Day 13 - Fes
Today has been a rough day so far.
Last night I was up three times. Twice for stomach issues, once with bad dreams (possibly related to the stomach problems). By the time morning rolled around, I was already not in the best of moods. So we eat some yoghurt for breakfast, my stomach feels a bit mollified, and we head off to try and find the tanneries.
Now, the tourism bureau has had the brilliant idea of putting these colour coded stars up in the medina with arrows to point the tourists along certain routes, which makes the medina here infinitely more accessible to tourists. The tanneries lie near the end of one of these routes, so we set off to follow the stars to our destination.
It soon becomes apparant that the star system isn't perfect. Merchants hanging things from their stalls sometimes obscure the stars until you are almost right underneath them, and looking around for them too much invariably attracts wannabe guides of the worst sort. Most of the touts elsewhere in morocco will leave you alone once you tell them no. Not so in Fes - here the jerks will follow you for blocks, and to get rid of them you basically have to start wandering away from the place you want to go, just to make them give up on you. People are constantly trying to trick you into carpet shops ("come take a look at this old building! Its free!") and I don't even *like* rugs. And once you get out of the shops they still won't let you go - there's always another freaking shop (usually at least a different type) that they want to drag you through.
After an hour and a half of trying to find the tanneries, having been tricked into a carpet shop, ditched two "guides" (one of whom tried to scam us by telling us the tanneries charge admission), and having some asshat peddling fez's demanding money for pointing out the *huge* mosque RIGHT IN FRONT OF US, we find our way out of the medina.
By this point, I am already plenty cranky. My stomach is bothering me, I'm hot, I'm lost, and I really, really *really* want to just clock one of the damned touts. We sit in the shade for a bit, have something to drink, and I vent a bit. But Athena still wants to try and find the tanneries, which is fair enough, since thats why we walked across the bloody medina for in the first place. So we gird ourselves for dealing with the medina once more and head back in.
After much wandering about, we finally find our way back to the marked path we were supposed to be on, and ten meters shy of the officially marked route to the tanneries, Athena follows a tout into a leather shop because he said the tanneries were that way. Apparantly she didn't hear me when I said that the route was just a little further down the street. This resulted in us getting a mediocre view of the tanneries, and a sales pitch for leather goods we weren't interested in. We politely excuse ourselves from his shop, but he touts us over to a herb shop where one of his buddies subjects us to an interminably long sales pitch. We do wind up buying some stuff here, mostly because the local food has already sold us on the value of the local spices. We leave the spice shop, and the same guy is waiting by the door to try and take us to another frakking carpet shop. Athena tries to politely decline, and the tout grabs her arm and insists. We go into the carpet shop, and leave again almost immediately and start heading back to our hotel.
I mention to Athena the sign I'd seen pointing out the official route to the tanneries. She spends the rest of the trip back to the hotel kicking herself for following the tout. I spend the trip back kicking myself for not kicking the guy's ass to the curb when he grabbed Athena. After spending some time cooling down in our hotel room, we go for lunch at our usual restaurant here in Fes, and then head for the internet place.
Our guidebook says that Fassis (residents of Fes) have a reputation for being "sucessful and sophisticated". What that actually translates to is that they are cynical, conniving, pushy, and rude. I am categorically *finished* with the Medina here, and I'm looking forwards to getting out of this town. Meknes is supposedly much easier going.
Last night I was up three times. Twice for stomach issues, once with bad dreams (possibly related to the stomach problems). By the time morning rolled around, I was already not in the best of moods. So we eat some yoghurt for breakfast, my stomach feels a bit mollified, and we head off to try and find the tanneries.
Now, the tourism bureau has had the brilliant idea of putting these colour coded stars up in the medina with arrows to point the tourists along certain routes, which makes the medina here infinitely more accessible to tourists. The tanneries lie near the end of one of these routes, so we set off to follow the stars to our destination.
It soon becomes apparant that the star system isn't perfect. Merchants hanging things from their stalls sometimes obscure the stars until you are almost right underneath them, and looking around for them too much invariably attracts wannabe guides of the worst sort. Most of the touts elsewhere in morocco will leave you alone once you tell them no. Not so in Fes - here the jerks will follow you for blocks, and to get rid of them you basically have to start wandering away from the place you want to go, just to make them give up on you. People are constantly trying to trick you into carpet shops ("come take a look at this old building! Its free!") and I don't even *like* rugs. And once you get out of the shops they still won't let you go - there's always another freaking shop (usually at least a different type) that they want to drag you through.
After an hour and a half of trying to find the tanneries, having been tricked into a carpet shop, ditched two "guides" (one of whom tried to scam us by telling us the tanneries charge admission), and having some asshat peddling fez's demanding money for pointing out the *huge* mosque RIGHT IN FRONT OF US, we find our way out of the medina.
By this point, I am already plenty cranky. My stomach is bothering me, I'm hot, I'm lost, and I really, really *really* want to just clock one of the damned touts. We sit in the shade for a bit, have something to drink, and I vent a bit. But Athena still wants to try and find the tanneries, which is fair enough, since thats why we walked across the bloody medina for in the first place. So we gird ourselves for dealing with the medina once more and head back in.
After much wandering about, we finally find our way back to the marked path we were supposed to be on, and ten meters shy of the officially marked route to the tanneries, Athena follows a tout into a leather shop because he said the tanneries were that way. Apparantly she didn't hear me when I said that the route was just a little further down the street. This resulted in us getting a mediocre view of the tanneries, and a sales pitch for leather goods we weren't interested in. We politely excuse ourselves from his shop, but he touts us over to a herb shop where one of his buddies subjects us to an interminably long sales pitch. We do wind up buying some stuff here, mostly because the local food has already sold us on the value of the local spices. We leave the spice shop, and the same guy is waiting by the door to try and take us to another frakking carpet shop. Athena tries to politely decline, and the tout grabs her arm and insists. We go into the carpet shop, and leave again almost immediately and start heading back to our hotel.
I mention to Athena the sign I'd seen pointing out the official route to the tanneries. She spends the rest of the trip back to the hotel kicking herself for following the tout. I spend the trip back kicking myself for not kicking the guy's ass to the curb when he grabbed Athena. After spending some time cooling down in our hotel room, we go for lunch at our usual restaurant here in Fes, and then head for the internet place.
Our guidebook says that Fassis (residents of Fes) have a reputation for being "sucessful and sophisticated". What that actually translates to is that they are cynical, conniving, pushy, and rude. I am categorically *finished* with the Medina here, and I'm looking forwards to getting out of this town. Meknes is supposedly much easier going.