Tour of Fez

Ok – this seems to be a theme…it is impossible to express everything we did today.  But here are lots of photos, and a guest blog post from Marc:

We’ve had a very interesting day in Fes.  Lori organized another walking tour for us with 2 tour guides since we are a group of 19 now.  Fes is very different from Marrakech.  Within the medina, the old city that’s surrounded by walls, there are no cars – it’s all pedestrian traffic – and of course donkeys and mules.  The streets are very narrow throughout – no more than 6 feet wide in most parts – sometimes even more narrow.  It’s like a maze and I have no idea how we would have made it through without a guide.  There are a total of 460 quarters in the medina, making it the largest in the world ahead of Istanbul and Cairo.  The guide said it would take 2-3 weeks to explore the entire Medina.  He led us through this maze of cobblestone streets, all in disrepair.  It was fairly hilly in some spots.  All of the streets are lined with shops, much like Marrakech, selling all sorts of things – from chickens to spices, pottery to rugs, produce to leather goods.  There are certain streets that felt clearly geared towards tourists, but many that we went down were where the local people shop for their everyday needs.  The streets are dirty and trash is a problem here as well.  And there are lots of cats – all strays that people leave food for but do not belong to anyone.  The streets were busy with people, but it felt safe.

A lot of our tour was just walking through the streets but we also stopped at some of the sights.  One of our first stops was a Koranic school where kids go to study the Koran.  The architecture was incredible – marble slab floor, fountain in the center, carved wood and tile walls.  The door to the school was huge – each side was easily 6 feet wide by at least 15 feet high.  It was made of beautifully carved wood and brass.  We also stopped at a place that sold handmade rugs.  There were thousands of rugs.  The owner explained the different styles of Moroccan rugs from the different regions.  Had we been in the market for a rug this would have been the perfect place to buy one.  Lori bought a small one and Elizabeth also bought one.  They were beautiful.  We also went to the tannery.  That was an experience.  The guide warned us that the smell would be strong.  On the way in there’s an attendant at the door handing out fresh mint to everyone that enters.  They tell you to hold it up to your nose to help mask the smell.  Then we climbed 5 flights of stairs to get to an open deck above the tannery so that we could see everything.  I wondered “how bad could it smell” and took the mint away from my nose.  Big mistake. It was putrid.

Below us was the entire process.  Huge piles of fresh hides from goats, sheep, cows and camels.  The hides are bought from local butchers.  There’s a process for cleaning them and removing any residual flesh from them – it includes soaking them in a solution that contains pigeon poop which apparently acts as an acid to remove any flesh.  Once cleaned there was another section with huge vats of different colors.  The hides are soaked in these vats to give the leather color.  This week they were doing shades of browns and reds.  It seems like the rotate the colors every couple of weeks because he mentioned that in other weeks they do blues and purples, etc.  Once the hides are died they are laid in the sun to dry.  The entire process is manual.  We saw men hoisting cleaned hides into the vats to start dying them, and others carrying the dyed hides to another area.  The work was beyond smelly and incredibly label intensive.  Our guide said that over time they get used to the smell, but it was so strong I have no idea how they ever could.  Some of the kids said it made them sad to know that these skins came from animals.  On the other hand, we’ve learned that in Morocco, nothing goes to waste, so given that these skins coming from animals that are killed for food, it’s a good thing that they are making use of the rest of the animal and finding a way to earn money.  None of these products are exported – they are only sold locally.

Our next and last stop was at a weaver where we saw men weaving fabric on old fashion looms.  All of the fabrics were traditional Moroccan patterns and colors, and they sold the textiles they wove on sight.  We bought a gold and red and orange scarf that Gia plans to use as a table runner in our dining room made of wool, silk and cotton.

This is the gate that is commonly called the Blue Gate:

The kids, at the Bou Inania Madrasa:

In the market, the kids found a hedgehog to give them a diversion from the thousands of cats:

This riad was refurbished and is now a beautiful restaurant.  The kids were dying to jump in the pool.

These rectangles painted on the walls are for the political parties to advertise:

These traditional windows are to protect the modesty of the women:

Sophia with sphinge:

We went to a rug co-op, where we learned all about Moroccan rug-making.

Elizabeth bought the blue rug in the foreground of the photo below.

I bought the rug in the white rectangle.  I LOVE it.

At the tanneries, the mint helped to temper the smell.

Hands-free!

Tomorrow we are heading to Chefchaouen at 9…more to come.