Fes, Morocco (or, The Least Relaxing Vacation Ever)

(Photos and writing originally from 2012. Edited and reposted 2020.)

THE PLAN

"So where should I go in Morocco? I was thinking Marrakech."

"No, no, no." said my friend Steve. "You speak French and you've lived in Africa. Marrakech is for the tourists from Iowa. You need to go to Fes."

Well, Steve and his wife had lived in Rabat for a year and like me, he was a French speaker and no stranger to living all over the world. But unlike me, he was also an Arabic speaker. Oh, and we'd been friends for something like 15 years. So when a guy like that suggests you go to Fes for your Moroccan trip, you do what the man says.

Thus began the least relaxing vacation I've ever taken.

THE ARRIVAL

I'd flown a Royal Air Maroc redeye flight from Dakar, Senegal to Casablanca, Morocco. I was about halfway through a tour in Senegal and was looking to broaden my travel horizons. Dakar is relatively blessed with travel options for a West African city owing to its reputation as a center of commerce in the region and, as a result, there were numerous direct flights to Europe.

On the other hand, owing to local taxes, none of them were cheap.

Now, there were plenty of flights to African destinations too, but I'd already been to over a dozen African countries and since I was living in one, I was hoping for a change of scenery. But RAM had extensive connections throughout the region including the redeye flight mentioned supra. And it was (relatively) cheap with a short flight time—which meant that a four-day weekend trip would be possible.

I flew out of Senegal late on a Thursday night (or early Friday morning depending on your perspective) and touched down well before dawn. CMN proved to be an easy airport to navigate and before the sun had come up, I'd purchased a train ticket to get me to Casablanca and began my trip north.

INITIAL IMPRESSIONS

As we pulled out of CMN to head to Casablanca, the sun was nowhere close to rising but a pale grey twilight was beginning to creep across the countryside. We were cutting through the Casablanca exurbs—not quite rural countryside but not true suburbs either. The landscape—as near as I could tell in the pre-dawn twilight—was covered with fallow fields and (mostly) dirt roads criss crossing the rolling terrain with homes and homesteads dotting the countryside. It was—to sort of quote my friend Steve—not quite unlike Iowa.

As we moved through the pre-dawn gloom, I caught a glimpse of my first Moroccan outside of the airport. And I wish I'd been able to get a photo because this woman summed up the contradictions of this country.

She was a runner, doing what runners do in the pre-dawn hours. But it was her appearance that stood out most—running shoes, leggings, lightweight running jacket. Greys and whites highlighted with pink (and her shoes were entirely pink). All of which looked utterly modern.

She looked like she'd just knocked over a lululemon store or something.

But on her head, she wore something that I've never seen a jogger wear.

A headscarf (and it may well have actually been a hijab).

And, of course, it was hot pink.

We left her in the dust she was kicking up on her morning run and continued on our way.

RIDE THE CHEMIN DE FER

One of the things I was looking forward to during my trip to Morocco was the chance of riding the Office National Chemin de Fer (ONCF)—the Moroccan State Railroad company. Being from Chicago, I have a bit of an interest in trains (no, really) and while I’ve ridden plenty of metro systems throughout the world, this would be my first chance to ride intercity heavy rail outside of the US.

To be sure, taking the ONCF was partly born of necessity—inter-Moroccan air travel was expensive and not particularly convenient and renting a car would have been problematic given the distances I wanted to cover. Talking to people who had been in Morocco before, I came away with a pretty good feeling about the ONCF, but even then I still wasn’t sure what to expect. I mean, Amtrak approaches third world levels of service on its own, and now I’d be taking the train in Africa.

Well, while Morocco may be in Africa, it is not African and is certainly not a developing country. And the ONCF was—quite simply—the only way I could imagine traveling in the country. Yeah, trains were a little late once or twice, but certainly no worse than the US. And while they were perhaps a little dated (I’d guess they were comparable in levels of comfort to US trains in, say the fifties to the seventies) they were more than serviceable.

