Morocco Trip Report: Part Two
(Click on image above to view completel album)
During our tour of Fez, we get a glimpse of the mosque with 13 separate entrances and holds 20,000 people, the oldest university in the world (Karaouine, founded sometime around 900 A.D.) and several other sites of historical importance explained by our guide as we simultaneously tried to entertain, placate, and guard the boys from being overrun or getting lost.
Extract from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Al-Karaouine)
The University of Al-Karaouine or Al-Qarawiyyin (Arabic: جامعة القرويين) (other transliterations of the name include Qarawiyin, Kairouyine, Kairaouine, Qairawiyin, Qaraouyine, Quaraouiyine, Quarawin, and Qaraouiyn) is a university located in Fes, Morocco. Founded in 859, as a madrasah, the university is one of the leading spiritual and educational centers of the Muslim world. It is considered the oldest continuously operating academic degree-granting university in the world.
---
We also go to a leather cooperative where we are led upstairs to the rooftop to look down on a tannery below. The smell has a slightly caustic edge, and quite foul; we are provided with a sprig of mint to hold in front of our noses, although after a minute of getting used to the smell it’s not so bad. We learn that everything is done manually as it has been for centuries, that the labor is handed down from father to son over generations. There are four types of leather processed here: goat, sheep, cow and camel. The first stage after drying is a softening process in pigeon excrement and the leather is dipped in various vats before being dyed using “natural” dyes and then finally going on to the leather workers.
Eventually we make our way to the entrance to the medina called the Blue Gate and stop for delicious sweet mint tea and some lunch. They drink a lot of mint tea here and now I can see it’s probably to soothe their stomachs. Ironically perhaps, I was the only one to have any (mild) stomach issues while in Morocco despite the boys eating mostly local food (at tourist places) and drinking the fresh squeezed orange juice in the Jmaa El Fnaa (Place of Execution) in Marrakesh. Lunch was delicious – we had a couple of tagines of vegetables, cous cous, chicken and chips (“fries”). Price per dish was about $5 each – tourist prices we learned, as it’s possible to get the same dishes for at least half. We also stop to buy local pancakes but cannot eat them after watching the shop keeper take our filthy bills then pick them up with the same bare hands.
After lunch, we walk a little further South of the Blue Gate and get two petite taxis (no more than three people allowed in each) back to Riad Attarine and have a nap – Ethan is four years old and still requires naps so we try to accommodate his schedule as best we can, although we are usually exhausted anyway...
After a couple of days exploring the Medina, we felt confident enough to navigate the windy interior without getting hopelessly lost. The secret to navigating is knowing the location of the main arteries; if you end up at a dead end, retrace steps and go with the general flow of any people you see and hope they know where they are going. If that doesn't work, a local will usually pick up on your helplessness and come to your aid for about ten or twenty dirhams (depending on your negotiating skills).
Around this time, I also started looking for alternative places to stay, hopefully find some budget accommodation, view various hotels and see if negotiating was stronger for walk-ins. A couple of afternoons searches proved fairly fruitless. Everyone upped their official rate and counted the boys as adults, making it a three/four person room requirement. The best deals to be had were so called triples, usually three single beds or a double and one single bed, all at outrageous prices; it soon became evident that although Fez has a lot of accommodation, in both old and new towns, none of them were wont for customers. So having decided on a place, I returned from the Nouvelle town to collect Carmen and went to Hotel Perla in a taxi where we are told that the room is taken. While Carmen and the boys sit in reception, I go to look at the the backups which are also taken. In the end, we take two rooms at Hotel Olympia which turn out to be a big mistake.
The corner room that Ethan and I take has a strong smell of bug spray and next morning I am covered in bites on the arms and hands. For the next few days, they are intensely itchy at various times, but I learned a valuable lesson: book early! Ethan is fine.