And here is a delight in traveling. I went for a walk near the hotel, as I am waiting for the time to leave. As I passed a doorway in what I would call an alley, a man and woman exited.
Man, in a surprised tone ‘Bonjour’
Me- Bonjour
Him in French -You are French?
Me -No. American
Him- Welcome
Me – Thank you
Him More words I don’t catch.
Me -No entiendo
Smiles and waves
Ahh, coffee with warm milk. I slept well last night and I’m a new woman this morning. I’m sitting in the courtyard of my hotel in Ouarzazate, which is our stopover on the way from the desert camp to Marrakech. There is also Moroccan mint tea, which comes with the glass stuffed full of fresh mint leaves, fresh french bread and khobz (Morrocan bread), with butter, strawberry jam or cheese to go along, boiled eggs, yogurt, and freshly squeezed orange juice.
The desert trip, as I’m referring to it now, had several stages. The process involved in shuffling everyone where they are to go is complex, with multiple tour sellers, providers, and a lot of transport, meals and other services involved. By the time you get to camp, you are far from the one who assured you of what you were paying for. For the tourist, or at least for this one, it ends up with a fair amount of waiting- sometimes at a restaurant, sometimes in a van, and sometimes by the side of the road where you seek out whatever shade is available.
It’s nearly always true about travel that even with the information available on the internet, you don’t actually know the way of things on the ground until you have experienced it. You try to pick the best hotel/restaurant/tour or whatever, but until you have been there, it’s very hard to judge, for instance, the best area of a city to stay in. It’s all personal preference aside from budget considerations anyway. So someone else’s opinion must be taken as just that.
The road from Fes took us over the Middle Atlas mountains
It was fascinating to see the sand dunes- although I have to admit we were never ‘at sea’, being always close enough that I could have walked to the road. My camel was kind and seemed well cared for, which mattered to me. If you have ever ridden on a camel, you’ll understand the sense of insecurity in the rising and sitting process. First as they gain their knees, you lurch forward so far it would be impossible to stay in your seat but for the sturdy metal ‘handle’, and then you rock back as far the other way, then one more time to get from knees to feet. And then you are aware that you will do that in reverse to dismount- in front of a fairly large audience. Or I suppose you could pay the big bucks and have a private tour, thus reducing the risk of your ignominy being posted on someone’s social media. At any rate, it is an experience worth having. I tried to call my grandsons from camel back, alas none were currently available. But I did have internet, which was a surprise that perhaps should not have been.
There was no air conditioning in the tents- which may not surprise you. However, there were air conditioning units- they just would not turn them on. It was 99 degrees outside at 10:30 pm, and warmer than that inside the tent, with no air moving. I pulled the two seat cushions in my tent outside, and borrowed one from another tent, and slept under the stars for much of the night. I use that term ‘slept’ very loosely, the cushions were narrow and lumpy, there was a fair amount of activity for a couple of hours as people came and went, and I wasn’t quite sure whether any creepy crawlies would be joining me. As they say, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Or some such sh#$t. Already I can laugh about it.
There were six of us, plus our driver in the van once we got underway to the desert. Fernando and Arianna are from Buenos Aires, Jordi and Marla from Valencia (although Jordi explained that he is Catalan by birth and from Barcelona), and Juan is from Fairfield CA. Funny, funny world, yes? They all speak Spanish as a first language (other than Jordi, whose first was Catalan but he is fluent in Spanish), so that was the language used most. I could not follow when they spoke at a normal pace. Sometimes they reverted to English for my benefit, or it was a mixture, especially at shared meals. Juan is still in university, but had been traveling with his family in Europe. He likes solo travel and now is on his own for a bit before returning in time for school. Jordi and Marla are traveling in his van, which they had left in Fes for this jaunt. However it’s a short van trip, as both have jobs to get back to. Jordi is a chemist, and I was never quite clear what Marla does. Fernando is a public defender in BA, and it was fun to try to share our different legal systems and practices. Arianna is a psychologist who works with victims of sex crimes in the prosecutor’s office. It turns out that despite the country having a legal system more similar to, say, France, BA has its own and their process for charging and defending in criminal court is more similar to our custom.
The leaving process is the opening shuffle in reverse. I was taken to another camp to await a mysterious ride, since I was continuing on to Ouarzazate and then Marrakech, and my travel companions were not. The wait itself was not unreasonably long, the hard part was not knowing how long it would be. The choices were to sit in the hot sun with a slight breeze, or in the eating tent with shade and no breeze. For those who live here, the temperature was comfortable, so I don’t mean to make much of it. It just wasn’t comfortable for me and not knowing what would happen next, or when, definitely puts me out of my comfort zone. One of the reasons I like solo travel is the self-determination that comes with it. No such thing with a group tour, of course.
