Pissing off some Moroccans

Last weekend I went to Fes. It was the last big city in Morocco that I really wanted to see and I had a really nice trip with a couple of friends. Anna, Shanna and B3 (Ben number 3, apparently its a very common name with the guys in this school.)

We took off on Friday night after saying goodbye to a couple of German friends that were just finishing up school. We got on a train at 9:00 and arrived in Fes around midnight. We were greeted by a Riad owner named Max who was an expat from Australia.

Saturday morning I woke up and found breakfast waiting for us on the roof. After eating until we were ready to explode we headed out to the souks. Fes has the largest car free city center in the world so get to walk down crowed streets dodging donkeys who carry all the shit that the store owners sell to tourists. We stopped by a couple of shops, my favorite being the apothecary who sold Anna and Shanna some perfumes and Argan oil. This shop had a plethora of animal skins including A lion, cheetah and jaguar, so now when I tell people that I went to Africa and they ask if I have seen a lion I can say yes.

Sad Cheetah

Anna and Shanna with the awesome shopkeeper (he was about 16 years old)

Then we found a little kid who insisted on showing us a tannery. We went with him and he brought us to this shop where they took us up to the roof and showed us the tannery and described how it worked. Then we were brought back to the shop where they showed us some of their jackets. Anna found one she really liked but was hesitant to pay the 800 diram price that the shopkeeper quoted. So instead we went to a restaurant to eat lunch. Anna decided that she want to get the jacket so we went back to the store. When we asked for the price again the guy told the jacket was 1800 diram and claimed that his was the price he originally quoted (which to be fair, might have been true, it was in Arabic). Needless to say we didn't buy the jacket, and tried to walk out but the guy got a little confrontational about not bargaining with him for it (there was no way he would take anywhere close to the 800 diram, we tried). We eventually got out and took off down the the street, got lost (which is what you should do in Fes) and then made it back to the Reid in time to follow the Reid owners directions to the nearby cafe where we had dinner and watched some great live music.

The tannery

the tannery smells bad so they gave us some mint to smell instead

After, we headed back to the riad and drank a couple bottles of wine on the roof and stayed up late. The next day we were greeted, again, with a delicious breakfast. We walked around for a while and went back to the same cafe to eat berber pizza for lunch. Then we got in taxi's and went to the train station. My taxi diver decided to charge me a tax for being white, which I'm getting tired of paying, but I was too tired to argue. We got on the train and headed back to Rabat for another week of school.

Me enjoying berber pizza