Morocco Day 3

We are in Fes, a city of 1,000,000.

Our driver took us to one of the king’s palaces. He has many throughout Morocco so he has a place to stay wherever he goes. No hotels for him I guess. The doors were quite ornate and had lots of symbolism which, Abdellah, our guide, explained.

As we left the area, I took a photo of a side door and got reprimanded “No photo!” It was the first of many times I would hear that today, haha!

We were close to the Jewish quarter so we walked through that. Many, if not most of the Jews moved to Palestine in 1948 so there aren’t a lot left in Fes. There were several jewelry stores near the end of the street which sold high quality gold and silver items. Abdellah told us that the word Jew comes from jewelry. This wasn’t a shopping tour so we hurried along to keep up with our guide stopping every so often to let a donkey loaded with items by, for our guide to explain something, or for him to simply count us and make sure no one got lost.

 We were taken by bus to a beautiful viewpoint of the city and got to see the old Fez along with the new.

The old Fez, the medina, has 9,400 streets!! No wonder it is so easy to get lost. Next we went to a tile place where we were shown how they hand made the tile, cut each piece individually, then place it in a design – upside down!  Cement is put on the back side and a table or fountain is made. They also had a section where pottery is painted.

The place is actually a school and students were working alongside master craftsmen. I will never look at a tiled table the same way again!

In the obligatory gift shop I picked up a small souvenir, a tiny tea bag bowl as a keepsake of the visit.

Our bus then drove us to the old quarter and I was quite impressed at the driver’s navigation down crowded busy narrow streets. We headed out on foot down the maze that is the Fez medina. I am sure we all had our mouths hanging open for the next few hours and our heads turning left and right, up and down!

The command “baggat” means “get the heck out of the way NOW”. Carts, donkeys and humanity were constantly passing walking in both directions down the uneven cobblestone roads. And narrow? Did I mention narrow? Sometimes we literally had to jump in a doorway to avoid getting run over.

Abdellah counted us when we came to intersections and made sure there were 15 before moving on. The medina is in sections – leather, textiles, pottery, jewelry, candy, metalwork, etc. Without a guide it would have been impossible to cover all of the various areas we saw.

The streets wind and curve and turn until you can’t remember where you were 5 minutes ago.  After a bit, Abdellah made a turn and suddenly we were in the midst of a quiet little paradise – an area which used to be used as a school I think.

Typical me – too busy taking photos to listen to the long version.  Anyway, it was a nice little respite.

Lunch was at a neat little place up a LOT of very narrow steps. We all ordered the same thing – bastila.

It was so incredibly delicious! The first course was traditional bread served with several dishes of vegetables including olives, carrots, and ? The pastilla is basically ‘chicken pie’. I jokingly asked our waiter if the recipe was a secret and he told it to me. The pastry is the flaky phyllo type, stuffed with small pieces of chicken that has been cooked with onions, peppers and spices like saffron. Almonds are also in the dish and there is a hint of cinnamon together with something sweet, which was a surprise for a main course. It was so very tasty! Then we were served dessert – strawberries, bananas and sweet, juicy, fresh Moroccan oranges!

Our hotels have had them for breakfast and Mike and I can’t get enough of them. In fact I was shocked to look down at the table and see a huge plate of fruit in front of Mikey who was eating it up with great gusto! After asking him just what was going on, everyone laughed at my surprise. No one wanted any more, so Mikey said he’d eat it! Little did I know this would be the first of many times this would happen with Mike.

We continued on to more sections of the medina and headed to the leather tanneries. What an amazing view from on high. There are many vats of colored fluid and several workers washing the skins in the dyes. They were in the hot sun up to at least their knees in liquid, bending and straightening over and over.

Someone in our group said the next time you think you hate your job, think of what these guys were doing. Afterwards, several people tried on leather jackets and slippers. I thought I might want a pair of those pointy Moroccan slippers but they weren’t all that comfortable. I found a multicolored pair with a better toe design which I bought. While waiting out in the street for others to make their purchases (as well as many other times and places), we were approached to buy various items and I succumbed to the sales pitch for leather folding coin purses. I discovered later that they will need a bit of airing out!

Another stop was at a textile place where we tried on clothing. Abdellah had offered to buy us a scarf as a welcome gift from him. I found a nice red and brown one that looks good with my Egyptian galabaya I wore today.

