As we parted ways with Mohammed the day before, we had agreed to meet with him the next morning for additional "touring" through the Medina. In truth, we were half hoping he wouldn't show up since the day before didn't seem to be on the up and up. But Mohammed figured he had us on the hook. Sure enough, as soon as we walked out, he found us. We just didn't have the heart to tell him to go away at the time, but thought maybe he could at least lead us to a couple of places we wanted to see. Ed had identified a couple of historic sites in his Lonely Planet guidebook that seemed to be the major attractions in Fes - the Nejjarine Museum of Wood Arts and Crafts and the Bou Inania Madrasa. Taking us to those places seemed like a simple enough request, right?
At the time, we didn't know unlicensed guiding was illegal, thus even if Mohammed wanted to show us the real places, he couldn't. But like I said, we didn't know that at the time. To make a long story short, Mohammed took us just about everywhere *but* those places. He took us to some random madrasa and a large riad claiming that it was where we wanted to go. Meanwhile, we thought we were seeing famous UNESCO World Heritage sites. (With no tourists. Zero. Zilch. Zip. Nada.)
At the riad, Ed took out his guidebook and had a puzzled look on his face. He showed Mohammed the photo that was in his book. Mohammed nodded his head vigorously and said, "Yes, this is museum!" We looked around at the empty riad with scaffolding all around us. To put it mildly, it was very unimpressive. Suddenly the absence of tourists became rather conspicuous. Travel note: if you visit touristy places, you should expect to see...tourists.
Sometime in the afternoon, Ed started to become really suspicious. He was looking into his guidebook and he saw very little evidence that we were visiting the places that we were supposed to be visiting. Finally, Dante and I looked at the photo as well. This was the first time I had seen the photo of the Nejjarine. The photo we saw was of a building with impressive arches and intricately carved wood panels. Ed was right - it was quite obvious from the photo that the building we were standing in, with its simple plain ceramic walls was NOT the Nejjarine.
By now, it was late in the afternoon and Mohammed ran out of excuses. So as Ed pressed him about taking us to the places we wanted to go, Mohammed became belligerent and started raising his voice, "Why you do not trust me! I am not an animal! I am not a donkey! I take you to where you say you want to go!". Things were a little heated and we walked on in uncomfortable silence. Gradually, Mohammed led us towards the outside of the walls of the Medina and back to the larger streets where he hailed a cab. We quickly each gave him 200 dirhams each and said goodbye to him. $69 USD was way more than he deserved considering the whole thing was a con, but we did get to see quite a bit of the Medina, and it was a good amount of exercise. So as far as cons go, it wasn't a complete waste of time and money.
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| This is Mohammed. If you see this man in Fes, ignore him! |
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| Fes bakery |
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| Narrow alleyways! |
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| Fabric weavers |
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| Wood carver |
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| We thought we were in a world famous madrasa. It wasn't. |
Using the Lonely Planet guidebook, we took the cab to the Bab Bou Jaloud - the Blue Door - where we finally made our way to the *real* Bou Inania Madrasa and the Nejjarine Museum. As we stepped through the Bab Bou Jaloud we saw a steady stream of tourists - the first we had seen since we arrived - and we knew we were finally in the right place.
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| The path to Bou Inania and Nejjarine |
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| Finally, the real thing. Bou Inania Madrasa |
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| The Nejjarine Museum of Wood Arts and Crafts |
As Mohammed led us through the Medina during the day, we stopped by a local souk (marketplace) where Dante was looking for a Moroccan spice called "ras el hanout" for a friend back home. Ras el hanout is actually a blend of different spices and it can be slightly different depending on where you buy it, but they all should contain at least 30 different spices.
A spice merchant quoted Dante a price of 500 dirhams for 250 grams. Dante bargained it down a bit and ended up getting the 250 grams for about 300 dirhams. 250 grams is a LOT of spice. It never really occurred to any of us that the spice merchant might not be selling us real ras el hanout. But as we were walking down the alley towards the Bou Inania, Dante spotted a spice merchant that had a copy of a Lonely Planet guidebook page posted outside his store that recommended a spice shop as selling genuine ras el hanout at a price of 100 dirhams for 200 grams. In retrospect, we don't really know if the page he posted was in reference to *his* spiceshop. We also didn't know if it was really from a Lonely Planet guide since Ed's book didn't have that page at all!
The difference in price was obviously quite upsetting for Dante, and that was when he started wondering if he even got real ras el hanout. So he pulled out his bag of spice and showed it to the merchant, who shook his head and pointed to his bucket of unground ras el hanout and then took out a scoop of ground ras el hanout. The color was different with a slight brownish green color and a rich complex scent, in comparison to Dante's first purchase of a reddish color spice that this merchant claimed was just one or two spices - cayenne and curry perhaps. So Dante ended up buying another 200 grams. He wasn't happy about the first purchase, but he felt at last that he was getting genuine ras el hanout. Or so he thought...to be continued in Marrakesh.
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Later that night, we returned to the cafe across the street to eat dinner and watch as Bayern Munich destroyed Real Madrid. At first we thought there were quite a few fans of German football, as quite a few people were cheering the night before for Borussia Dortmund, and then on this night, quite a few were cheering for Bayern Munich. We then realized, it was simply Madrid fans cheering for Dortmund, followed by Barcelona fans cheering for Bayern. "The enemy of my enemy...". We were just happy to be in a country where we were surrounded by passionate soccer fans.
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Later that night, we returned to the cafe across the street to eat dinner and watch as Bayern Munich destroyed Real Madrid. At first we thought there were quite a few fans of German football, as quite a few people were cheering the night before for Borussia Dortmund, and then on this night, quite a few were cheering for Bayern Munich. We then realized, it was simply Madrid fans cheering for Dortmund, followed by Barcelona fans cheering for Bayern. "The enemy of my enemy...". We were just happy to be in a country where we were surrounded by passionate soccer fans.
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| Chicken bastilla |
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