Casablanca and FEZ!!! The wonderful world of MOROCCO

Our travels from Egypt to Morocco could not have been any worse. We had to take a 3 1/2 hour bus ride from Alexandria to the Cairo Airport. Unfortunately for me, I am unable to sleep anywhere and everywhere unlike Jeremy. Needless to say, I was squished, stuffy and hot in the back of the bus while Jeremy was out like a lamb. When we arrived at the Airport, it was 1 am. We tried to check in but they would not let us do so until 3 hours before departure. This meant we were confined to the one restaurant across from the terminals. Passing the time was not too hard to do, we grabbed a bite to eat and battled each other in our new favourite game Sheshbesh. Once we cleared security, we were informed that our flight was one hour delayed – great! So now it is 8 am (7 hours since we arrived at the airport). We were both exhausted. Jeremy was able to sleep the entire plane ride (5 hours) to Casablanca while I read up on the Lonely Planet Guide, annoyed at myself for not sleeping.


Once we landed in Casablanca, we took the 1 hour train into the city (~1/10th the price of a taxi). Our cab driver had never heard of our hotel so when I showed him it on the map, he informed us that he would drop us of near one of its major landmarks...the fish market which jut happened to be half a block from our hotel. Upon entering the hotel, we asked for the price...and this is where it gets weird. He asked us what we would like the price to be. I referenced the book and said that since it is normally 220 Dirhams, I would like 200. He looked at us crazy then Jeremy said maybe 250. I quickly interrupted and said there is no way I would pay more than what the book quoted for this place. Still looking at us like we were crazy, he informed us that Jeremy would stay for free and that I would have to pay 100 Dirhams for the room (i.e. $12 Canadian Dollars). We were very confused but obviously agreed with him.


When we were in South Africa, Jeremy and I had met a couple that had toured Morocco and loved it. There only little piece of advice they had given us was to follow the Lonely Planet. So, after touring the smelly (but neat-O) fish market and scarfing down some pizza and a panini from a restaurant nearby we were ready to start our 'Walking Tour of the City'. We followed the book and thoroughly enjoyed our sights of the city which included: ancient mosques, the old police and law buildings, the post office, and abandoned cinema and an many unique and impressively architected buildings. One of our favourite sights which we just happened to stumble across while we were walking by was a little courtyard filled with people and pigeons - a neat mix!


After many hours and several kilometres of walking, we were exhausted. We headed back to the hotel where I passed out immediately. Jeremy was ready to crawl into bed and read until he glanced at the clock. It was 8pm – instead he went downstairs and made good use of the free internet in the lobby. The only catch was that it was a French keyboard and typing was a great difficulty.


Unlike Egypt where the second language is English (making it very nice for people like us to communicate), Morocco's second language is French. There has been a huge communication barrier because of this and we find that we are really counting on our gestures as a means to communicate.


The following day we hitched a cab to the Hassam II Mosque, which was built by the late King and was his best attempt to give Casablanca the landmark he thought it sorely missed. The construction started in 1987 and finished in 1993 – quite an impressive feat when you consider not only the construction footprint but also the 'Moroccan' Detail which is evident throughout the building. The building also houses a 210 meter tall minaret (largest building in the country) and a retractable roof. It is the world's third largest mosque, accommodating 250,000 worshippers inside and a further 80,000 in the courtyard and square around it. Since there are only 2 mosques that non Muslims are permitted to enter in the country, we figured this would be a good one to see and we were very pleased with both its enormity and beauty.


After walking kilometers along the Corniche, we headed back to our hotel. We checked out of our hotel (paying only the 100 Dirhams as promised) and made our way to the Train Station. We had trouble finding a cab and after walking a few blocks (backs sore and sweaty) we met a man named Shaq on the corner. He was also heading to the train station – perfect...more eyes to hail a cab! It turned out that Shaq was also heading in the same direction as us and Shaq was in the same English tour group as us at the Hassam Mosque that same morning. Ironically enough, the previous night, Jeremy remembers seeing Shaq at the courtyard with all of the Pigeons – once again we realized just how small the world really is. Shaq was great to sit with, he made our 5 hour train ride a breeze as he kept us entertained with all of his travelling experiences he has encountered all over the world (a world class traveller).