Something about the ONCF that I didn't appreciate until I was on the ground was how good the stations would be for people watching. Four days isn't enough for me to get a great read on a culture—certainly not one as diverse as Morocco—but based on my experience with the train and what I saw at the station, I'd guess that the train is a preferred way for the Moroccan middle class to get around the country. And it's that middle class where Islam and modernity overlaps. Which makes for some fascinating visuals.

Both going to and from Fes, I had to make transfers in both Casablanca and Rabat which gave me ample opportunity to people-watch. And you saw everything: men wearing sharp suits with slicked backed hair, women wearing leather or denim jackets and heels who would not be out of place in Paris or Milan, men wearing skull caps and modest Islamic dress, and women wearing the hijab. The full spectrum. And—what was most interesting to me—none of the Moroccans seemed to take the least bit of notice how everyone else was dressed. More than once I saw a conservatively dressed older Moroccan man pass by a group of women dressed in the latest western styles and I always kept a lookout for the disapproving glance. It never came.

One moment does stand out. I was on the platform in Rabat or Casablanca and there was a group of Moroccan women—all in their 20s—chatting amongst themselves. But their styles of dress could not have been more different. The first girl: hair down, sunglasses propped up on her head, leather jacket and blue jeans. The second girl: dressed conservatively, slacks, long sleeves, and a headscarf. The third girl: a full hijab. And yet all three were clearly friends and were joking and laughing with each other as they waited for their train. Moroccans of every age and possible style of dress, male and female, passed this group and none gave them a second glance. For someone whose only previous experience in Islamic cultures was Afghanistan and Iraq, it was a sight to see.

Before concluding, one quirk of the ONCF which I feel compelled to share with you, dear reader, should you ever find yourself in Morocco, is that first class is a rip-off. In first class, you have assigned seating in a six person compartment (3x3 facing each other). Whereas in second class, it’s 2x2 open seating. Basically my first class ticket entitled me to sit by the door of the compartment, two seats away from the window, staring at someone for four hours. In second class, I could pick my own (window) seat. The comfort level was the same (maybe in the summer an air conditioned compartment is worth it. In February? Climate control wasn’t an issue). Needless to say, I rode second class with my first class ticket (thoroughly confusing the conductor in the process).

Finally, any railroad that has orange trees growing in its stations has to be doing something right.

WELCOME TO FES

Fes is deceptive upon arrival. The train station is in the new, more modern Fes, where nondescript concrete buildings line wide boulevards fronted by cafes with two seats at each tiny table facing towards the street for people watching. The French influence remains strong.

But I was staying in the Old Medina. The rat warren of narrow alleys and marketplaces which the western mind conjures up when it thinks of a north African or levantine city. The riad I was staying at was just inside one of, if not the, main gates and so I grabbed a taxi and asked him to take me to the Blue Gate—the Bab Boujloud.

THE OLD MEDINA

THE OLD MEDINA BY DAY

How to describe the Medina? Energy. As water is diverted into a narrow channel, it flows faster and so it seemed to be with the mass of humanity snaking through the narrow alleys of the Medina. But the Medina is a city itself and cities are for living and so it seemed like anywhere you turned in the Medina there were markets and shops. Restaurants and apartments, all just compressed together in a way that the western world has long since forgotten.

THE PASSAGEWAYS OF THE OLD MEDINA, PART I

Going into Morocco, there were very few shots I felt that I had to get. Instead, my plan was to feel out the city and see what I was attracted to. I certainly hadn't expected to shoot so many photos of the passageways and alleys of the Old Medina but I quickly became drawn to them. After a day or so, I began to seek them out - the more mysterious, the better.

INTERLUDE

I can say that the skies in Fes were some of the bluest I've ever seen. Absolutely spectacular.

THE MEDINA BY NIGHT

It's not true that the Medina never shuts down—Fes is certainly not New York. But there were was a certain energy that remained in the Medina even after the sun had set.

THE SATELLITE DISHES OF THE OLD MEDINA

Now, I’ve traveled fairly extensively in the developing world and the Middle East (though it's worth noting that Morocco is not the first and is arguably not the second), so I’m no stranger to seeing a forest of satellite dishes bolted onto here and there and spread across the landscape as some sort of fiberglass kudzu. But for some reason it just struck me more in Morocco. Maybe it’s because Morocco is not a developing country and yet it still is infested with these ubiquitous devices. Maybe it was just the juxtaposition with the classic architecture of the old Medina. Whatever it was, I noticed them everywhere.