After hours of travel through seemingly arid land with rocks instead of soil, it is a feast for the eyes to come upon an oasis of green. I thought of my cousins’ date farm too as we passed through.
I find it interesting to observe the style of buildings, and the materials used. In the rocky mountains, the buildings were mostly made from the local stone, with incredible stone walls instead of fences. It was difficult to get photos as we whizzed by. In the lower areas, it appears that some kind of adobe or cob materials are used, and sometimes stucco’d or plastered as well. Then there are some buildings made from commercially produced blocks and bricks. We tried to ask our driver yesterday why all the large metal doors that front the street seem to be green. While he speaks some Spanish and a little English, it was hard to convey the question. I should mention here that the others that we were waiting for on my ride yesterday were Fernando and Arianna, who had gone to a different camp. In Fes, the presenting language used with tourists is French, but here Spanish seems to be the default.
We are off to Marrakech today, with a couple of stops along the way, no doubt. Then I shall sit still for a couple of days, do some laundry and work, and wander the streets for food at various intervals. I made a hotel reservation two days ago for a place there that seems to be nice and well located (but see above about that!) I’m not sure yet what I will do with my remaining time in Morocco, and I’m glad to leave it that way for the moment. I keep hearing how wonderful Chefchaouen is, and so I may take a train ride north again. Or I may not. There are several places south of Marrakech that I want to see. Were I a beach person, I would go to Agadir. For now, my only goal is Marrakech.
I’m off to the desert tomorrow- specifically the Sahara, which covers 3.5 million square miles, or about 1/10 of the African continent. Of course, I’m barely going to stick a toe in.
I started the day feeling a bit wrung out from lack of sleep, but knowing it was my last day here in Fes, I went forth anyway. Because the place I’m staying is in the souks itself, going anyplace means twists and turns on pedestrian paths running through, under and into the maze of buildings. There is no grid layout in play here, which means that there are surprises at nearly every turn. It also means you get lost a lot. I mapped out a path to one of the tanneries, and while Google Maps does struggle, especially when you sometimes are essentially traversing a tunnel- it usually came sort of right after some thought. Once you get close to the tanneries, the smell confirms it. But you still have to pick the right way, and there was no shortage of would-be guides hoping to misdirect you into a shop. I got lucky and arrived about the time a small tour was arriving, so I followed them at a discreet distance until it was clear where to go.
While the scene is striking and the colors eye-catching, I cannot imagine climbing around inside those vats as the workers were doing.
In the course of my wanderings, I came across more donkeys, of course.
Fes is home to what is reported to be the oldest university in the world. What’s more it was established and originally endowed by a woman. I really wanted to see it but one must be Muslim to enter it these days- almost any mosque, madrassa or other holy place in all of Morocco is simply off limits. I’ve peeked discreetly as I pass by mosques tucked in everywhere, but that is the extent of it. There are so many mosques that when the call to prayer starts, each starts just a second or two off from the others, and it quickly becomes a cacophony. It’s particularly notable at the first call to prayer when one is still asleep. This afternoon as I passed through the souks, I heard the call and shortly after saw a man with a vegetable stall who had knelt on a sack of sorts as his prayer rug, and was going about his prayers oblivious to us all.
Or “Why did the chameleon cross the road?”
Have you noticed that all waiters everywhere understand the hand signs for ‘check please’? Also, as I wandered the souk in Moulay Idriss today, when I wanted to take a photo that might include someone, everyone I asked understood ‘photo?’ as I waved my phone at them. French is widely spoken here. Ayyoub, my driver today, learned Arabic at home, French at school, and then took Spanish in high school. He also knows English fairly well by now. Greetings are always “Bonjour” and so I’ve just started responding in kind. No one smirks at my pronunciation. Saying thank you often ends up being ‘thank you, merci, shokran’ just to cover all the bases.
I’m staying at a riad in Fes (Wikipedia: A riad is a type of traditional Moroccan and Andalusi interior garden or courtyard associated with house and palace architecture. Its origin is generally attributed to Persian gardens that spread during the Islamic period). My room is rustic enough that I don’t go about in socks or bare feet. The ceiling is low enough that if I stand on tiptoe, I touch it with my head. However, it lets out onto a balcony over the souk, it has air conditioning, and the narrow twisting stairs are worth the extra effort, most of the time.
Yesterday when I arranged a driver for today, the hotel owner was a little shocked at my request to leave at 7 am. I’m so glad I did though, because even with a stop for coffee (ahhhh…), I had Volubilis to myself when we arrived.
