Wednesday, September 24, 2014

9/23 -- Explore Fez

Into the medina
I had another unhappy morning, so Jim set off with the group to tour Fes without me. Fortunately, a couple hours later, I was fine and Driss left the group with the local guide and came back to get me so I could join the rest of the tour. At the tour's start, the group did other stuff that Jim barely remembers so I will have to get him to review the pictures.

Fes

Ceramics workshop

Ancient and modern modes of transportation

A really narrow lane - one was so small,
Jim had scraped off stucco on both sleeves
Camel meat was available.
We entered the souk, which by mid-day gets quite busy, and wandered through the narrow lanes gaping at all the food and other things on sale.We entered a tiny, busy shop that had once been the Moroccan equivalent of a caravansarai - a safe place for a caravan to stay overnight. We encountered a number of pack horses and donkeys as well as carts as we navigated the narrow lanes. We stopped outside a famous mosque that was founded in 859, but were not allowed in. We stopped at another mosque(?) back door that had an eight-pointed star that was the equivalent of a wishing well -- you put your hand on the star to ask for your wish. We also got a peek at some of the very fancy wedding furniture that people rented, including elaborate seats for the married couple and carriages to bring in the bride.

The Moroccan version of a caravansarai

Candy nougat artfully displayed
Famous mosque

Wishing star

Young woman posing for a friend at the front of the wishing star spot.

Bridal carriage

Jim, the touareg
Then it was lunch time, this time another vegetable tagine with some beef and fresh fruit for dessert. Then it was back to the bridal row to visit a weaving factory. They showed us the loom and how it worked and then displayed a number of the fabrics. These were more oriented to household use than clothing, and several were quite lovely. They also had several in our party model Moroccan fashions. Joel and Joan made a perfectly lovely  Moroccan couple, and Jim was dressed up as a Touareg nomad.

Joan and Joel

Tannery -- white vats are quicklime, color vats behind with
drying areas on the outer edges
Back in the narrow lanes, we headed to a tannery and got a viewpoint of the dyeing works. Leather is first soaked in quicklime, then moved to the colored vats, which use only natural dyes. It sits in the vats for 4-5 days before it is removed for drying, then scraping, and other processes to make it supple. This place works with sheepskin, goatskin, cowhide, and dromedary hide. Our host made it very clear that Africa has dromedaries (one hump), not camels (two humps). Then we were led into a sales shop. I was actually looking for a purse to better complement the colors I had been wearing on the US portion of the trip than the red bag I brought. But we started with coats and right away I found a red one that was becoming and a good shade. Finding the light fuchsia shade I wanted in a purse was a bit more of a challenge, but I walked away with more stuff, and started to wonder how it will get home!  Fortunately, I only have earrings left on my list of potential purchases. Jim is thinking of a rug, but that will be shipped, not carried on the plane, if we find one.

Behind the tannery, the sea of satellite dishes on the houses
was amazing.

Our host family for dinner
This evening we headed out again for dinner with a local family. Our host was a used car dealer, his wife, and younger daughter. He knows a bit of English, but his daughter was quite fluent. She is a college student studying business and confirmed what we had learned earlier about the changes in the life of young women in Morocco. We talked about cars too, and saw the wedding pictures from her older sister, explaining some of the marriage customs here, which fit right in with some of the specialty shops we had walked by in the morning. Dinner was excellent too, and before we knew it, we had to return to our riad for the night.

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