The eighth day of my trip began when I got off the overnight bus from Merzouga at around 5am. The bus arrived over an hour ahead of schedule, and since the sun wasn’t up I had to stay at the train station for a while until I could find my way into the medina. I sat down on a bench in the bus station and tried to nap for a while. After an hour or so of mostly unsuccessful napping a guy woke me up so he could quiz me about whether or not I was single and then tried holding my hand. I decided after that that it was time to leave, so I left the station and walked down the street to check out a minaret that I could see down the street. Unfortunately I soon realized that my admirer was following me. When I turned around and yelled at him to leave me alone he replied with “I love you,” which, frankly, I’m still baffled by. I crossed the street to get away from him and went back to the train station to get a cab back to the medina.
01 | Meloui, beghrir, and msemen for sale
When I got there things were still mostly closed and were just starting to open. I got some pastries including meloui, beghrir, and msemen, which are all Moroccan versions of things like crepes, pancakes, and crumpets. I wandered around the souks for a while, taking photos of the live chickens for sale, and the goats’ heads, but I had to take them discreetly so shopkeepers wouldn’t start yelling at me and shooing me away, so none of them came out great.
02 | The souks
03 | Souks in the morning
04 | Olives for sale
05 | Live chickens for sale in the souks
At 9am I went to Cafe Clock as they were opening and got a seat on the roof for breakfast. I had some banana pancakes that were a bit underwhelming, but the view from the roof was nice and it was a lot less crowded that when I’d been there a few days prior to get the camel burger.
After breakfast I went to the Medersa Bou Inania (Bu Inaniya المدرسة أبو عنانية بفاس), which has the same name as another madrasa that I’d been to in Meknes. Although I’d got there early, the tour groups did also, and I had to spend quite a while just standing and waiting for crowds to move so I could take photos inside.
06 | The courtyard of Medersa Bou Inania (click for more)
07 | The mosque area of the Medersa (click for more)
For most of the rest of the morning I walked through the souks along Rue Talaa Sghira and Rue Talaa Kebira. I hadn’t bought much on the trip so far because I’d wanted to save most of my shopping for that last day in Fes, and for Marrakesh when I got there in a few days. I spent quite a while going back and forth between different sellers trying to find the best prices on various items. In the end, I bought a really great travel bag made partly of Moroccan leather, a leather wallet, some blue pottery (which Fes is famous for), a teapot, and several Berber bracelets.
08 | Hamsas and other items for sale in the souks
09 | The souks
10 | The souks
11 | Man riding a camel through the souks
12 | A vendor selling nuts and dried fruit in the souks
13 | A fountain in the medina
14 | A man with his mule in the medina
15 | No shortage of things to buy here!
16 | A meat seller in the souks
Around mid-day I went back to the hotel to check in again and drop off my shopping bags. I ended up staying there for an hour or two to take a nap and wait for the temperature outside to drop a bit before going out again. I’d seen most of what I wanted to see in the city, so I continued wandering around the medina again later, following the various tourist paths around the city. As most of the shops were closing in the souks I went back to a store where I’d bought a Berber bracelet earlier in the day and managed to haggle the owner all the way down to about 50MAD per bracelet after agreeing to buy about six of them. This was a great bargain considering that each one would have cost me about five times as much at home in New York. Satisfied with my great shopping trip, I headed back to the hotel to have dinner and go to bed early since I had an early bus to catch the next day.
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