Following is a very brief and possibly inaccurate historical account, all errors mine. The area was occupied by about 5,000 years ago, and was a Carthaginian city at least by the third century BCE. When the Romans conquered Carthage in 146 BCE, all of Mauretania went with it, and Volubilis became (I think) the southern-most inhabited city by the Romans. By the second century CE, it had a population of 20,000. The site looks over a beautiful and still bountiful plain. The vagaries of Roman history had its impact, and eventually the city was re-occupied by others, until about the 14th century CE.
About the time the day started to heat up and others were arriving, I was on my way back to the car, and on to Moulay Idriss. It was on the way there that the chameleon crossed the road. Why, I’ll never know. Per Ayyoub, there are a lot of chameleons in the area.
Moulay Idriss was a delight, with so many winding paths through the old city walls, with tiny stores tucked into mere crevices. I think I developed a bit of an obsession with the doors and donkeys.
I had thought of going to Chefchaouen tomorrow, but given the long ride both ways, I’m staying put in Fes. The souk here never stops providing new delights and discoveries, and there is more to see outside the old city.
I’m off to see Volubilis, an ancient Roman ruin and we stopped for coffee to start the day.
mint for tea
I’m headed to Morocco this morning, and that involved some re-arranging in my pack. Somehow my sleep schedule has still not rearranged itself, and I was up even earlier than needed. I went to terminal 3, because that was what Google said, got all the way through security screening, and discovered that only domestic flights were departing from that terminal. There were signs indicating international flights as well, but of course, things change. The screening guy just let me walk back out the wrong way, and off I went to terminal 2. For the first time, I had to provide my vaccination card- no idea what would have happened if I didn’t have it. For a second I was in a panic, thinking I’d put it away in my pack and would have to disgorge the whole thing to find it. I’d have done it right there too, there was no way I was going to the end of the long line. Passport control was painless, and now I’m going in search of coffee.
Student of architecture that I am (snort), I wander equally ignorantly past buildings of great architectural design or history, and those of simple utilitarian purpose.
I took a short ride last evening on a felucca, a traditional wooden sailing boat on the Nile. Perhaps not worth the cost, but still pleasant, other than a guide who had no one but me to act guidely with. That made things a bit awkward but we soldiered through it. Walid met me at the hotel, and Sayed drove us through evening rush hour traffic, a daunting task for sure. We stopped for a shawarma, and then set sail. I have two brothers who are sailors, but I know very little about them. In this case, there was only one sail, hoisted on well used rigging. Walid told me that the boats and sailing knowledge for feluccas in particular has mostly been passed from generation to generation.
We saw a sailing school, and delighted a rowing crew who ran purposely close in front of us.
As we neared the dock, I told Walid I wanted to walk home, which I think was a bit of a relief for him. Yusef engaged me in conversation as I neared Tahrir Square, by telling me I walk like an Egyptian but I don’t look like one. He was referring to the way of crossing streets, of which Cairenes seem to be proud. Alas, he really wanted to show me his artist studio, so that I could buy some art. I ended the evening with a mango juice, then went home to pack.
There are a couple of things I make an effort to find in any new city- a coffee shop, and a bookstore with books in English. I guess that says something about me? The bookstore, in part because they feel like a second home to me, and part because there is never room in my pack for much in the way of books. So I read and leave behind as I finish, prompting the need for a fresh supply.
I’m mentioning those things because I’ve found my way to the same coffee shop that I’ve visited each day here in Cairo. I only just realized this visit that the upstairs is the smoking section, and the ground floor is non-smoking. I came here to tell you about the food tour I took last evening. There’s no place to hang out at my hotel, aside from my room. It has lovely air-con, which I find valuable in this heat. But it has no view, no windows that open, no balcony. While it’s cool, comfortable and clean enough, the only ambience is the chandelier that changes colors like a disco ball- I kid you not. From here I see the life of the city passing the windows- cars, carts, even donkeys pulling carts, people in every kind of attire, street sweepers, bicycles, and a massive construction project across the street. So here I am.
I have seen other travelers talk about doing a food tour in larger cities, in which they get an introduction to some of the cuisine and along with it some cultural and historical information. When I searched for a food tour in Cairo, Bellies En-Route came up with excellent reviews. It’s owned by two Cairene women, and our guide last evening was a young woman named Mariam. She met me and three others-Chelsea, Jerome and Mike- in front of the Hardees on Tahrir Square, which is a pretty central spot in downtown Cairo. The other three are from Connecticut and had just arrived that afternoon. Here’s the happy crew-
We got to taste some traditional Egyptian food, such as koshari, ful and taamiya sandwiches, arabic coffee, so many kinds of juices, baba ghanoug, aish baladi (a delicious flat bread) and more. What made it especially interesting is that Mariam was able to take us into the kitchens, and let us see the dishes coming together. Koshari’s ingredients don’t sound promising but the result is delicious, crunchy and filling. It has macaroni, spaghetti, vermicelli, lentils, rice, chickpeas, served with a savory tomato sauce and topped with a slightly spicy garlic and vinegar combination. Ful is made from fava beans, and taamiya is falafel. The Egyptian version adds fennel, onions, garlic, a lot of cilantro and spices. The sandwich has tahini as well. There were a couple other dishes that included fava beans, all with incredible spices and other flavors that I’ve completely mixed up in my head. I really tried to eat small portions, but still I was full-ish after about 3 stops.
