Katie and I packed up and left Fes. We had discovered that it is a nice city, easier to navigate than Casablanca, but those darn medinas still get us all turned around! The pressure of guides to follow them, and then men making comments gets a bit tiring and when you are trying to ignore them in the medinas (which are the old, walled in parts of the city with very narrow winding streets full of shops, stalls, and homes) you tend to get lost quickly. So we were a bit happy to leave Fes and head to the seemingly quiter Meknes. Rachel had headed back to Casablanca at this point to meet up with her sister. So it is back to the two of us!
Before we left Fes, I had to make a little purchase... custom made purchase *wink*
We are relying on a lot of bread for our breakfast meals as it is easy, cheap, and available everywhere. We eat a lot of sweet roll type things which usually do the trick until we get hungry and ready to eat some lunch. Although, sometimes, Katie and I are just a bit strange and decide to play tug-of-war with the baguette...
We arrived in Meknes, after a very brief 45 min train ride from Fes. We met a delightful couple from Buffalo, NY on the train and chatted with them. Very nice start to the trip. We searched around for a hotel as the first one we looked at (LP recommended) ended up being more expensive than the guide said it would be. No problem though, we found a place for Dh 100 which is like $14 - pretty sweet I think!
We then decided to explore the city, the Lonely Planet has a nice walking tour of the medina which looked like a good idea and it started close to some nice looking lunch stalls.
These were the nice lunch stalls out in the middle of a central square. There were tons of stalls to choose from, all with these little seating areas separated by colored table cloth. We selected the stall with a few patrons and women so we felt comfortable.
This was my DELICIOUS meal! Mint tea with vegetable tangine and bread. The tangine is a very traditional Moroccian dish.
After a very nice lunch, Katie and I set off to do the walking tour of the medina - lets hope that we don't get lost this time!!
On the walking tour, I had to take my artistic photo - so here is the landscape, through the archway of the medina. Oh, and we are hopelessly lost at this point...
There was this incredible stand of olives and lemons all stacked very carefully in these pyramids, it was quite impressive.
These are snails... The Moroccians eat es-car-go (sp?) out of stalls on the street. It is a fairly common sight to see them cooked in big pots, but not live in giant bins such as this.
After we had found ourselves again after being hopelessly lost Katie and I were in need of some down time, not to mention a shower. So when in Rome... we went to the Hammams. The hammam is a communal bath house with very hot water available. Most homes do not have hot water for showers and the hammam is a time for socializing and chatting, especially among women. So Katie and I took our shampoo and soap and headed to the hammam for a thorough scrubbing. We bought traditional olive soap which helps soften the skin (apparently) and a scrubbing mit which we learned is used to rub off/exfoliate the outer skin. It was a fun experience and it felt really good to get clean, that is for sure!! Though standing in a hot open room, like an under-steamed steam rooom, with a bunch of naked women staring at your white skin is a bit odd. Everyone was super nice though, and underwear is left on, so nothing was too embarassing.
After returning from the hammam, we decided to wander the medina again, only this time to just watch and wander, not to try to stick to a path. We had a nice place for dinner all picked out at well so we were excited about our evening. Little did we know that that was not at all what we would do!
Once at the same center in the medina where we had lunch we found large groups of people gathered around street performers. Katie and I curiously went to see what it was about. Unfortunatly, it was all in Arabic (naturally) so we didn't understand what was going on at all. So we wandered to the next group to see if something less language dependent was going on. It was here a man approached Katie and mimed some type of greeting and what we thought to be "I think you are pretty." Katie said thank you, blushed, and we walked away and began our wandering.
We stopped to buy dates and look at small things in the shops and just wander, the people watching was great. The medina was much fuller with local people than earlier so we were left alone by most shops and felt fine just wandering. After a few turns around in the medina, we were approached again by the same man, or rather Katie was approached. This time he held a note of sorts which someone had attempted to write in English. The gist was, he thinks Katie is pretty and wants us to meet his family. I'll leave out the details, but the rest is best explained in pictures - what a fun night!
Nabil and his mother Fatima in their small room home.
Katie and I, along with Nabil's sisters and friends. They let us try on traditional Moroccan dresses, and Katie actually got to keep hers!
The family was so welcoming and offered to do henna with us! It was so fun because Nabil's grandmother was there too and she was quite the baller. She was passing out high-fives like crazy! Katie got quite the henna tattoo - both feet and part of the shins!
I opted for something smaller and not on my feet, yet it is nevertheless detailed. The henna was very fresh and our skin was recently pummeled by the exfoliating mit at the hammams, so the henna stung pretty bad after sitting on the skin for a while. Although today it looks quite nice, a pretty brownish-red color.
After such and adventure, and many attempts at communicating (they spoke Arabic and French, Katie and I speak... English) we made it back to the hotel in the evening and laughed about the failed attempts at chatting and the endless offers of food. My goodness, every few minutes Fatima, the mother, was offering us drinks, cakes, couscous etc. Very kind but so hard to say no all the time too.
We are now in Rabat, the capital of the country for at least a day, maybe two. We might meet up with a couchsurfer and tour the city, but we will have to see.
Thanks to everyone who leaves me comments, it's great to know people read the blog! I love hearing about home and knowing how you all are doing!
*Katie says hi to her family and friends too - thanks for those comments as well
Aarthi in Rishikish - very cool thing to see
Rafting the Ganges!! Super fun!!
Me holding my bike helmet on the road to the Thiksay monastery
Three story Buddha statue in Thiksay Monastery
Prayer wheels in the Hemis Monastery south of Leh (always turn them clockwise)
At the top of Shanti Stupa in Leh, the view was beautiful and we stayed until sunset just watching the mountains change color - stunning
18,380 ft - it was awesome!
Loads of prayer flags on the highest motorable pass in the world. It's really a beautiful thing, the idea of sending prayers on the wind to the Gods.
This is the jeep crew - Sidd (India), Me (USA), Tom (UK), Eliza (Italy), Kate (Aussie), Steve (UK) We had so much fun just chatting, drinking beer and trying not to kill our jeep driver who seemed to be trying to kill us!! We just crossed back over the Khardung La pass back to Leh
Sidd in a great little pizza joint in Leh, the mushroom soup was amazing!
The Lotus Temple - beautiful and quite a nice religion too - very accepting, very equal opportunities, very peaceful.
