoil we had a pleasant wander through a residential area and French designed colonial era gardens.

Across the street in the Medina, Sarah got her hair cut.  The salon was a tiny space inside a Medina doorway with a curtain covering the front (no men allowed inside, or even looking that way).  The lady got the length about how Sarah wanted it, but had very much her own ideas about what sort of style suited her, so Sarah ended up with a fringe that wasn't entirely in her haircut plans.

Our final stop for the day was a former imperial mosque. Former because it was destroyed by an earthquake and only (very) partially restored.  All that really remains today are the somewhat abbreviated minaret and the floor plan laid out as a series of partial height columns. But it still looks pretty cool and judging by the number of people picnincking, posing for photos and playing amongst the forest of columns, its still a popular spot for Morrocan and foreign tourists and Rabat residents alike.

For dinner we contented ourselves (as we did for maybe half of our meals in Morocco!) with bread, olives and tomatoes.  The bread was usually either round, soft Moroccan loaves, or crusty French baguettes (another legacy of the colonial era).  The Moroccan bread was more reliable, but the baguettes were often good, sometimes very good, with a crispy, crusty outside and a dense chewy interior.  The olives meanwhile, were pretty much always great. Dedicated olive shops would be fronted with great piles of multiple varieties. Often they'd be flavoured with preserved lemon, or parsley or ground nuts or garlic or hot pepper or various combinations of these.  And at around NZD2.50 a kilo it's no surprise that we ate lots and lots of them.

It was yet another early morning for transportation as we returned to the station, this time heading southward along the coast via Casablanca (where we stopped for a coffee and to change trains) to the small city of El Jadida.

We arrived just after noon and were met at the station by my friend Gareth.  We know one another from my annual visits to the World Boardgaming Championships in the US, where I think he is probably the only regular attendee from Africa.  We headed back to his place and met his roommates Austin, She and (the one whose name I've forgotten) (cats) and Douschka (small dog, who was the newest addition to the family).  Douschka had just recently been spayed, and so was wearing a cone round her neck to keep her from biting at her stitches. The cone led to lots of intrigued questions from Moroccans as we took her for walks on the nearby beach.  And the operation itself led to Gareth's Moroccan co-workers going from regarding him as a kind gentleman for rescuing a street dog to seeing him as a big meanie for denying his pet the joys of sex and motherhood.

On our first afternoon with Gareth we had a look around the old Portuguese fortress at the centre of town.  We had a fabulous lunch at a fancy restaurant (roughly four times the price of our meals in Meknes, but that fish Tagine… perfectly cooked and packed full of delicious herbs and caramelized veggies…)

We went for a walk up on the ramparts and took a visit down to the cistern, whose magical atmosphere is perfected by the shallow pool of water they allow to remain on its bottom, forming a perfect mirror of the arched roof and well opening above.

We finished the day with a drive out to the even more lovely Sidi Bouzid beach South of town to take Douschka for another walk and then to enjoy dinner on a rooftop terrace overlooking the Atlantic.

Back home before bed I got to try my first two Moroccan beers: Flag (pretty average boring international lager) and Casablanca (surprisingly okay pilsner).

The next day we took a road trip down the coast road.  It was a weird mix of lovely (wild beaches and rocky points) and yucky (phosphate factories, petrochemical plants and a coal fired power station).  But Oualidia, where we stopped for (another delicious seafood based) lunch was magical. It had a huge lagoon, mostly blocked from the wild, ragged waves of the Atlantic by sand dunes, and probably the loveliest beach yet.  It's no wonder it's a major beach resort in the summer. In March, however it was pretty quiet, with only boatmen offering rides out on the lagoon and guys on mopeds selling oysters to distract from the tranquility.