Fortunately the coffee stop involved very small tastes of coffee made the way Beduins made it- with no roaster, they laid the coffee beans out in the sun to partially roast. The resulting coffee looks more like a light color tea. Mariam said that Egyptians like to add cardamom to their coffee as well.
We also tried some cow brain – not a big winner for anyone in our group
In between stops, the views of life on the street distracted me as Mariam played mama duck to us ducklings. Crossing the street in Cairo involves nothing like a crosswalk. Instead it’s a lot like a game of Frogger. It’s a delight that we’ll never know in the US.
People watching is a favorite here, in part because so much is unknown to me and I’m trying to figure out what’s going on. Last evening I walked the streets in search of food – harder than you’d think to find it, and felt entirely safe even in darkened alley ways. I’m not saying there’s no crime here, it’s just that there’s not the guarded sense about possessions I’ve seen in many places. I’m still cautious because losing my bag or my phone would be such a logistical hassle. But I’m free to detour into hidden walkways and spaces between buildings, wander through crowded markets and stand on the street with my phone out, cheeky trying to figure out where I am. That last is particularly nice, because I’m lost much of the time.
I went walking in Islamic Cairo this morning, way too early to find coffee. I started to feel pretty peckish after a couple of hours. Wandering in search of food (google maps shows so many closed or non-existent restaurants, I’ve taken to looking in likely spots instead), I saw a woman sitting outside what looked like a place to eat. She made eye contact, waved me in and called to the proprietor. With a little sign language and his use of two words I did understand, I soon realized this was a place to smoke a hookah- shishka. He also offered chai. I mimed eating food and he pointed down the street. So that’s how I ended up at this place, where these dishes eaten together are all that’s on offer. The guy behind the counter offered me a taste and so I nodded and sat at the table under the tree. One of the men instructed me to eat with my fingers- no utinsels at this place. Here’s hoping I don’t regret this meal. It was delicious.
Riding the metro this morning I accidentally got in a women only car, which was an unexpected bonus. My informal survey results: about 35 women, 30 had on headscarves that completely cover their hair. About five had on face masks. Nothing to infer from that, it was just my self entertainment. I wear a scarf in the sun and sometimes when walking through a group of men. I don’t mean disrespect by not wearing one, it just seems to be optional here.
When i was able to stay awake until almost 9 last evening, I thought I’d gotten past any jet lag and I’d sleep well. I hadn’t noticed the street noise before but a while after I fell asleep, I definitely did. It has a different tenor than night noises where I live. The sounds of children playing mixed with adult chatter, music, and a background of sirens and horns, and it seemed a happy cacophony. Except for my lost sleep. When I woke at around 2, all was quiet. But I was apparently done sleeping. This morning I was out with the sunrise.
I have a notebook with a list of things I hope to see or do while here. At some point when I was reading travel books, blogs and things, I read about a couple of restaurants not to miss. Today I visited this one.
Despite the sign, it’s not about sweets. I went mid-afternoon, thinking it might be a bit slow, but it definitely was not. After looking on a bit, I followed a couple who seemed to know where to go through the throngs on the ground floor and up a set of stairs. They carried on one more flight, but while I dithered, a waiter approached and seated me. A short time later he asked me what I wanted to order. Not having seen a menu, and having forgotten entirely why this place was locally famous, I said I didn’t know. At this point he patiently explained that they only have one dish, it’s just a matter of size and whether I want the ‘regular’ or the ‘special’. There are also some spicy sauces that can be added with varying levels of heat.
It is a kushari (sp?) dish with rice, lentils, pasta and chick peas, garnished with fried onions, then I added some of that tomato based sauce in the silver pitcher. It was really good, and probably would have tasted even better if I wasn’t so overheated from my day’s walking.
The street I had walked to get to the restaurant appears to be a series of auto mechanic and body shops, most all of which actually operate in the street. There was so much going on at this intersection, I just stood there and took it in for a while. Then I headed down the street- there’s little chance of using the sidewalk, in many places it has become an extension of the shops that line the street. Cars honk as they come up behind you, but honking isn’t hostile here, it’s what all drivers do all the time. The taxis toot frequently because of course I am quite obviously a tourist.
To see what I could see 