The train pulled into the Fes train station and I sauntered out and met my awaiting driver. Everywhere I go besides America people call me “Ree-ahn,” So I have grown accustomed to being called this as well as introducing myself this way. It just makes it easier for everyone.
Walking down a Fes market.
The driver tooled around the new city and as we crested a hilltop I stared out onto this complex labyrinth of small clay buildings piled on top of each other in fantastic chaos. This was the old medina (medina=city in Arabic). The old medina of Fes is one of the three oldest cities in Arabic history. You may have heard of the other two: Jerusalem and Damascus. This city I was about to walk into predates Christ. Not much has changed since. I was soon to come to a new understanding of the development of human life from this short excursion into the medina of Fes, Morocco.
We get to the entrance of the medina at the bottom of a large hill. The driver stops and tells me that he cannot go any further. There are no cars allowed in the medina and I would have to wait here. I paid him 10€ and he left me there with a suitcase and a messenger bag and a lost look upon my face.
He told me not to worry, someone would be by soon. As the diesel fumes and dust from him driving away washed over me, I couldn’t help but remember the last time a taxi driver told me that: I ended up sleeping in the Florence train station, clinging to my bags while being harassed by hobos and drunks.
Fortunately a man appeared out of the bustling city entrance and walked over to me. He offered to take me to the riad (Arabic for garden, but associated with family-run hotels). We entered the city.
Walking into this place made me realize what life was like in the ancient world. The walkways are narrow (2-meters at the widest) and they are surrounded on both sides by 10+ meter walls. Within the streets are all variety of life and death. Bustling shoppers and shopkeepers haggle for goods. The poor and the sick huddle against the walls as people shuffle by them. Cats, dogs and horses stick to the walls; some scrounging, some working, some dying. Shit and piss sit randomly wherever you walk from whatever animal was there earlier. All of this is completely within arms reach. There is no distancing yourself from the palpable reality of the different stages of life. I can understand how in biblical times this would be so much more of a concern than passing a sick panhandler on an offramp in these modern days.
Looking into one of the mosques. Non-Muslims not allowed inside.
We finally reached the riad after a ten-minute walk through the labyrinth of Fes. It was a nothing of a building whose heavy wooden door was down a dark, narrow alley. We walked into the building and there couldn’t be a bigger juxtaposition between the exterior and interior. Inside the building, it opened into an ornate area that reached up four stories to the skylight above. Intricately carved wood patterns adorned the walls and three meter-tall wooden carved doors stood ominously on each wall. There was a dry fountain in the middle of the open area surrounded by small plants and several tables and couches.
Upon entering, I was immediately offered a cool mint-scented wet towel to rub the sweat off my face and neck, a warm cup of fresh-mint tea and some cookies. It seems that, despite my initial impressions, I had chosen wisely.
I could go on for hours describing this place, the impeccable hospitality, the course-after-course of delectable Moroccan food and the breathtaking views of this ancient city from the rooftop, but let’s just leave it at amazing. By far one of the coolest places I have ever stayed at (and I’ve stayed in a treehouse). Go for yourself if you want to really understand.
I requested the riad arrange a tour the next day and in the morning after breakfast I met Abdul. I would soon find out that Abdul was Mr. Personality around the medina. As he showed me around for the next five hours, he greeted 300 people or more, each with equal intensity as the last.
The tour started out pretty normally, but I started to catch onto the underlying driving force of Abdul’s plan. Maybe this is normal in Fes, or maybe Abdul is a tourism mastermind, but either way, this tour was more than ordinary. I will tell you how it went down.
It started out simply enough. We walked down the streets and twisted our ways into the heart of the city. He brought me to the main city square, an empty place with a large silver maple tree growing in its center.
“Everything is closed now,” Abdul said as we walked passed closed shops, “but they will open soon. You will see.”
We walked around for a while and we saw several mosques (I wasn’t allowed in), the oldest university in the world (est. 629 AD) and some historical buildings that traced the construction of Fes through various artifacts. All normal stuff right?
Then the weird things started happening.