Back home we prepared a dinner of curry and roti (a wee taste of home for Gareth who, though having lived in Morocco for nine years, is originally from the UK).  While cooking and eating we tried our first Moroccan wine. Alcohol is legal in Morocco, but licenses to sell it are few, and it's usually tucked away in dark dusty shops or segregated corners of a few select supermarkets.  The wine was surprisingly good. We had two (genuinely “gris”) pinot gris and enjoyed them both. Morocco's winemakers have obviously made the most of their hot, dry Mediterranean climate and the French legacy.

Later that evening Gareth and I talked games a bit (I was distressed to learn that I'm statistically the worst player in WBC history at Napoleonic Wars, though I blame this on the fact that I actively seek out opportunities to play long-suffering Austria).  And Gareth showed of the prototype of a his Wars of the French Revolution game that I'm honestly excited to try out.

And that was our busy visit to El Jadida.  The next morning Gareth drove us to the bus station in town, we (with the assistance of learning where and when buses were departing to) decided on a destination and we were once again off to explore more of Morocco.

Mazelike Medina, Sunshine and Cedars

Fes airport is small, modern and doesn't see too many flights in.  When we arrived it seemed there was literally about one immigration officer for each passenger.

Once through immigration we got some Moroccan cash, picked up a local SIM card and went out to find the bus into town. This was simple and cheap, though it did involve a twenty minute stop where schoolboys climbed all over it, including the small space in between the exit turnstile and the doors, on the roof and all over the sides and windows, banging jarringly all the while.

On arriving the Fes train station our preplanning ended.  We tried to get a taxi into the Medina (old walled city) with an American couple we'd met on the bus, but all the drivers seemed to want double the normal fare, claiming (truthfully but confusingly, as it turned out) that they could only take three passengers.  So then we parted ways and searched for the bus into the Medina which it turned out, despite the lack of signage, left from the same stop we'd got off the airport bus at.

The old town is completely separate from the Vielle Nouvelle, and the little bus took us right into its heart via one of the very few roads to penetrate the labyrinth.  We had a few ideas of where we might like to stay but everyone says (largely correctly) that you WILL get lost in the Medina, so we decided to just dive right in and see what we found.

We found a maze of ancient looking alleyways, none more than a couple of metres wide, twisting, turning and regularly dead ending.  After about ten minutes we wandered into a dead end. On our way back out a Moroccan man about my age wearing a grey tracksuit with terrible teeth but a big warm smile asked (in English) what we were looking for.  We were hesitant. Morocco in general and the Fes Medina in particular have a reputation of being filled with people that want to “guide” tourists around to places they get a commission, or to nowhere in particular.  But this guy seemed genuine enough, and we really were at least a little lost, so we told him we were looking for a place to stay. “Oh, I can take you to a guesthouse. Or you'd be welcome to stay at my home. It's just around the corner.  Come and have some tea!”

We were again hesitant, but decided to give it a go.  Sarah in particular didn't feel like (at best) having to be a “good guest” or at worst having a repeat of one of the (infrequent, but  existent) situations we've run into where friendly “hosts” try to get TOO friendly. But at the same time, some of our best travel experiences have come from saying yes to invitations like this, so we decided to at least have a cup of tea.

Anouar's (that was our host’s name) crumbly but charming old home (the fountain on its outside wall was dated 1404) we talked with him a bit, drank tasty sweet mint tea, ate biscuits and met his wife and sister.  He invited us again to be his guests, saying we'd be free to come and go as we pleased and spend as much or as little time with the family as we liked. Eventually, after a visit to a gorgeous but very expensive guesthouse, and further reiterations of his invitation we decided, once again to say yes.

Around 17:00 we shared a meal of chicken and vegetable couscous with the family. Unusual, as traditional couscous is time consuming to prepare and usually a Friday meal in Morocco (“like fish for Catholics!” several people would tell us) but Anouar's mother usually made it twice a week.  It was delicious! The veggies and chicken and olives were good, but the warm, savoury couscous itself was probably my favourite part.

