Train to Fez

We took a long, hot train ride from Tangiers to Fez. The train station is nice and modern looking and the train was fine. I wish Senegal had transportation like that rather than having to deal with the bush taxis. Morocco, however, is more “developed,” and therefore has better infrastructure. Then again it might just have nice trains. Egypt, a wealthier country had a train station and trains that looked like Lord So and So of the British colonial administration would be stepping out. Then again, the train was hot as fuck. The air conditioning was humming and blowing air but it wasn’t strong enough to make a difference. Again the women in our cabin were really nice, and didn’t mind when we ate and drank water in the cabin even though they were all hungry and thirsty. One of them was even generous enough to give us some of the food she was saving for the evening breakfast. On the last stop before Fez, a nice, middle-aged Moroccan man who spoke English saying he had worked with the Peace Corps got on and chatted with us for the rest of the ride. He said he worked for the tourism office in Volubilis and that he hated the hustlers and touts who gave Morocco a bad image. Once off the train he helped us avoid the fake guides at the train entrance, buy some food (more raiouf) and walked us to a decent budget hotel. He had also suggested we get a guide to tour the medina in Fez since the medina there was—he assured us—the largest and most complicated in the whole world. 9,500 streets, most dead ends, he repeated as a word of warning. Of course, he wanted us to have a great time so he could just pass by the tourism office where he has colleagues and could definitely find us a legit, government-certified guide to show us around this most guide-worthy of places. Afterward, he even invited us to the breakfast meal at his home the next day. We could meet in front of McDonald’s—the only one in town—and his daughter would even tattoo Tracey’s hands with henna. Even more, the guide could take us there after our wonderful tour. He seemed so nice and genuine that we agreed and were excited to go to his house. While, I met a few Spaniards in the hostels who were getting to know their own country (what was the last time you were a tourist in Cleveland or Atlanta or Minneapolis?) and chilled with them, I never really saw Spainish family life (I saw Dominican family which was even better) and I thought it would be nice to actually visit someone’s home and see that slice of Moroccan life.

The next day our guide was on time. He seemed nice, spoke decent English and said he had a degree in history. He paid for the cab and the tour went well until after breakfast when he asked if we wanted to go to a good store he knew selling scarves. Tracey actually wanted to get some scarves and he waited outside as she picked out two beautiful scarves for her relatives. After our tour continued and it was obvious that everyone gets lost in the medina in Fez, but our guide was just gliding through. With my terrible sense of direction I feel like if I were left alone there one night I would never be able to find my way out on my own. We shot through windy straights, evading turkeys sold on the floor, cutting through the donkey traffic until reaching the tannery. The guide asked us if we wanted to see the tannery. We quickly replied that yes, we would love to see the tannery but wouldn’t want to get to close cause the odors can be “strong.” When we arrived we saw that the look-out point was also a leather store. Would we be interested in buying a purse in sheep, cow, or camel leather? No, that’s fine, although it is incredibly to see men stopping into large vats of chemical dyes, while others cut, wash, treated and transported different animal skins in a process that hadn’t changed much in centuries (due more to poverty than to any love of tradition, but that ruins the illusion right?). Soon after we skipped through the tannery and then ran along an equally foul smelling canal full of trash. He took us to an abandoned madersa and a kuranic school, the equivalent of a pre-K. We took pictures with the little kids and the teacher was really gracious, surely aided by the money our guide paid her as we left. I was uncomfortable with the ethics of paying pre-K teachers to allow foreigners to take pictures with cute Moroccan children, but at least that was more pleasant than being paraded through stores and forced to buy. Our next stop he promised would be an authentic Moroccan home, occupied by a woman’s cooperative and oh yeah they sell rugs. But these aren’t any rugs, first of all Morocco is famous for its rugs—just as it’s famous for its scarves and leather—and this is part of a progressive government initiative to certify the quality of rugs and sell them at fixed but fair prices in order to generate income for its citizens and give foreigners a hassle-free, trustworthy place to purchase Moroccan treasures. How ideal. The “home” was just a rug store, and even though the rugs were beautiful we doubted that we could have sold them for three times the price in the US as they claimed. They even had a partnership with DHL so they could guarantee that our rugs would arrive undamaged in the US, in perfect condition to be resold if need be. We insisted that we weren’t interested and our guide got screamed at as we left and that promptly ended our tour. That fool didn’t even take us out, instead pointing out the exit and bouncing. It was my first time hiring a guide. It will also be the last. To add insult to injury our “friend” from the train also stood us up leaving us sitting in front of the McDonald’s as the sun set. On the bright side, the McDonald’s is an implausibly, extraordinarily beautiful restaurant. It has amazing views, which I admired as Tracey ate. As beautiful as it was, I just couldn’t bring myself to eat there, even if I did poach some of Tracey’s fries. Instead, I bought the Ramadan special at a local restaurant (the only other place open), which consisted of most arbitrary selection of food I have ever had in one meal. There was raiouf, harira soup, a hard-boiled egg, a fried pastry, dried dates, and yogurt. It was in a word, delicious.