We said our goodbyes at Meknes, as this was his destination and we were heading to Fez. Once in Fez, we selected a hotel in the Nouvelle (i.e. New Fez) versus the Medina (i.e. Old Fez) as the prices were cheaper and we figured we would just utilize the cheap taxi's for transport. When we arrived at our hotel, we first looked at the room (smart thing) and after looking at the room, we opened our book, selected a hotel in the Medina, reserved the room, notified the front lobby and hailed a taxi.


We were dropped of at the main gates of the Medina and were told by our cabbie that the hotel was in, “that direction”. We made our way through the very narrow and over crowded streets. Along the way, Jeremy was approached by a man enquiring where we were staying (with our backpacks on us, we were like sitting ducks). After informing him of our place and receiving directions, Jeremy noticed a young fellow behind him run in front of us. He warned me that something fishy was about to take place. When we arrived at the steps of our hotel, the same man that Jeremy had warned me about was waiting in the doorway. He informed us that the hotel was fully booked but he had a great hotel to stay at just around the corner. We basically laughed at him and told him we had a reservation at which point he cowardly walked away.


After settling in to our hotel, we headed out to explore the Medina and all it had to offer. At first, we followed our nose. We stopped and had a refreshing glass of freshly squeezed Orange Juice (one of our favourite parts of Morocco), munched on some candy roasted peanuts, purchased the most beautiful and edible strawberries I have ever seen (unfortunately they did not taste as good as they looked) and loaded up (I mean loaded up!) on my much beloved peas. Anybody that knows me would know that I go absolutely bonkers over my peas, so for me finding them in April was like a dream come true.


After feeding our tummies, we aimlessly walked around the vegetable market and then entered the meat market. I was horrified to find camel, goat, ram and pig heads on display at every butcher station, as if they were a prized possession. Meat was hanging everywhere and chickens were everywhere. They were tied to crates on the floor, tied to crates on the counters and in cages in the butchers stall.

The craziest part (even crazier than the camel heads) was the small space in which everyone operated. The stalls were small, the roads were small and the people were EVERYWHERE. It was a blessing in disguise that the streets were too narrow to accommodate cars...but this did not stop the copious amounts of scooters ripping in and out of traffic. Add to this donkeys and mules pulling over sized and over stuffed carts and this is what the streets of the Medina looked like.


At the end of the night, we treated ourselves to a delicious meal of Tajine Poulet (which is chicken, vegetables and couscous) with Morocco's famous mint tea. The owner was a great guy who tried to lure us in earlier on in the evening. We promised him we would come back and when we did, he was so happy. Our meal came to $10 – cheap cheap cheap and so delicious!


The next day we started the 'Walking Tour' of the Fez medina. The book commented that it should take anywhere between 2 to 3 hours...for us it took the entire day. We stopped along the way and entered souqs that interested us. We bought some interesting smelling spices from an adorable old man in the spice market. He beamed with excitement as he showed us the page of his stall in the Lonely Planet FEZ edition. We stopped to watch a wood craftsmen working away amidst his wood shavings. He made us a spin 'top' and we tipped him for our gratitude. We wandered in to a carpet shop, saw multiple carpets we were interested in and successfully walked out of their alive (we were warned in our books that carpet sellers are the best of best of the best for suckering in tourists).


Although we got lost many times while on our tour, every stop was something new and interesting and in my opinion, worth getting lost over. On one of our 'lost' episodes, we wandered right into a tannery. We were given fresh mint to hold under our nose as the smell was horrific. We climbed numerous sets of narrow stairs, passing numerous sets of leather workstations (where the craftsmen were sewing anything from jackets to slippers). When we reached the roof, we had an amazing view of the entire tannery. The tannery had all different types of leather from goat to camel, sheep and cow. We watched in horror as the workers were submerged in waist deep chemicals, utilizing their own feet and legs as an instrument to soak, treat and absorb the chemicals. At the end of the tour, our own personal guide made his best attempt to sell us some of the leather as souvenirs. Although he was close to selling Jeremy a leather jacket, we walked out of the tannery empty handed.


From the tannery, we continued to walk aimlessly through the Medina. One of our favourite sightings was a giant oak tree surrounded by tiny souqs. We continued on past another meat market and this time I made the mistake of witnessing a chicken being slaughtered (again, in a very tiny butchery). I held back a few tears and basically got the heck out of there.