SO WHY WAS FES SO UNRELAXING?

Then why was this the least relaxing vacation ever? Looks nice enough if a bit crowded in places.

Yes. Well.

That is true but it's not the whole story. One thing you don't see in my photos, because I didn't shoot it because I'm not even sure if it can be shot, was the unrelenting harassment from street vendors, shop keepers, and random Medina-ites. "Monsiuer!" "Mister!" Buy this, buy that. Would you like to see my shop? Leather goods this and rugs that.

Over and over and over again.

Look, I was (and am) no stranger to this. Hell, I lived in Senegal at the time and the Woloff are certainly no slouches when it comes to driving a hard bargain (whether you wanted to be part of that bargain or not) but I thought I'd left all that behind for a few days. Instead, I'd found Dakar ramped up—a hyper Dakar which was only made worse by the fact that these people spoke English in addition to French, so your sudden inability to speak the local language offered you no respite.

I have to admit that even I fell victim to some of the scheming. Nothing major—I probably paid out over the course of the weekend $10 worth of dinar that I'd have rather not parted with, so in the grand scheme of things, it was nothing. But again, I lived in Africa, should have known better and my pride demanded more so I was furious when I'd realized what had happened—which was always within 30-90 seconds after it happened (and whatever Moroccan shopkeeper had long since vanished). Then again, I did argue with a cab driver who tried to overcharge me by about $1...and won. So it was only $10 over the course of the weekend and not $11.

The photos below represent my biggest failure. These are the famous leather tanning vats of Fes and I don't think you'll ever see a description of the city that doesn't include a photo of them (you're welcome everyone. You're welcome). What the guide books don't tell you is that they are lined with leather shops and you have to go into them to get a shot (or maybe you don't and I just got played by a shopkeeper. Either way). Anyway, I didn't like the light or angles I was getting and no I don't want to buy any leather goods.

I said GOOD DAY, sir.

But the constant harassment of the residents of the Medina did give me one good story. Scene: I was walking to the north gate of the Medina. On my left, a Moroccan man in his 20s or 30s peppering me with questions in French if I wanted to buy this or follow him there. On my right, a Moroccan woman in maybe her forties, wearing a hijab saying nothing to me.

As an aside, scraping off these guys was extremely tough. If you spoke English, you marked yourself as a tourist and they'd just double their efforts. But speaking French didn't really help either as there were plenty of French tourists about and many Moroccans, of course, speak French anyway. So I implemented a plan I'd bounced off the son of the owner of my riad that morning.

I switched to Portuguese.

Him: Something, something, in French.

Me: "Desculpe o senhor, mas sou Portuguese. Não compreendo!"

I could type it out but you get the idea. He kept repeating to me in French and I kept responding to him in Portuguese. And he kept speaking louder and slower.

Meanwhile, the woman to my right continued saying nothing.

Finally, as we drew close to the gate he gave me a look and turned back towards the Medina to try and find another mark. As soon as he was out of earshot, the woman turned to me and said: "Monsieur, vouz n'etes pas Portuguese."

I stood there unable to come up with anything to say in French, English, or Portuguese.

She peeled off and disappeared into the Medina.

THE PASSAGEWAYS OF THE OLD MEDINA, PART II

I can't say I ever truly got lost in Fes. I'd read about some local guidebook which had the BEST map of the old Medina (turns out, it did) and I was able to track it down at a bookstore in the new city. Between that map and a decent sense of direction, I was able to get around generally well. More than once however, I would get turned around in the back alleys of the old Medina and would need to move to the edge of the Medina to get reoriented. That orientation always happened quickly but occasionally, rather than walk to where I'd meant to go, it was just quicker to hail a taxi, hit the reset button, and have him run me back to the Bab Boujloud. And then I'd plunge back into to the alleyways—because while I was probably going to get turned around again, anything was better than dealing with the chaos of the old Medina.