Trip in Fez (Fes)

Every person occupies some time and some space. This unique area identifies each one of us. It's our mark in the time-space continuum. Maybe it is insignificant and finite, but it's your time and your space and nobody can take it from you. Of course there is an exception: when you travel by train, you have to give up some space and a lot of time.

We spent up to 33 hours in various trains and about 5 or 6 more in train stations waiting for other trains to arrive. Sometimes, when you tell the story to your friends back home, the whole train station situation sounds adventurous, but in fact it is very annoying and dull. That's how people learn to play boring games like scramble. You have to play a game while waiting at a train station. We carefully considered many board and card games to finally choose an oral word game, in order to fit with the oral tradition of Morocco (and also because we didn't carry any boards or cards with us). I don't know the name of this game, but the rules are easy: one person chooses a letter, another person chooses a category, and then everyone takes a turn. While we are in a “turn”, the player has to find one unique (a.k.a. not said by anyone else earlier) word that starts with that letter and belongs to that category. For example “Food starting with a K” might include “Kamel” or “Kous kous”, as we soon discovered (K and C sound very similar, as has been noted before).

One of the gates to Fes Medina. The cop on the left is staring because he suspects I'm taking a picture. People don't like it when I take pictures of them without their permission.

Our next stop was Fez, a beautiful city that is somehow very important to medieval islamic history. Obviously, we didn't care enough to find out more details on that subject, but this information was imposed to us by the city itself. It is such a magnificent and glorious place, architecturally speaking at least, that you can't help but imagine a thousand stories with princes trying to save princesses in a 2D platformer. Later, while we were relaxing by the hotel pool, this thought evolved to a better one: the prince nails the princess, who suggests to bring some girl friends with her. Due to space limitations I can't go into details. Besides, I had to stop prematurely when I noticed I was getting “OK” down there (and also because a horse entered the dream).

I found my friends at the reception desk, bargaining a human guide. Everybody was insisting that we should get a guide. We had a pocket guide and we showed it to them, but in an oral civilization a guide is never a book. A guide is a person or a profession. Ours, for example, was a tall middle aged gentleman who was smoking tones of cigarettes, was walking slowly and had the gaze of a stoned man. He was very relaxed and also relaxing. “Come on, I will show you stuff” he said “for example, this is a gate”. What kind of gate, we asked. “A very nice gate. It's green, look”. It was green and nice, but do you need a guide to tell you that?

Gates. They let you through and they are trippy too (click on the picture to enlarge).

Summoning a guide was a good idea because it's impossible to enter Fez Medina and find your way back. The narrow streets are perplexed like a snake orgy so that every foreigner will get lost in minutes. Like with every touristic attraction, the first impression is “wow, this is amazing”, but as you walk around, your words are “wow, this is the same as before” and “wow, this is so fake”. A guide can show you the real stuff lying under the layers of FakEeneZ. Or at least he can make it easier for you to believe that you are different to the other tourists who are identical to you in their appearance and behavior.

One of the main market streets in the Fes Medina. I was impressed by the variety of colors and the wonderful wooden ceiling.

The colors of Fez are similar but different to Marrakech. Marrakech is red, Fez is yellow. What's more, Fez is cleaner, brighter, glorious maybe. Like Marrakech, there were small shops everywhere, with no labels, where the sellers try to sell staff by oral promotion (but without approaching your private parts with their mouths). One can't ignore the mosques or the impressive fountains found every few corners. The doors of the mosques are some of the most hallucinogenic decorations I 've ever seen. I got high by just staring at this very famous mosque gate that can be seen at the cover of most book guides for Morocco. I don't remember how it is called and our human guide was way too lazy to say anything more than "this is a nice door", but I 'm sure this place is super famous, because every tourist we met had been there and had a photograph of him/herself posing in front of the gate as a proof.

Fountains. They give you water and decorations with symbols of infinity and maths (click on the picture to enlarge).

We asked our human guide for some guidance (duh!). In particular, we wanted to see the traditional markets, like the leather market, the wool market, the bronze workers and stuff like that. It was an excellent idea. Besides the fact that all these markets are mostly tourist attractions, they are actual crafts that function almost in the same fashion as they did 1000 years ago (or more), when Arabs excelled in commerce, maths, science, poetry and architecture. The leather market was the most impressive of all, as we got to see the whole craft of producing leather. Tens of workers were working the leather parts transforming them from raw material to handbags, jackets and poofs. There was another human guide who was showing as how everything is working. He said he was an Arab, descending from a very old family of Fez. He was something like a noble or something. I enjoyed it very much when some guy asked him if he is a Berber and he looked disgusted and insulted, his dignity deeply hurt. This human guide was temporary, so we soon returned to our appointed human guide, who was much cooler and probably less racist to Berbers (and stoned).

Leather requires hard work. These pools of chemicals are all used to process the animal skins. They stink so much that you are given a leaf of mint to compromise the bad smell. Although most leather stuff is produced in modern factories, this craft shop is still producing leather the traditional way.