We are going to wear them like the Berbers when we go to the dessert and we learned how to wrap our heads. Mike also bought a jellaba and a headscarf for himself, black of course. While leaving the medina, I purchased a tiny fez shoe keychain for only 10 Dirham (about $1.34). It works great as a zipper pull on my purse. I was pleased with my restraint in shopping today.

 Although it was a warm day, 25C, we were in the shade much of the time and there was a slight breeze blowing. My legs are good and sore tonight from my walking on uneven surfaces and from all the steep, narrow stair climbing we did. It sounds like I am complaining but I’m not. What a great, interesting day we had!

We had about an 80 minute rest when we got back, then we boarded the bus again and went to an authentic Moroccan restaurant Abdellah knew. He ordered for us and we shared. It costed about $8 each for the bread, beef, chicken, pork, liver, hearts (chicken?), sausages and meatballs we ate.

Like I said, Moroccans love their bread and meat. Mike went for a swim in the pool when we got back and he was the only one. I’m not sure if it was closed or whether no one else felt like swimming when it was so late or so cool.

It’s past time for bed again! 

Morocco Day 2

Day 2 Meknes, Volubilis & Fes Apr. 15

We had an early start today – breakfast, check out and on the road by 8 AM. Although there are only 15 of us, we have a beautiful big bus all to ourselves. There is so much room we can each have our own seat on the bus and many of us did.

The day started out cloudy but it turned sunny later on.

Casablanca is home to the largest mosque in the country and the 7^th largest in the world. The minaret is the world’s tallest at 689 feet.

The Hassan II mosque was completed in 1997 and can hold 105,000 worshippers – 25,000 inside and 80,000 in the outside grounds. Thankfully it was much less crowded than that this morning. In fact our small group were practically the only ones there!

The architecture, doors and tile work were a marvel to behold. Our stop was short and my camera and I could have spent an hour there, but I was happy to have seen the mosque.

We drove out of the city and headed towards the imperial city of Meknes. The land was flat and everything was quite green. There were people herding small flocks of sheep, and every so often, a cow or two was grazing by the side of the road while being watched by a man or boy. I also saw women washing clothes by river and donkeys carrying loads of grass. I noticed fields of barley and many other types of crops. There were planted trees, figs perhaps, I had no idea. And our guide pointed out a forest of cork trees that get the bark stripped once every 5 years.

When we arrived in the imperial city of Meknes, our first stop was to see Bab Mansour, an 18^th century ornamental gate.

We saw a beautiful park-like area where the sultan, Moulay Ismail, stored water in case of drought. Next was a tour through the royal granaries and stable where he kept over 12,000 horses. The imperial city of Meknes is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is home to 1,000,000 people. I quite love the architecture, especially the arches, doors and wood work.

We took a break for lunch and stopped at a restaurant specializing in chicken. It was plentiful and very reasonably priced. It came with bread as an appetizer, rice, couscous and fries. What a lot of starch! Moroccans are big bread and meat eaters apparently. I had a Moroccan salad which was chopped tomatoes, onions and spices in olive oil probably. The meal was very filling.

We continued on to see more of the palace area and gateways, and we saw the mausoleum of Ismail. We had to remove our shoes and the marble floors were quite cold on the feet. 

The final stop in Meknes was a shop showing us traditional work in metal. The tradesman pounded impossibly thin silver thread into tiny grooves in beautiful patterns.

They even had earrings for sale but the price was much more than I was willing to pay for something I didn’t need. Meknes is also famous for beautiful embroidery work and I was tempted to buy a cushion cover, until I remembered I really had nowhere that I needed an ornamental pillow.

About a 45 minute drive away was Volubilis, the best preserved Roman ruins in Morocco. The site reminded me of Ephesus in Turkey but on a smaller scale. The sun had come out and it was pretty toasty, perhaps 25 C?

We had a different guide who led us through the site for about an hour. The stone and tile work were amazing considering the work was from the 3^rd century BC.

About 1/3 of the ancient city has been excavated and work is ongoing.

We continued on to our final destination, the city of Fes. The roadside changed dramatically as we drove along. It became quite hilly and the views were incredibly beautiful! Agriculture is extremely important to Morocco and there were continuous fields of crops, sheep, cows, trees, and people working at one task or another. The driver made a quick stop for us to get out and see a large lake created by a dam.

By the way, Fes is the city; fez is the traditional hat.

