A view of Fes from Riad Verus’ roof
Encountering Fes
The city of Fes is not beautiful in a conventional sense. There are plastic bottles littering the streets and other bits of garbage tucked into the spaces in the pavement or jammed into the gap between walls. The odors leaking from odd stalls in the medina and the deep chemical stench of tanneries that lingers along some of the claustrophobic alleyways is suffocating. The wooden latticing put up over the walk to block out the intensity of the midday sun might lead you to think you had wandered into a tomb. The houses are bright, but plain with bars covering every window. The women in Fes wear everything from tank tops to full body burqas and malnourished kittens dart between walls.
Yet, for all the overwhelming asthetic ambiguity and odiferousness, we found a wealth of kindness and a depth of culture. It was epitomized by the unwavering pride of our driver, Ali, who took us to Ifrane and eagerly pointed out all the beauty of his homeland along the way. “See this?” he asked, “This is one of the best universities, in honor of Hassan II, many students from Britain, America, China, France come here. Very good place.” Or, “See here, very beautiful view” or “here the homes of the bedouin, Berber peoples.” Ali is proud of Morocco and after he asked me, “First time in Morocco?” and I responded, “Yes, it’s very interesting and very beautiful,” he was so pleased he beamed at me like a proud father.
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And the hospitality at our riad was astounding. At first, when we entered Riad Verus, we were slightly confused. The main room was open and there were a number of people relaxing in it like a living room. The place itself was somewhere between a hostel and a guest house. But soon, the energetic manager, Mandy, beckoned us in.
“Have a drink, tea or coffee?” I chose tea, which I later discovered is a traditional drink offered to guests everywhere in Morocco, consisting of fresh mint leaves, hot water, and an excessive amount of sugar. It was nice, and surprisingly refreshing despite the heat. “Enjoy your drink, then we will check you in.” We soon learned about ‘Moroccan time’, the way in which 30 minutes is mysteriously added to your calendar and how, in Morocco, things have no set time, only occurring maybe an hour after they are scheduled. There is a certain amount of relaxation involved in it, the kind of relaxing that perhaps uptight westerners could practice more. In the end it was good because everything we wanted to see had been there for hundreds of years and wasn’t going anywhere. So we relaxed too.
The Medina
On the way to the medina
After we checked in, we went to the medina, Fes’ ancient market, with its crowded stalls shielded from daylight by lattices and towering walls. It’s easy to become lost in the labyrinth that exists inside, and as Mandy told us, “it’s safe, just don’t go down any empty alleyways with the shady guys.”
Invariably we did, but we found, despite my paranoid disposition, there was no real danger, and finally, by the third day, we were ready to interact with shopkeepers and barter for fossils, olives, saffron, and khli (a fermented meat breakfast mixture). They didn’t try to rip us off, not at all. In fact, when one of the shopkeepers hadn’t finished giving me my change, and I absent-mindedly walked off, he chased after me, startling me a bit, thrusting a 50 dirham note into my hand.
After living in New York City for over two years, it takes a while to get back to normal: not jumping when someone makes a noise, not clutching your bag tighter when someone walks close, and not believing the worst in people. We relaxed a bit more.
There were many hidden gems in the shadows of the medina. Aside from the sites of interests, such as the now-defunct madrasa and university library, there were surprising cafes and shops tucked far down winding, shrinking alleyways. Notably, we found ourselves in Robert Johnstone’s restaurant, The Ruined Garden, at dusk one day for coffee and chocolate espresso mousse with ras al hanout spice crusted on top. As the name suggests, you really are seated in an enchanting ruined garden that you would never have guessed was there. The medina is full of surprises.
Anzou & Ifrane
Riding in the car up to Anzou to see the Cedar Forest and the Morrocan Macaques that live there, we saw the countryside pass by on the way up into the Atlas Mountains. We saw the Berbers, clustered along the mountains in their makeshift housing, children out herding sheep and the men with their donkeys carrying loads of things back and forth. On the side of the road, police officers, in their crisp uniforms, wearing the five-pointed star of the Moroccan flag stood smoking or chatting with their fellow officers. The heat was almost unbearable, even in the air-conditioned vehicle, yet life went on outside as always though sweltering waves of heat rose from the asphalt.
Ifrane was interesting to see. Orderly, clean and tidy, it is the place Moroccans all want to go for vacation. The well-to-do Moroccans go to ski and escape the mess of the bigger cities, the poor Moroccans dream of someday glimpsing snow there or renting a villa to see the ‘Swiss’ style houses and streets. We got out and thought, “this place is boring, it looks like suburban New Jersey, let’s go see some Moroccan stuff.”
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“This music,” said Ali, turning up the radio, “is the music of the Berber peoples.” He tapped his hand on the wheel along to the erratic rythmn of the drums. At a time when it is so hard to appreciate my own country, and almost painful to apologize to others for what’s happening there, it was heart-warming to see someone celebrating the deep cultural roots of his own people.
We also took a cooking class, more or less, with Fatima, the maid/cook/motherly figure at the riad. Her calmness, as she walked head on into traffic on the way to the market, not flinching as a rearview mirror came hurtling past her elbow, was inspiring. We tottled along behind her in the medina like lost children as she purchased the ingredients for the meal we woud cook, all while I was trying to communicate with her in my long-forgotten French. She gave us the grunt work for the lamb tagine, and I failed at peeling onions in the cramped kitchen of the riad, and I couldn’t help but think it must be hilarious to the staff at the riad (“Look, these idiots are paying us money to help us cook a meal for them!”). But it was fun. After we cooked the food, I asked Mandy, “Isn’t Fatima going to join us to eat?” Apparently not, as Mandy shook his head disapprovingly, clarifying what I meant: “The maid?”
