Surprisingly, we were able to find our way from one end of the medina to the other and on the way we regularly stopped to admire the wares in shops, in the street and hanging on the walls. There is so much to see and this is a great way to talk to the locals.
The entrance to a Fes shopping street.
We always have something in common. We have some money in our pockets and they would like it in theirs so it makes a good conversation starter. The conversation doesn’t start there, though. Firstly, we need to cover the small talk.
“Where you come from?”
“Australia! I love Australia! Kangaroo! Kangaroo!”
Then we talk shop.
He sold carpets, had been to Australia and together we solved the problems of the world.
Hanging on a wall along a busy shopping street, was a painting of the medina, done in a geometric, impressionistic style. I lingered long enough to admire the painting for a lad to direct us down a narrow side street lined with similar works, into a studio where more of the same hung. A bearded man in a long gown greeted us with a toothy smile.
Holding up his fingers, he said, “We have four man apprentices and four lady apprentices, and I am THE BOSS!”
He beamed another great smile and laughed and we joined him in his joke.
Eyeing my camera, he led me to a back room and spread one arm wide pointing his palm to a collection of cameras on a shelf. On the floor were other ancient cameras. He confirmed their age by pulling a piece of paper from his pocket and pointed at the three dates written there, 1887, 1912 and 1975, the year when he started his collection. When he saw how pleased I was to witness his collection, he quickly offered to swap mine for one of his.
The boss gladly posed for a photo.
The boss of the studio with his camera collection.
A guard at the airport wagged his finger at me as I took a phone photo of the terminal. I think he was telling me to put that piddly thing away and get out a real camera. In this city, once you do that it is hard to put it away again.
Twenty dirhams had our luggage wheeled on a cart through narrow lanes, derbs they are called here, up a hill overtaken by donkey delivery loaded with electrical goods from India. Our accommodation, Riad Fes Kettani is down a dingy lane behind a large metal door and inside is an oasis.
The central courtyard of Riad Fes Kettani from the balcony.
Sunday 13 May
Before the sun, I took to the rooftop terrace where it was a chilly 14℃. I was later told that the satellite dishes were termed the flowers of Fes.
For seven hours we were led and driven by our knowledgeable guide through and onto the edge of the medina. The city lanes are numerous, narrow and confusing but lively and mysterious.
We visited the tannery, potters, museums, gates, schools, mosques and forts and even came across the runners in the Fes Marathon. Tomorrow we do it on our own!
We tell friends that when in foreign lands, we like to wander and discover things as they come along. This sounds romantic, almost old-world in these days of satellite navigation. The truth is, we always sort of know the general direction we are going. We just don’t know what we are going to see.
However, it must fall to someone to act as the guide. This person needs to have a good sense of direction. The ups and downs are easy. There is a picture in my old psychology book of a baby crawling to the edge of a glass table and stopping. They know the danger. Ups and downs is child’s play.
It’s the other directions, the lefts and rights, norths and souths, that some members of the animal kingdom can uncanningly find, that requires the guide to have that pigeon-like brain. Although my sense of direction is not their motive for classification, there are many that say I fall naturally into that group.
There was an end to the abyss that led us to the ground floor from our second floor apartment in the Born District.
The flights of stairs negotiated, we set off to find a place to eat and as the many cafes and bars of this district were just around the corner near the Basilica Santa Maria del Mar, it was a piece of cake for my sense of direction. When we were still wandering the narrow streets a half an hour later, it was then that we should have twigged that the wrong pigeon had been chosen. But we soldiered on discovering unintended parts till we found food.
The long haul flight must have sent my body out of whack. Can too much air have a negative affect on the guidance system? Have you ever had a packet of chips on a flight? The unopened packet is like a helium ballon at a child’s birthday party. The internal gases expand and bloats the membrane to bursting point. I believe this is how planes defy gravity and remain in the air due to the helium-like gases inside the passengers and is the reason pilots ask us to keep seat belts fastened during the flight. Can you imagine the chaos created at meal service with four hundred passengers bumping around the ceiling of the cabin like escaped party balloons?
The walk helped with the over-inflation and well fed with tapas, we managed to walk the minute around the corner and had a very uncharacteristic early Spanish night.
Saturday, 13 May
Left, right, left, right – like marching lessons I led us to a busy cafe full of workers where a mixture of rough Italian, suspect Spanish and Australian had us served good coffee and omelette for breakfast.
We/I again lost our way in the narrow streets until we found ourselves at the cathedral.
We probably spent an hour here in the church, the cloisters and on the roof which gave a good view over the city. Across the rooftops, school children were playing in their terraced concrete playground. Oh for a bit of grass to kick those footballs.
Our orientation was improving and after wandering past the performing acrobats we seem to see in most large cities, we found La Rambla.
With others, we watched Marilyn showing some of the wares of the Erotic Museum before being drawn by the crowds into La Boqueria Food Market. This is an incredible experience. If you like fruit, vegetables, seafood, chocolates, olives, colour, this is the place to get lost. Macadamias were selling for €58 /kg! Start exporting from that tree of yours, Sam.
With the sea on the right, and the wind at our back we rode the hire bikes in the afternoon along the Barcelona beaches on a great loop to Gaudi’s Cathedral to discover quite a few changes in four years. Perhaps it will be finished in our lifetime.
We would have preferred longer getting lost in Barcelona but Morocco awaited. The taxi from Fes airport dropped us at the edge of the Medina and a guide led us to our riad through the narrow twisted derbs. Now this is a place to get lost!
Sunrise over the Fes Medina from the rooftop of Riad Fes Kettani.