We got to see many markets and small crafts where people were working metals, wool, reed, wood and other materials by using really old equipment. Most of these machines were moving by hand and could fit in those tiny shops with just enough space for one person. The products looked fine but our guide explained that most of this stuff is produced in factories just outside the town or in Casablanca. The hand made stuff is always more expensive and he can show as where to find it. We didn't actually care that much, but we pretended we did, in order to see if we could distinguish the “real” hand made stuff from common souvenirs. We couldn't. Maybe, this “real” stuff was the same souvenirs we could find everywhere else, but overpriced and shined in order to look more hand made. Or maybe we just didn't have “the eye” that distinguishes fake from real, bargain from crap.

Craftsmen work (from left to right and top to bottom) wool, carpets, knifes, marble, bronze and copper. Some of this stuff is hand made, and hand made is supposed to be better, although I don't see why. It sure is more expensive. These people still work in the same conditions as their predecessors hundreds of years ago.

I bought my souvenirs from the airport. Airports have been so nice to me lately, letting me sleep on their benches, guarding my stuff, offering electrical power for my mp3 player and food for my appetite (not very good, though). I though I should return the favor and spent some extra money there. But this happened later.

Right now we are in Fez, walking away from the old and impressive Medina, tired and full of images, smells and fake hand-crafted souvenirs. We sit on a bench where there are three moroccan girls, too young for me, maybe, but closer to the range of one of my friends, who is trying to hit on them. At first I think “this is embarrassing, these girls are kids” but after a while I am in position of seeing the whole situation from a different perspective. You see, if the moroccan police arrests my friend, it will be exciting, because I will have to contact the embassy and I have never contact an embassy in my life and I kind of felt nervous about it, because I think it's a big deal. You see, when you contact an embassy, you have to wear nice clothes and perfumes and also you have to talk nice. For instance, instead of saying “Hi, we need help” you should say “Hello Ambassador, we are between a rock and a hard place right now and we would appreciate your assistance, if you are so kind, sir”. Then, I would be invited to dinner. I would have to find something formal to wear and there is nothing like that stuffed inside the pockets of my jacket.

Food in Fes may include strange beans, snails and other disgusting but delicious stuff. I've tried snails, camel burger and  even these strange green beans (on the left) which are poisonous for 10% of the population (a condition related to an enzyme).

A bus wakes me from my daydreaming and the girls get on it, while we decide to walk. “What happened?” asks one of the friends. “That ambassador is a prick!” I say. “What ambassador?”. I didn't have time to explain. Actually, we had plenty of time, but we were running short on space. Then, it was the other way around: the space was expanding rapidly. I realized something was wrong when I noticed some of my friends have been transformed to talking lizards. I didn't want to tell them and hurt their feelings.

• What are you doing, dude?
• Nothing. You know something? You look like a lizard.
• This is actually a lizard. I'm right behind you.

Marriage stuff. On the left their is a shoes and clothes store. On the right a shop that sells bride vehicles. Apparently, in Morocco the bride has to ride a hand-carried silver vehicle.

I looked behind me. My friend. He was a human person again, but he was kind of ugly, like all his ugly spots where more vivid and obvious. He was talking fast and the road was like a moving corridor. All the colors where alive and you could hear everything very clear. Each sound was new to me. My friend stopped me.

• Let me see your eyes, man.
• What?
• Just let me see your eyes. Oh, shit!
• What's wrong with my eyes.
• You are tripping. You are on acid. Why didn't you tell me, dude? I always offer you stuff when I have some!
• Am I tripping?

Jars, cups, pots and other containers are a sign of a deeper culture of enjoying a cup of tea or arabian coffee the way it was meant to be enjoyed.

The others where also in a strange mood. They had discovered the lizards and where laughing at them. For a brief moment, I could understand what they were thinking! “Hey, we are not lizards, we are right behind you”. They turned their heads and looked at as in awe. I knew what they were thinking! “I know what you are thinking. It's like we have a connection, a pipe or a straw that connects our heads to each other”.

Donkeys are used to carry heavy stuff inside the narrow roads of the old Medina. Sometimes, donkey entrance is prohibited and men have to carry stuff on their shoulders.

They all looked so happy about it, except one person, let's call him "the sane one". Everybody else was tripping. We were actually planning of drilling holes on our heads and connect them with straws but we soon forgot about it. It was a very long one kilometer to the hotel. The one and only sane friend we had, led as to our rooms and kept as there.

Men of Fes

Women of Fes

• Man, you look nervous, why?
• You are all tripping. I'm worried! he said sincerely.
• Oh, my god! What are we going to do now? I panicked.
• Don't freak out, it's OK, he calmed me.
• Yeah, sure, I tried to calm down but it wasn't easy. Then, I was distracted by the reflexions of a torch on a glass of water.
• Dude, we have to talk. Where did you find the acid? Tell me!

Street life in a Moroccan Medina.

Even now I don't know what happened. While in the Medina, we had a free cup of tea while a merchant was bargaining some carpets with one of my friends. This one friend didn't have his cup of tea, but everybody else did. Therefore, the tea was really good. That's my theory, anyhow. Unfortunately, I don't remember the road back to this mysterious carpet market and it's impossible to see why a merchant would offer a free acid trip to potential customers. Anyway, I'm grateful to that guy, the trip was awesome, and I feel pity for my sane friend who missed it.

Next day we visited the city of Meknes, which is nice and everything, but after and acid trip everything looks like a washed out piece of cloth.