Morocco by car

I haven’t read anything about Fes before we got there. Some Rabat locals were telling us, that it’s too hot to go there in the summer, but we didn’t have much choice in the timing that is tied to Salty Ginger’s schedule.

I looked at how people drive in Rabat and Sale, and thought to myself, “this is not India, I can handle this level of chaos”. Indeed, driving was not too complicated. There were occasional cars turning left from the right lane, a guy on a moped that stood in the left turn pocket and decided to go right, but I had to veer only once to avoid someone who wasn’t really paying attention.

Pedestrians are a completely different “species” compared to those in Switzerland (and a Singaporean would probably get a heart attack): people cross where they decide they need to cross, they do not expect to get the right of way on the crossing unless there is a traffic light, and that's where they abuse it. We figured out early on that we would be more likely to cause an accident by letting a pedestrian go through on a crosswalk than driving at a constant speed regardless of who was on the side of the road.

Outside of Rabat we saw donkeys going with traffic, against traffic — whatever worked. But the freeways were great! Well paved, and almost all drivers were polite and driving at or below the set speed limit. There are regular speed cameras and it seems that they have very low forgiveness threshold. It says 120 km/h, and nobody goes above that speed. There were only 2 issues: heavy loaded trucks that would go up the hills at 20 kmh and the repetitiveness of the scenery. Olive trees, desert, repeat...

Our first stop was at Meknes, one of the royal cities, with a cute historical medina. We were allowed to go into the mausoleum (once the girls covered their shoulders with scarfs that the guard skeptically provided). The royal palace requires invitation from the king, so we had to skip that.

We got to the parking lot outside of Fes too late for the shuttle that should have spared us a 15 minute walk. A guy who presented himself as a tour operator was trying to be very helpful and ended up convincing a little minivan driver to take us. How 9 people with light luggage squeezed into the car is … Moroccan.

We arrived to our riad through a narrow street and were immediately at ease. The guy greeted us with tea, had us fill out arrival papers and then brought us dishes and a knife to cut up a watermelon. The atmosphere was very pleasant and relaxing.

Fes

One has to walk through Fes old town to get a sense for it. Reading or watching videos cannot convey the entire atmosphere of the labyrinth of narrow streets where artisans are intermixed with shops, mosques, an occasional cafe as well as tiny “salon de the”.


We walked to the Blue Gate and then agreed that if we explore the city without a guide, we will miss out. Abdul, our guide, is married to a Swiss woman, and has been many times to Lenzerheide, where we love to go skiing! How did that happen?!

He walked us through the main tourist attractions as well as (perhaps a bit too many) to many artisans. We learned about the good luck of Fatima's hand and a few other Arabic ways of building cities that we would have completely missed out had we walked the streets on our own.

We saw (and smelled) the tannery that has been in operation for the last 900 years and is still using traditional methods to process and color leather. They only use traditional materials such as pigeon poop, limestone, etc to process sheep, goat, cow and camel skins, so it is all natural. That does take away the smell. In order to ensure that the outsiders could stay long enough to explain what happens in each of the huge buckets down below, the shop provides mint sprigs that we could hold close to our noses.

The leather gets transformed into goods in the same building. Poofs, belts, jackets, bags and anything and

We went to a metal working shop, looked inside the mosque that used to the oldest university in the world, a clothes shop, natural pharmacy.  For lunch he dropped us off at a restaurant and even though we expected that he would depart, he protested that he can’t leave his clients alone and there are still things to see.

Perhaps it was a somewhat cooler day (only 35C as opposed to 39C), but it was amazing that inside the narrow streets that never see the rays of sun, the temperature was quite moderate. We walked the entire day and even though we were tired, we were not totally sweaty.

Ifrane

The following day right after breakfast we drove to the national park where the only wild primates, Barbary macaques, live in northern Africa. Our first stop was utterly unsuccessful. We walked through a dry forest and the monkeys were nowhere around.

Our next stop was the tourist trap. As soon as we took the turn towards the monkey refuge, there were kids selling peanuts. Obviously because the "common" knowledge is that the monkeys don't get sick from them as opposed to bananas. In any case, a separate group of boys were selling apples. Presumably the ones we saw on the sides of the road as we were driving to the park.

I knew that it can snow in the Sahara, but what I didn't know is that parts of Morocco are high enough to be able to sustain a ski resort! In the summer is dry and hot (although much better than in Fes), but in the winter some of the roads get closed due to snow! At least if you believe the barriers.

Google Maps showed a road-side cafe that was on the way to Fes. Some people were in the mood for a coffee, so we decided to pay them a visit. The owner has a little car with which he pulled a kiosk up the mountain. The amazing thing was: he had a fabulous looking espresso machine. For the equivalent of 2.5 euros we got 2 espressos and a latte. And the coffee was great! This is not Starbucks, baby!

Back in Fes it was hot and much less pleasant than on the mountain range. Except that inside the riad it was still pleasant. We got wine, fruit and a pizza for the kids. Lovely time for everyone!

I am not sure I would have intentionally booked a holiday in Morocco, but due to a confluence of factors which led me there, we ended up discovering a friendly and fairly orderly country. Maybe we'll come back one day.