We had a tour of house, with its three stories and atrium, its rooftop garden and camera obscura, which looked out over a wide swathe of Medina rooftops (complete with satellite dishes) and a green tile and sandstone minaret.

After an hour or two of making ourselves at home, we decided to go out exploring again and Anouar offered to show us around.  As we walked through the bustling square we met one of his friends and Anouar suggested we walk a few paces behind him as the police sometimes hassle Moroccans who aren’t licensed guides and are walking with with foreigners. This was in an effort to stop the constant hassling of tourists by faux guides (and largely seems to have been successful, as we met very few of these hustlers during our stay).

Anyhow, I can imagine a lot of readers reading this and saying to themselves “this isn't going to end well”.  These readers would be somewhat correct, but probably not in the way they're thinking.

Anouar took us into the maze of the commercial area of the Medina, which was much, much busier than the residential area where we met.  Each alley was crammed full of shops, and every few minutes Anouar would stop to greet someone he knew or to explain what was being manufactured or sold at each location.  Shoes, copper, pewter, leather, ceramics, traditional Moroccan caftans, handbags… The medina was like a huge artisan’s shopping mall. After while we wandered into a newer section lined with small, brightly lit stalls and a beautiful smiling cedar roof maybe seven or eight metres above. Here Anouar introduced us to a friend of his with a hat stall.  He was a friendly fellow, and greeted us with a big smile even though he spoke no English and limited French.

As we left the market, turning a corner past a mosque it appeared that Anouar stopped to talk with a couple more friends.  We paused and as we waited, a couple of casually dressed Moroccans asked us (in English) “are you waiting for him?” I replied affirmatively and they immediately walked back to Anoaur, grabbed him by the arm and led him off to… who knows where.

His friend we'd met in the square was still with us and assured us that everything was fine. We became less certain of this when the plainclothes police returned and, after looking at his ID card, carted him off as well.

There wasn't much for us to do at this point but to walk back to Anoaur's friend's hat shop and hope he'd return.  We had no idea where we were, our backpacks (though not our money and passports) were back at Anouar's house, which we couldn't have found to save our lives and we had no idea how or where to find other accomodations.

The hat seller friend also assured us that everything was fine, and offered us a plastic stool to sit on while we waited.  But I just needed to pace. We were getting decidedly nervous. All of the shops were closing up around us and it was well after dark.  My mind was racing and I began to conjure up terrible thoughts of what was going on. Visions of our new friend stuck in a police station, being beaten up as he tried to explain that we were just a couple of tourists he'd befriended and welcomed as guests in his home and country.  Imaginings of how this was all an elaborate scam and how we'd never see our backpacks again, or how Anouar would reappear with a story of a massive fine that we'd feel obliged to pay, or worse still, that we'd be led into an alley and robbed once the souq (market) had finished emptying out.

It felt like we were waiting there for ages, though was probably no more than about twenty minutes.  When the hat shop started to close up too we went back and the proprietor asked us “Maison de Anouar?”  Yes! We most assuredly did want to go back there. He led us though still more inscrutable alleyways back to the house, where we were greeted by Anouar's wife.  My thoughts of scams or robbery had faded, but as Anouar wasn't home yet, my nervousness about having got him into serious trouble hadn't. It only disappeared when his sister (who spoke good French  and English) came downnstairs, offered us some tea and told us that she'd just talked to her brother and that he was fine and sitting in a cafe.

I'd been on edge and filled with adrenaline for some time, and this huge relief coupled with having woken up early in Barcelona sent me to bed before Anouar even got home.

The next morning all was fine.  Anouar appeared and explained that it was no big deal, that he'd had this happen before and that he'd just had to go to the police station and spend twenty minutes or so explaining that he wasn't scamming or otherwise hassling us, that he really was just being hospitable and then had been sent on his way.  Whew!

