Fez/Fes/طربوش

I’m back after a whirlwind weekend in Fez!

After Friday couscous and class, our group of 9 headed to the Rabat train station. We bought our $8 tickets then boarded the crowded train. We had been told prior that since we are female we would no doubt have seats, but that did not turn out to be the case. If not for my inability to handle motion this would not have been a problem, but in the heat and combined with my hunger, the 45 minutes we were standing were not the most pleasant. Luckily at one of the bigger stops a bunch of seats opened up and we were able to sit, converse, and even do a little napping. After 2.5 hours we arrived in Fez. Having $0 on me (sorry Mom and Dad), I knew I needed to find an ATM at the station.  I attempted to take out money, but the ATM failed. I tried once more but again got a failure message. I thought nothing of it and managed to get money out of a separate ATM, until someone else who had gotten the same failure message brought up the possibility that the money was still taken from our accounts. We looked online and sure enough, I was out $250.

Feeling not so welcomed to Fez before even leaving the station, my friend Charley told me outside will be better. The group split up into taxis and headed to the medina where our riad hostel was located. Our taxi dropped Charley, Simone, and me off at a gate to the medina and told us the hostel wasn’t far. Having been warned about the aggressiveness of people in Fez, we were not surprised we were bombarded the second we got out of the cab. We ignored all of the comments and began in what we thought was the direction of our hostel. However, the further we walked things got darker and quieter, besides the trailing men. We tried to ask the few women around for directions, but they either wouldn’t respond or would hand us off to the men (which we were obviously trying to avoid). We wandered down and up the same road and eventually figured out at some point we needed to turn left. Unfortunately all of the following men knew by this time exactly where we were going and would say “here, this way, turn left” and motion to a dark, quiet alley to the left. We kept going straight, hoping to lose them, but knew we had no choice but to go left. By this point I was almost running, trying to keep the men out of sight (one especially obnoxious man in particular). At the end of a dark alley was a couple holding hands so we sped-walked up to the woman and asked her for directions. It was such a relief to talk to her, but she then handed us off to another man. He led us around and seemed safer than the especially obnoxious man, whom we seemed to have lost. We figured we would have to pay him, but that seemed worth it as we needed to get to our hostel. A few minutes later we ended up at a dead end and just then the obnoxious man popped around the corner. The man leading us brought us to the hostel door then turned around without asking a thing from us. We entered the thick bolted doors of the hostel and turned around to find the obnoxious man waving to us down the alley. Terrifying.

Hostel Lobby Ceiling

We found the rest of our group inside the beautiful hostel relaxing and eating tea. They wondered what had taken us so long and why we hadn’t been dropped off in the parking lot (!). We dropped off our things, which Charley and I sharing a room, and the 9 of us (reluctantly) headed out to find dinner. Luckily we had one male and with a much larger group it felt much safer than a little while earlier. We found Café Clock nearby, a high rated Lonely Planet restaurant, well known for its camel burger, which several people in our group ordered! I stuck to my falafel but had my own exciting moment ordering a date milkshake. It was a very enjoyable dinner filled with great food and conversation.

Everyone Spreading Out On Family Bed

The next morning we had breakfast at the hostel (holy bread!) then headed out into the bustling medina. You would not have known it was the same place we were the night before. We spent the day wandering up and down the medina alleys, taking in all the sights (including animal heads, balls, feet, and brains), sounds, and smells (lots of leather). 

In a Madrasa

Charley and I split off from the group and wandered in many different storefronts asking “Bshell, afak?” (“How much, please?”). They would then respond with an Arabic number, but not having mastered those yet, we would usually respond “how much?” It was overwhelming all of the goods we wanted, that nothing in particular stood out. We wandered for hours and got used to ignoring all of the following and comments. They were also often pretty humorous. We wrote down some of our favorites, including “Hola fish and chips”, “Hello my gazelles”, and our personal favorite “I see you in my dreams tonight, would you like to buy some carpet?” 

This Man Gave Me Free Dates!

That night our group grabbed dinner then went for our first Moroccan bar experience to celebrate a member of the group’s 21^st birthday. It was a challenge to find any place at all that served alcohol, so the drinks were very expensive. There weren’t many people in the bar, but those that were were almost entirely men. All of the women that we saw (excluding one with her husband- interestingly wearing a hijab) were most definitely prostitutes. Something I had been told about. Our group didn’t stay there for long but it was interesting to observe the bar dynamics.

The following day, Charley and I got up early, skipped the breakfast of breads (got a kilo of oranges instead!) and headed out to find a tannery. We went looking for the brass and copper alleys, and as we asked for directions, we were lead by someone eager to show us the way (again, something we knew would happen). We found the brass area and while we took pictures we made friends with a man in the shop. He told us we could take as many pictures as we would like, then later motioned to us to take a picture with him. As I posed for the picture with him, he grabbed my hand and wrapped the other around my shoulder. Another man came over and said, “He’s flying! Flying like a bird!” He then smiled really big and kissed my hand. We left our friend and were guided to a tannery. We climbed up several stairs then looked out onto a scene of dozens of bins filled with dyes, just as the guidebooks show. The man who said he is “the boss” of the tannery told us the process of leather dyeing and drying. Luckily in his tannery they still use the natural dyes: saffron for yellow, poppy for red, and mint for green. After snapping lots of pictures and taking it all in (including the smells) we were brought down to the shop of leather goods (again, expected). Charley and I looked around and immediately each fell in love with a pair of boots. They were leather with patterns of wool carpet. So unique and so Morocco. We nervously asked “the boss” the price and he told us an amount far greater than expected. Our hopes were crushed at first, but the boss insisted we tell him an amount. My tactic worked well as I only had a relatively small amount of money on me, so he would ask me to type in an amount in a calculator and I told him, seriously, I only had a certain amount. In the end, we managed to get the boots for ¼ of the asking price! I’d say it was a success. We also then got to go back upstairs and have the boots “dyed” to the exact color with wanted by a worker rubbing them with vegetable oil. During this time, we talked more with “the boss” who then invited us to stay with his family and to come over for couscous. Our second Moroccan friend of the day!

We walked back to our hostel, boots in hand, feeling as though we had a very successful trip. We grabbed our things and met up with the group for lunch back at Café Clock. We headed back to the train station and got back to Rabat just as it got dark. Walking around the Rabat medina, we noticed our experiences in Fez brought a new sort of confidence handling the harassment and felt good to be home.