Our hotel in Fes is quite swanky but our room is very noisy. The busy traffic outside can be heard through the closed patio door as if it were open. I hope I will be able to sleep. A group of us went for pizza across the street and it sounds like we made a better choice than the ones who stayed at the hotel for supper. It is past midnight and I must hit the hay. It’s been a long very busy day and tomorrow is more of the same. Yahoo!

Morocco Day 1

Mikey and I arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare, security was easy-peasy and we left 20 minutes early!! Watched an in-flight movie, “Saving Mr. Banks”, and was served a pretty good supper together with some lovely white wine. KLM sure has awesome service! I knew how tired I would be upon arrival so I tried to sleep but it didn’t come easy. Mike managed to get more zzz’s – he had had a very late night before we left.

It is always so amazing when flying east. It seems like you are travelling as fast as time. The sun just doesn’t go down, and it’s daylight again before you know it. Breakfast was served only a few hours after supper it seemed. Because we left early, we arrived early! I had been worrying about transferring to our next flight with only an hour and 20 minutes in between. Memories of the trials and tribulations of past trips came flooding back to me. I couldn’t believe our next gate was only a very short distance from where we arrived and no customs line to navigate! There wasn’t much to do in that terminal so I tried to sleep without much success.

Although the next flight said KLM on the ticket, it wasn’t them, rather a budget airline they likely code share with. We easily made the connection, boarded then waited and waited and waited. Apparently someone had checked in and their luggage was on board however they weren’t. It had to be found and taken off – a process which delayed us by well over an hour. I didn’t care so much about that flight being the late one. I finally got some zzz’s while waiting and during the 3.75 hour flight. I can’t recall ever being on a plane that doesn’t even give you water, coffee or tea to drink. Well, they offered it at exorbitant prices. We were full anyway so we passed on food and water, but we hadn’t factored in the long wait.

At long last we arrived in Casa, that is, Casablanca! The first order of business was customs and that line was at least half an hour. Then we thought the luggage would never come. Thank goodness it did! After exchanging our USD for Dirham, we went through the gates to look for our ride, wondering if perhaps he may have left due to the delays. Surprisingly he was there, although it wasn’t easy to spot him. He had others to pick up but they weren’t on our tour. The ride into Casablanca was a long one and several times we thought we would hit someone. It didn’t seem as crazy as I recall Egypt being, but I sure wouldn’t have wanted to be driving.

Our hotel is right by the ocean and check in was easy. Mike wanted to lie down but I was game to explore. This fellow was repairing the roof on a outdoor cafe nearby.

It was my goal to gather some sand and walk in the water of the Atlantic Ocean, which I did. We walked quite a ways along the boardwalk to find beach access but finally turned around and got to the water by wandering down various pathways on our hotel grounds.

The breeze in Casablanca is cooling and glorious, especially by the ocean.

We couldn’t spend too much time there as we had to meet the group at 6PM.

It seems like a varied group of people and Mike is the youngest by far. Our guide, Abdullah, gave us a run-down of where we are going then we walked about 20 minutes along the ocean again to our restaurant.

The meal was the same for everyone. I thought the first course was the meal and was quite surprised by the second course.

There were calamari rings, shrimp, fish with lots of tiny bones and some 6 inch creatures that looked like some type of lizard – tails and heads with eyes and all.

It tasted alright but I didn’t eat much because of the many tiny bones and the fact that the eyes were creeping me out! Mike loved it!

Dessert was a lovely dish of fresh fruit.

We walked back to our hotel and said our good-nights. It’s been a fun but exhausting first day!

Panama Canal Day 17

We checked out early, even before the hotel front desk was open, and headed south. My plan was to drive along the ocean and pull over to take photos when possible. I hadn’t really seen the beach area in the daylight and wanted to check it out. We did see a tiny bit of Santa Monica Beach but access is restricted and parking isn't free.

We did make our way to the Venice Beach area and put some money in a meter. After grabbing a bite of breakfast at Subway, we walked towards the beach area.

I soon understood why so many people had recommended that we come here in the daytime, not at night.

There weren’t a lot of folks out and about at 9 AM, and the people we did see had had a lot of challenges in life. The area was obviously for tourists but it was definitely unique and very photogenic.

It would be a real interesting place later on in the day for sure. We spent a bit of time capturing what we could with our cameras.

As it was so close to the busy Christmas travel season, we wanted to get to LAX in good time. The car rental return went smoothly, the WestJet check-in was a breeze, we got the super-fast-no-need-to-take-your-shoes-off line, and the plane arrived home 15 minutes early!!! Another GREAT trip!