We shared a fabulous traditional Moroccan breakfast of coffee, tea, olive oil, bread, fried pancakes, olives, fruit and eggs.  Then

Annouar led us down to the square from which we'd entered the Medina.  We took a notebook with us and made note of each turn so that we'd be able to find our way back.  Before sending us on our way we exchanged phone numbers with Anouar and he told us that we shouldn't hesitate to call him if we needed anything or if we got lost or if anyone was bothering us or for any reason at all really.

From there we were on our own again.  We entered the Medina by the same gate we'd used the previous day, but this time steered away from the commercial area (or at least the flashy, more touristy looking commercial area).

I'd like to claim that my fabulous sense of direction worked admirably and that we always knew right where we were going and never got lost in the Fes Medina.  But this would be entirely untrue. We spent the first hour or two wandering around one corner of it, seeing lots of fun local shops, scenes of day to day life and ancient mud and brick architecture.  But we also regularly kept seeing the same (for example) fruit salesman over and over again, often only minutes apart as we unintentionally walked in circles.

We eventually found our way back to the artisan's quarter.  It was fantasically busy and looked, sounded and smelled it as well.  With some minor difficulty we found Anoaur's friend with the hat stall and thanked him for leading us home the previous night.  We wandered the streets and alleys for hours, checking our ancient caravanserais, peering into mosques (entry to which is forbidden to non-Muslims in Morocco), dodging tour groups of two to thirty foreigners, led by English, French, German speaking guides, sniffing woodworking shops and cafes and spice stalls.  The whole atmosphere of the Medina was magical. I felt like I could spend a lifetime just wandering around.

After a while we found our way onto the main drag (still no more than three or four metres wide) and followed signs up towards the main upper gate.  We got dragged off to visit a tannery (one of Fes’ most noteable attractions) by a faux-guide, but knowing what we were getting into and how much we were willing to pay him for directions (around NZD1.50) were fine with this.  It smelled terrible, but did look pretty cool, especially the dye pits down on the bottom level.

We visited a gorgeous old Medressah (Koranic school) and sat in the shady courtyard for ages, watching other tourists, Moroccan and foreign alike, come and go.

And we eventually found our way out of the Medina and into the gardens nearby.  After a stroll through these we popped into the bus station to inquire about buses to our destination the next morning and finally headed up a nearby hill for a visit to the ruins of the Merenid tombs, resting place of Fes’ original imperial rulers.  The view out over the Medina was grand, and the swirling, echoing calls to prayer from dozens of mosques within was beautiful and exotic.

We actually found our way home with a minimum of trouble, stopping to buy a bag of kiwifruit (how appropriate!) as a gift for our hosts.  We shared dinner with Anoaur, his wife sitting quietly nearby, only speaking occasionally. Despite the fact that we could communicate okay in French, we only talked with her a little bit.  And I scarcely saw his mom at all, only once catching glimpse of her when I looked up the atrium and she looked down from two floors above. Both of us quickly looked away.

So when I say “we talked/ate with the family,” I'm mostly referring to Anouar and his sister.  They both enjoyed telling us about their home and country the work they did as artisans (when at their other family home down south of Marakech, Anouar was a weaver, but in Fes he just helped out at a small shoe manufacturer when they were busy).  They told us that many foreigners were buying houses in the Medina, to live in or to turn into guesthouses and that the old rugged Medina houses were prized by both Europeans and many Moroccans and cost almost twice what a similar sized one would in the new city.

It felt like we'd jammed an amazing amount into our less than 48 hours in Fes, but by the next morning we did worry a little that we were overstaying our welcome.  Plus it was time to move on anyway. So after another great breakfast we said goodbye to our new friends. We left some money with Anouar to help pay for the food we'd eaten, etc., which he shyly but happily accepted.  Despite our initial nervousness about the place, Fes in general and Anouar and family in particular had given us the absolute best possible introduction to their country. We could only hope that the rest of our visit would be as wonderful.

One more walk through the Medina and we were back at the bus station and headed up into the Middle Atlas mountains, 80km or so south of Fes to the town of Azrou.

