Morocco Day 3 - Fes el Bali - The Old City

Since we got into Fes so late, we took the first hotel we could find. It was called Hotel Erraha and was recommended by a seemingly nice young guy named Kareem. He set us up with a decent room at a good price (about $8 for the night) and offered to take us around the town the next morning. Oh, and this hotel, well hostel, also had hot showers for only $1.50. BTW, this was our one and only shower of the trip.

This painted map of Morocco was on the wall of our hotel.

This Riad was opened by a Jewish-American from Las Vegas. He apparently bought a bunch of property and built a luxury hotel that goes for over 1000 dirhams (about $90) a night. That's A LOT for Fes, but I imagine behind the wood doors are free hot showers, cushy beds, maybe even spa services.

This is the original entrance to the city. Ornate with tile and intricate details. But small. Not even the taxis could make it through that opening.

It's a school bus!!!! CUUUUUTE!!! It's taking kids to the Koranic school that teaches them about Islam and the Koran. It is one of two schools children attend. The other is a government school that teaches the basic subjects.

Here's the government school.

This is an old tradition. A Muslim woman could not leave the house without her husband. If she was seen in public without her husband, it would disgrace her and her husband. So, if the husband was at work or out of the house, she'd have to call down to someone on the street and ask that person to get whatever she might need - milk, meat, whatever. She'd dropped her money down the bottom of this window covering and the person would place her items in a bucket which she'd get using a rope to pull it up to her. Kareem, the tour guide, insists that this is a really old and dying custom. The family that lives here is very traditional.

This is a real working tannery, or leather making shop. It was one of the stops on the tour. Here, the workers strip the hides of fur, wash them in limestone and pigeon shit (I'm quoting the guide here), then dye the leather using natural dyes like indigo, poppy seed, saffron, etc.

It smelled REALLY BAD as you can imagine. I mean, they deal with dead animal skin here, from sheep, camels, and cows. Ugh! The guide gave us each a bunch of fresh mint to smell while we were up on the roof looking over at the tannery.

There was a gift shop at the tannery, too. I was swindled into buying two purses. The guy who owned the shop could tell I was nervous about the purchase and told me, "Close your eyes and imagine all the Moroccan artisans and craftsmen you will be helping if you make this purchase." SUCKA!!! I walked out of there with $200 less than I walked in with.

This guy's job is to bake bread for the town. People can bring him their dough and he cooks it in a stone oven over wood fire. It smelled so good!

Here's Jess and I eating our complimentary bread straight from the oven. YUMMY!!!

This is to give you an idea of narrow "streets" we were walking down. And this one is actually a pretty good size. Some were so tight, I wondered if I'd get stuck. According to Kareem, those types of alleyways are not for the "fat Americans." (He wasn't referring to us. I think...)
This was last stop on our tour, which in all honesty, was Kareem's way of making commission off of us by taking us to his buddies shops. This is a weaving business owned by a Berber family, descendents of the mountain villagers. They make large rugs and blankets using sheep wool, camel fur, and catcus fibers.

I, of course, bought a tapestry. It could fit a freakin' queen-size bed, but I had to buy it. Apparently the livelihood of the Berber tradition rested on Darby and I making purchases here. At least with this stop I wasn't the only SUCKA! But really, I LOVE what I got. It's aqua blue and green from catcus and camel fur.

This is from the terrace of our hostel. Great view! This part of Fes was so dense. You can kind of see it in the background. It reminded me of San Francisco with buildings piled on top of each other.

At about 12:00 noon, we decided we'd had enough of the Old City and walked to the Ville Nouvelle (the New City). It was a quick 3-4 mile walk down the road.