Morocco - Fez Hats are Not from Fes

Fes was fantastic, especially the medina and souk. Fes is more touristy and slicker than Meknes though. Higher prices. And no live music. We met up with Rob and tried to find some live Berber or Rai music but did not succeed. The only leads we got were for expensive restaurants with a combined dinner and music program.

By this time, we had heard every third person saying 'Namaste' or something else from Indian movies - Indian movies are huge in Morocco for some reason. We've had conversations with people about Shashi Kapoor and Bachhan and 'Mera dil hai Hindustani'. Quite funny, especially in Morocco of all places! We even had a couple of people start to sing some older Indian filmi songs.

Our first full day in Fes, we hired a guide and plunged into the medina. Our guide was fantastic - he took us through a bunch of the markets inside the souk and also to a number of museums and funduks (i.e; inns) that were now museums. He also took us to the Har Gadha museum which had a lot of blue pottery for which Fes is famous.  If you are planning on visiting Fes, we would recommend getting in touch with our guide, Abdel Aziz El Mesbahi, at [email protected] and +212-61-50-36-09 in Morocco.

Some of the museums qnd funduks were beautiful. Intricate geometric patterns appeared on walls of mosques completely hidden inside the souk.

The souk was crowded - the streets were two lanes wide - that is, two donkeys wide - apparently that was the standard several hundred years ago when it was important to be able to have two donkeys pass each other with causing a traffic jam. The practice has continued till today - one of the not so pleasant side effects is the masive amount of donkey dung everywhere!

One of our stops was at the tannery. We were given sprigs of mint to keep under our noses because the tannery smells so bad! From the terrace above the tannery; we could see all the vats. Apparently, this is a very sophisticated assembly line where hides go in and out of different vats in order to be cured and colored. The colors are all natural i.e. orange from zafraan, lime from pigeon shit (hence the smell) mint leaves etc. The smell apparently comes partially from the hides being dyed in pigeon droppings!

We had an intense bargaining experience in a shop where I saw an excellent astrolabe. We saw this same behaviour in all the other shops we ventured into:
1) The owner of the shop first said he was doing us a great favor by discounting immediately by 25 percent.
2) Then he said that he was bringing the price down because it was a bad month and he did not have much traffic in his store
3) Then he said that the piece I wanted to buy had huge investment value and would increase in value over time
4) Then he said that we both had to be honorable and do a deal that would bring honour to each side and result in everlasting friendship between the two of us
5) Then he said that he would give it away to me in the name of international relations between India and Morocco
6) Then he dropped the price some more and turned away and stood with his arms crossed and folded.

We saw a bunch of other things in the souk, including a communal bakery, the weaving of cloth etc. We also ate at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant which was excellent. At the restaurant, we saw a number of Senegalese pilgrims who had come to pay a visit to the mosques and tombs in Fes. Oh, and of course, we discovered that Fez hats are not from Fes - apparently it comes from Greece or Turkey.

On to Marrakech now!

- Dev

Comments

[DK]

Thanks for the info! I have updated the blog to reflect your comments.

[JAJACAJ]

The green color comes from mint, not pigeon feces. The feces is used in preparing the hides to be dyed, it is not itself used as a dye. I know because Ive been to the big tannery in Marrakech as well as the old one in Fes.

[Mahendra and Kokila]

Dear Smruti and Devtosh,

Morocco, Granada, Medina surely appears to be more colorful. Colors are surely more vibrant. how old are the museums and colorful tile works?

By now both of you must have developed and become expert negotiator to get most for the money.

What is next on the itinerary?