We met our tour guide after breakfast, who was a very nice man, and quite a charmer. For example, a few times if Alison or I broke in to his explanations with a question or a comment he would say 'I talk now, please have patience, then I explain'. He told us a lot about Islam and encouraged us to ask questions. Our first stop was to a mosque, and he explained about the practice of men and woman praying separately. 'You see,' he said, 'if you are a man and you have a woman bending over to pray in front of you, it's just too distracting.' He showed us how there are two knockers on most of the doors- one for men to use, so the women behind know to put on their veil, and one for family members and other women to use, in which case the women can remain unveiled. I was confused and asked if the women had to wear the veil for their husband. 'Of course not' he said grinning, 'how else do we do sex?'
After the mosque we went to the tanneries, where they dye the leather, which stank because the dye is made from pigeon droppings. We were given mint to hold under our noses and were immediately pounced upon by the man that owned the leather shop connecting to the tanneries. 'Sisters, let me tell you about the tanneries...' This was all very friendly until we didn't want to buy one of his bags for 70 euros and when we wished him goodbye he scowled at us.
In the afternoon we saw the oldest university in the world- where there was a fight because an Italian man wanted to enter but had no proof he was a Muslim. The guards were demanding some sort of paper proof and our tour guide was trying to get his two pennies worth in by offering practical suggestions of asking the Italian man to pray in front of everyone. (If he no Muslim...how he pray?) He seemed pretty impressed by his idea, and kept explaining the logic of it to Alison and I after we'd left.
Apart from me getting ripped off for pottery (haggling is not as easy as all that- whenever I tried to offer a lower figure they looked hurt/disgusted and said, 'sister, have some respect') and Alison and I buying 4 pieces of bread for 2 dirham each and getting charged 15 dirham (they can spot tourists a mile off) we had a good afternoon and came back with a haul of Moroccan goods; jewelry, pottery, Moroccan oil, and postcards. We ate our lunch on the rooftop of the hostel in the hot sun and then there were just three things left to do.
these are the way Moroccans advertise their political parties- so as not to cover all the streets, they each have a square on this street in which to advertise.
Firstly we wanted to see the garden we hadn't managed to find on our first day, and did so, only to be slightly perturbed by the whistle blowing guards everywhere. It was also hot and for a while we took off our cardigans- but attracted a lot of 'you beautiful', 'you so good', 'you so nice' so put them back up again and walked up to the viewpoint which looks over Fes, to watch the sun set. Though we were the only tourists there and again attracting a lot of looks it was fun and very pretty to watch the sun go down. On the way back down the hillside our good experience was slightly marred by a group of boys 'tsk'ing at us and throwing rocks in our direction (whether throwing rocks is a flirting technique in their culture I have no idea)- at which point we legged it back down the hill.
Back in the hostel Muhammad and Muhammad served us more mint tea and told us we were such nice girls they wanted to throw us a shisha party with Moroccan whisky. We went out for dinner at the legendary Cafe Clock and sat on the roof terrace, with some really good food, the highlight of the trip, and chatted to some of the Moroccan waiters who were very friendly and slightly redeemed our very low opinion of the Moroccan men we had so far met. When we got back to the hostel, everyone was in the shisha tent and Muhammad insisted he pour us some Moroccan whisky. He came back with the mint tea we'd been drinking all holiday (turns out he'd made a joke about mint tea being Moroccan whisky but it had gone straight over our heads...) Still, between us, two Australians, two Dutch ladies, Muhammad and Muhammad, we had four bottles of wine, and then we said goodnight, got into bed and congratulated ourselves on having survived three days in Morocco.
After three days I was ready to get home, to clean water, fresh air, and normal food, but I'm so glad we had a good experience of Morocco, and did all the things we wanted to do in Fes. I'm even more glad that my year abroad is turning into a year to remember, with such good experiences in each place I've visited.
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