The road was surprisingly good, so we climbed up the dry hills filled with small villages and grazing sheep quickly.

In Azrou we found ourselves a hotel fairly quickly and went out for a walk around town.  We picked up a couple of baguettes and some olives for a late lunch and sat on a rocky hillside looking out over the town and it's surroundings

Back at the square we were invited into a shop by a Berber carpet salesman.  He showed us dozens of carpets, giving a fun tour of the local tribes via their very diverse designs.  He and his partner seemed more amused than disappointed when we told them that we ourselves were nomads and didn't have anywhere to put a carpet.

The next morning we had a breakfast of crepe (really more like a Malaysian roti than a French crepe) and sat at one of the town's many cafés, sipping on two long blacks as the town began its daily business.  Things only really get going in Morocco around 10:00, so by the the time we'd picked up picnic lunch supplies for our planned walk out in the mountains it was approaching 11:00.

We headed out of town, following a mix of vague directions from a travel guide, trails shown on OpenStreetMaps and GPS tracks I'd downloaded from the internet.  This all worked amazingly well. We followed a small river valley up to, then through rocky pasture lands. We briefly joined a road and explored the remains of an abandoned colonial era Catholic monastery.  Then left the road and climbed uphill and into the forest.

The cedar forest around Azrou is the only one in Africa, and our walk through it was about as lovely as you could hope for.  We didn't see another soul as we followed roughly worn trails, occasionally adjusting our path to follow a GPS track. This was easy to do as the cedars were well spaced and had pretty much no understory.  Fresh, clean mountain air, the beautiful smell of the trees and clear, deep blue sky above. It was idyllic.

As we approached another road we came across a big troupe (fifty? one hundred?) of Barbary Macaques, the only wild population of non-human primates in Africa north of the Sahara.  They are big monkeys, entirely unafraid of humans, but not at all pushy or aggressive like some of the Asian macaques can be.

We turned left at the road, wandering along its rutted, potholed length.  Normally there would still be plenty of snow up here at 1700m, but it had been a warm, dry winter and there were only a few very small patches left.

We breathed deeply for the smell and picked rosehips to eat as we walked (they were some of the tastiest ones I've ever had, but very seedy, and full of prickly hairs, so it was a lot of work, eventually more than I could be bothered with, to ready them for eating).  On this road the only traffic we saw was a small convoy of military and Red Crescent vehicles.

After an hour or so we joined a busier road leading into the busiest part of the Irfane National Park.  There was still only sparse traffic, but from here on in the walk, while pleasant, didn't have quite the magic that the first half had.  We ambled along road and 4WD trails to the Gouraud Cedar, Morocco's largest tree. Or perhaps I should say formerly Morocco's largest tree, as it had been dead for some time.  It was still quite the tourist attraction though, and as we headed along the road to Azrou we were offered a ride by some Moroccan visitors, a retired law professor and two current law students.  The prof spoke English very well (better than our French) and we had a nice chat as we drove, mostly answering his and his proteges’ questions about NZ (though they were already pretty well informed about our home country).  On our way back we took a neat, if slightly random trip to a fish farm where they grew huge rainbow trout and, to my astonishment, sturgeon as well.

Back in Azrou we said farewell as they returned to Fes and we returned to our hotel room where we spent the evening looking over and listening to the bustle in the small square below our window, once again still too full from our simple lunch to think about having dinner.

The next morning was time to move on again.  We drank coffees in the sun (long blacks again, which the Moroccans call “cafés alongees” and which cost about NZD1 in cafés/tea shops) before catching the bus down out of the mountains again, this time to the city of Meknes, just west of Fes on the main highway.  As we drove, I looked out at the landscape. It was dry, rumpled and amazingly rocky. Simply removing the stones from the land looked like it would be a full time job, much less growing anything. But as in many inhospitable places, so far we'd experienced wonderful hospitality in Morocco.