On our way back to our hotel, and after having yet another glass of freshly squeezed orange juice, we passed by the owner of the carpet shop. We informed him that we were going to grab a bite to eat and then head back his way. We also informed him that we were still looking and this by no means meant a 'guaranteed' sale. We made sure to eat a full meal as we knew the night ahead of us was going to be long.

When we got back the owner greeted us with a big smile and welcoming hands...I can only presume that he was thinking Suckers! Now, imagine being escorted to a room where in a matter of minutes, you had fresh mint tea and hundreds of carpets to choose from. Because Morocco's color is red, a lot of the carpets they were showing us had red in them. We informed them that although the color was beautiful, it was not our favourite. We told them instead of bright colors, we liked softer colors and loved green, blue, purple and brown. We were expecting a different set of carpets to appear in round 2 but still, to no avail, they continued to show us red! Round three was no different. We figured maybe we liked older carpets instead as the newer carpets were just too bright for us. So, we switched rooms and entered the era of 'old carpets'. Now, I am not exaggerating when I say this but the owner and his son must have shown us 90% of all the carpets in the room...and we have the picture to prove it. After hours of 'shopping' aka sitting on our butts sipping mint tea while the owner and his son unfolded carpet after carpet, we were pleased to have a selection of carpets to choose from (the Ij Ma pile (meaning to keep) versus the Khale pile (meaning to toss)).


Just when we thought there could be no more carpet viewing, the owner pulled out a beautiful brown rug (which we later bought). When he saw our excitement, he ran out of the store and came back with a pile of soft colored rugs. We laughed and told him this was exactly what we had wanted. We narrowed our carpets down to five and began the long negotiation for the price – this was where the fun began. Not to our surprise, the carpets were extremely expensive and grossly overpriced – we immediately tossed the two most expensive. We countered with a more reasonable offer for the remaining three (half of what was offered) and mentioned that it was firm. For the next twenty minutes, the owner did his best to raise our offer...but we stood firm. At one point, I got up, motioned to Jeremy and said, “sorry, we will not budge. I am glad we shared this experience and that we can still walk away as friends - thanks”. The owner jumped up and motioned for us to stand still. He ran out of the room and within seconds, brought in his brother (who was dressed up in a suit...and keep in mind that it is now 10 pm). His brother looked at the rugs that were in front of us and asked if we could increase our price any further. We thanked him for his troubles and made way for the door. Before we could take a second step, the owner had his hand stretched out and told us we had a deal.


Unfortunately, the credit card machine was not working and Jeremy and I were too tired to go to an ATM and sign off on the deal. The owner was obviously concerned at this (as I can only imagine a number of deals have fallen through in this manner) and so we left a small deposit. We exchanged numbers and agreed to pay the remaining sum and collect our carpets the following morning at which time the owners son would help us ship the carpets home.


That night we both slept like logs. The following morning, I awoke with a minuscule feeing of regret in the pit of my stomach. I asked Jeremy how he was feeling and he told me fine. We walked to our favourite restaurant for some crepes, mint tea and orange juice (freshly squeezed of course) and considered our options. We could hope for the best and assume we made a good deal and complete the transaction or we could walk away and consider the small down payment as a tip for their hard work. When Hassan showed up at our hotel an hour later with the carpets, we were still unsure what to do. We asked him for the carpets and asked for a few minutes. We unrolled each carpet on our bed in the hotel and we both immediately knew we had to buy them - they were exquisite! Jeremy was able to motion to one of the French workers to take a look and through a lot of hand gestures we were able to make out that we got a good deal. She then grabbed her Grandma (also a worker at the hotel) and her Grandma, after carefully scrutinizing both sides of the rug said, “tres bein – artisans”- tres bein”. We thanked them and felt a little more reassured. After returning to Hassan, who was patiently waiting in the street, we successfully shipped the rugs and some other small souvenirs home (lets just hope that they make it home). From there we caught a cab to the train station and we were bound for Marakesh.


The train ride was 8 hours but both Jeremy and I were in the middle of two really good books – so we didn't care to much. But that was until the train filled to over capacity and the A/C broke down. Needless to say, it was not so pleasant.