Abdul led me down a dark alley.
A totally un-staged photo op.
“Keep going down there and take a picture,” he said nonchalantly, pointing into the cool darkness of a cramped alleyway, the ceiling only five-feet high.
So I walked down this alleyway, pretty sure I would have to fight someone off at the end of it. Instead, it opened up to a large skylight where several windows from the neighboring buildings opened up into. Peeking out of one was a weathered woman’s head staring down at me.
It was a perfect picture. A little too perfect. Before I shot, I spoke to the woman
“As-Salaam-Alaikum.” I said to her (‘Peace be with you’ in Arabic)
“You say it differently that we do,” and she disappeared into her window.
I didn’t get the shot, but I did get a Truman-Show vibe. We walked on.
After a few more moments where we would show up at the perfect photo op and someone would magically walk past, or be sitting in an interesting position, I started to get suspicious of Abdul. Sure I was getting great photos, but there was a lack of spontaneity about them that was too coincidental.
“How about a whiskey?” Abdul asked.
I looked at my watch. It was 11:00. “A bit early for me, maybe later,” I told him.
“No no, we get Moroccan whiskey now. It’s good for your health.” Abdul said.
We twisted through another series of mazes until we walked into a tiny shop with a few herbs growing in pots outside, six seats inside its tiny space and an old man working an espresso machine in the back. The whole space couldn’t have been more than four m2.
“How do you like your Moroccan whiskey?” Abdul asked, “You can have mint, sage, absinthe,”
“Why not all of them?” I asked, curious what I was getting into.
Abdul translated and everyone in the shop laughed.
“You are strong man,” Abdul said to me, “Good choice.”
A few minutes later I was handed a small glass packed to the brim with the three herbs, smothered in green tea and some melted sugar.
“Moroccan whiskey,” Abdul smiled, “Enjoy.”
I took one sip and breathed in the aroma of the concoction. It was powerful and herbal, but the sugar cut the bite. It was actually pretty good. It had a dizzying effect from so many herbs, I can see why it is called a ‘whiskey.’
The famous Fes tannery dye-pots.
The obviously staged photo ops were finished. The intoxicating beverage consumption complete. Now Abdul went in for the kill. The next three hours consisted of going from “attraction” to “attraction,” which happened to be run and controlled by some of the more successful businessmen (and women) in the city. We stopped at a tour of a traditional Moroccan rug factory (one loom) and I was bombarded by that Arabic negotiating style. Then to the leather factory, then to the jewelry store, then to the herbal medicine store. By the time I was touring the traditional Moroccan massage parlor getting pressured to set up a masseuse for later, I got fed up with Abdul’s blatant capitalistic tactics. I told him I was finished with the tour and we finally headed back to the riad. Of course we had to stop at the traditional Moroccan scarf factory along the way.
A traditional Fes taxi. Horse-donkey mix. Another "random" photo op.
This boy just wouldn’t quit. But kudos to him and his drive. I can respect that.
The rest of the evening I just relaxed and recounted the events of the day. I was caught up on how little this place has changed over the past 2500 years. I don’t think there was that much of a difference, besides a few TVs and some cheap Chinese gadgets, from when Roman soldiers walked those same streets. That idea was both intriguing and humbling. Intriguing in that I was able to get a taste of how an ancient people lived and humbling in the fact that I am but a grain of sand in a desert of human beings who have lived on this planet.
As I went to sleep, the whole city resonated in the guttural sound of the evening prayers blasting in unison out of the many mosques in earshot. I was like an “ohm” meditation in a yoga class, but engulfing an entire city of over a million people. It shook the walls of the city in a meditative vibration like I have never felt before. It’s something I never really got about Islam until then. In that powerful moment, I understood something very beautiful about this ancient religion and how they are trying to engage their people in the best way they know how. I kind of wish the Catholic prayers were broadcast over a loudspeaker in my neighborhood every night. But I live in America and you can’t do that there.
It was a wonderful adventure into an ancient land, but the train keeps rollin’ and I head to Marrakesh tomorrow.