To Fes
Hi BoBbers,
It turns out Morocco might just be more of a gateway to Africa than Munich. Even the short stretch from Chefchaouen to Fes in early December was full of adventure. More than once people stopped to offer us food along the way, with multiple women walking over to our lunch picnic and offering us bread and fruit and olive oil - such kindness and hospitality! Five minutes later some teenagers passed us making the wanking gesture at Alice - such brashness and vulgarity! Morocco really has it all.
We encountered more contradictions when passing a police checkpoint in the evening a few days later. The police were quite insistent that it wasn’t safe for us and that we should stay at a guesthouse about 10km back. Of course they knew the guesthouse owner, who came and showed us pictures of the passports of other foreigners who had stayed with him to prove his legitimacy, but obviously not his respect for privacy. We managed to talk our way out of it and rode another 5km in the dark, relieved that we weren’t followed. We carefully set up camp away from the road, but then saw lights approaching. 30 minutes of frustrating charades later we relented and stayed outside somebody’s house a few kilometers away. Apparently there were roaming alcoholics everywhere and it wasn’t safe. This combination of help and concern but also paternalism was difficult to navigate.
The next day we arrived in our hotel in Fes, where the owner messed up the payments and then had a full-on tantrum when we wanted to wait a day to check the bank account before paying cash. A lot of men seem to be pretty much constantly smoking hashish here. The Fes medina truly left an impression. It’s the world’s largest pedestrian zone and a full city in its own right. People live their entire lives within the walls with police stations, mosques, mini-factories, warehouses and of course retail. Tourism is present but not overwhelming, which makes it feel authentic, but not that you’re an anomaly.
While in Fes, we made the decision to continue inland rather than heading to the coast. Colder and longer, but a chance to cross the Atlas mountains in their full glory.
J&BoB