A Bunch of Travelers
It wasn’t just the Moroccans we enjoyed meeting. In the riad at night, we had a lively evening of cards after the dinner put on by the owner as a photo-op for their TripAdvisor page. We swapped new games and anecdotes about travel. A British/Peruvian traveler told us of her strange experience in a hammam, the traditional Moroccan bath house, being scrubbed naked by an old local, and an oddball Canadian told us about an intense experience buying a rug before being forced to ride on the owner’s motorcycle to find an ATM. We met an Australian, in his fifth month of travel, who highly recommended that we give Albania a try. A few Turks gave us some friendly competition in the international version of Uno: Momo. It was fun to meet other itinerant travelers and realize they weren’t all disgusting hipsters, not all of them anyway.
The intersection of the Muslim world and the west, conveniently located at the meeting point of Morocco in North Africa, creates a strange and difficult culture to navigate, but fortunately the Moroccans are friendly guides. An online etiquette guide advised, “Do not discuss the conflict with Algeria, Western Sahara, drugs or the Royal Family,” all things came up in the first five minutes of conversation with Moroccans. It illuminated the point, guidebooks are for people who know what they want to see and only want to talk to tour guides.
Hassan II, a mosque in Casablanca
Here’s looking at you, Hassan II
The air in Casablanca is filthy. It’s a stinking cloud of toxic exhaust and about six weeks later I still have a vestige of the cough from the pollution there. But, pollution is reality now.
Sophie was also sick, so she didn’t get to see much of Casablanca other than a park under construction and 1920’s art deco house/art gallery, Villa des Artes. Instead, she had the opportunity to enjoy the freezing hotel room with the strange wrought-iron frame which had a painting of courtesans entertaining royalty inlaid into the bedframe.
Cafe Culture
Since Sophie was sick from accidentally brushing her teeth with tap water (fool), I walked around Casablanca solo, and enjoyed the medina and the casual cafes full of middle aged men enjoying tea and cigarettes. On absolutely every corner there is a cafe where countless men come every day to spend hours socializing, breathing in the noxious diesel fumes, and enjoying discourse about, well, I have no idea what they talk about for hours (what does anyone find to talk about for hours?). Plenty of men also came to sit alone and enjoy a peaceful cigarette with their coffee and gaze out at the never-ending buzz of traffic.
The night before, we had enjoyed dinner at Rick’s Cafe, a Casablanca-themed restaurant opened by an American diplomat, and now one of the premiere must-eat spots in Casablanca. Rick’s is a different kind of cafe (“Everyone who is anyone is at Rick’s”), the kind with a $5 dollar coffee instead of a $0.25 coffee. I used Rick’s as a reference point when navigating the city.
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Return to the Medina
Rick’s was near the medina, but I got lost anyway, and immediately a hawker latched on to me like a parasite, asking me what I was looking for. It’s a hard balance in Morocco because we have begun talking to people realizing they want to sell us something, or we have believed someone who began talking to us wanted to sell us something and it ended up they just wanted to talk to us. This leaves you feeling guilty, like a guest who has been rude to their host. And it sets you up, so that the next hawker you see, might just get your ear. It happened to me.
An inexplicable picture of more monkeys
The man dragged me around the medina for half an hour, “You must see my shop” and “Just look at my wares”, but in the end, none of them were his shop. Finally I was fed up, just as I saw something I might actually buy, a cashmere scarf. 400 dirhams was the price, around $40. I laughed, “100 dirhams”, the shop owner, egged on by the hawker, argued me to 109 dirhams. The man looked wounded parting with the scarf for this price, but I never set out to buy anything. The hawker, who had been so ‘friendly’ and ‘welcoming’ dissipated into the crowd wordlessly after he had my cash in hand.
Later on, I went to see Hassan II, the crowning achievement of Casablanca, a gigantic, gawdy piece of nationalist propaganda situated right down on the sea by the new highrises. I missed the last tour of the mosque, so instead I walked along the ocean and gazed out at the wild waves crashing against the rocks. Some locals swam, others fished with long deep-sea style poles. A few locals wanted to practice their English with me, I talked to one gentleman for quite a while. He offered to share his Coca-Cola with me and told me, “Casablanca is becoming a great city, just look at Hassan II. So big, so beautiful, it will be great city someday.” It really made me think about what makes a great city, is it one huge attraction? Decent public infrastructure? I don’t know.
We had just lived in New York, a place so many people love unconditionally, but when we lived there, to me, the city was anything but great. It was a festering, rat-filled pile of garbage that tested your patience, your grit, and your humanity to its limits. Like New York, Casablanca had character, I’d give it that much.
Make Casablanca Great Again
It’s funny because we’re always looking for places with fewer tourists, off the beaten path, but when you find these mythical places, you wonder, “What do I do here?”
The paradox is one of traveling. You want to go somewhere safe, somewhere welcoming, but so often these places are places a few adventurous travel pioneers went and now everyone goes. The problem is that when tourists arrive, so does development and menus in English. The people who lived there move away, the culturally hegemonic bulldozer rolls in and leaves a trail of Starbucks and Aeon Malls.
The greatest thing about Casablanca is that for all the grit and pollution there are almost no tourists. So, I hope it doesn’t become a ‘great city’ anytime soon because, despite its energy, Casablanca, like other parts of Morocco, are pretty relaxing. I just don’t want it to lose that vibe anytime soon, all because of ‘greatness’.
-Brian
idaknowwheretogo (I don't know where to go!) 