Day 5 - The Ancient Capital

This day was my first - and only - rain day. When I woke up, everything was already wet and you could hear the sound of the raindrops on the roof of my riad. Oh well, it was not cold - time to put on the full rain gear and I was already on my way. Made a couple of rounds in Meknes and set down in a busy café opposite the city wall and had a great breakfast (fresh OJ, porridge, scrambled eggs, olives, olive oil, cheese, pita bread - Moroccan tea, which by now I knew how to pour...) and paid practically peanuts.

View from the café

The National Highway 6 leads directly to the major city of Fez, the distance being somewhere around 65 kilometers. There must have been something in my tea that morning, as I was literally munching those miles - I think to have averaged 20 km/h, which is quite good with considering all the luggage I was carrying. It was a major road, it was raining, but the traffic was moderate, probably as there is not only a train connecting the two cities, but also a freeway, which runs parallel to N6. Not sure it's worth mentioning, someone flipped me off in one town...I did hear that Fez is not one of the most secure towns.

Like on another African tour of mine to Ethiopia, I planned to visit a school and getting close to Fez, I thought of visiting a school, so I stopped in front of a building, which, similar to other schools, was painted in merry colors. A guard of sorts came to greet me and led me to a professor. The kids were told to stand as I entered, which was a very polite, but somewhat unnecessary gesture. The professors were very friendly, asking me where I was coming from and what I was doing there on the bike, we were talking in French (the kids apparently spoke only Berber and Arabic).

Friendly kids

I arrived to the outskirts of Fez, the second largest city (after Casablanca) and was amazed by the roadside lights - every 50 meters or so was a rather expensive-looking cast iron light, on both sides of the road. Impressive as it was, I never really became with this city - having preferred Meknes a lot more (probably also due to Kamar's friendly guidance). Due the lack of signs, I started asking about the tourist center of the city (I was silly enough not to say 'medina', just 'center'), the folks all pointed to the commercial heart of this large city, which was a busy avenue with shops and restaurants - but this is not what I was looking for. I had to back-track quite a bit to find the medina, which was on top of a hill. Going there, I rode by the royal palace (there are countless such palaces, in almost every major city) and when I wanted to take a picture of the impressive entrance, the guards rudely forbade me to do this (ah, this is not the first time I get in trouble with the authorities for taking pictures...). When I asked why, he told me just because. I answered that this line of reasoning did not sound really democratic. Oh well, it did not help.

Finally, I did find the entrance to the medina - to the famous gate called 'Bab Boujeloud'.

The Blue Gate...

...the other side of which is actually green...

In contrast to Chefchaouen, where I was able to leave my bike at friendly guys at the information center, nobody wanted to guard the bike - until I found a mechanic's shop, who asked for some (minimal) payment. Entering the medina, it was very touristy, lots of restaurant and shop owners started harassing me (and all other) tourists - not something I've experienced a lot, with the exception of Marrakesh and Tangier, especially not in Meknes.

I started by having some kafta (kebab meat), it was delicious.

My lunch being prepared

Then I walked through the many, many, really many streets - supposedly, there are 9000 of these, only in the medina!

The streets of Fez's medina

Here I also visited a medresa, the Islamic learning center. It was beautiful, but the contrast to the treatment I received in Fez, it was day and night - they did not even look at me when I bought the ticket.

The medresa is Fez

Yes, Fez is impressive, but I did not get to me, you see? I was strolling along the streets of the covered medina, thought to take the main alley - and after an hour or so, I finally saw some light to exit - by this time, the rain had stopped and it was shining. I was glad to be out in the fresh air, away from the busy, narrow streets, and turned to walk back to where I thought to have been coming from. How wrong I was! Usually, I am pretty good with directions, but in this huge medina, I had gotten completely lost - so I ended up taking a taxi to where I had started from (it was a so-called petit taxi, or a shared cab ride, costing me 7 dirhams). Ha, I did take a picture of the royal palace during the ride, the guards probably never noticed it.

The royal palace, I was not allowed to take a photo of

Back at the gate, I took one last photo of a highlight I had missed - that of a now not functioning water clock from the 14th century. It worked with weights of water to signal the passage of time.

Water clock

I am sure I missed a couple of other sights in Fez - but I've had enough of this town, it was simply too large - and also rather touristy with large groups of Asian tourists happily clicking their cameras at every possible angle and pretty much everything. I felt compelled to get out of there - the rain had stopped and I had only had 65 kilometers that day (and just 30 the one before). Back to the center of the city, I hit some major traffic jams, but was able to navigate through the maze of cars. I noticed a French camper with a bike attached to his vehicle - and remembered to have seen him just outside Chefchaouen. As the window was open, I told the two guys that they were familiar to me - and they laughed and told me they were just talking about them having seen me earlier. Small world, but then we were on the main course of tourists.

The traffic got lighter and I reached the edge of the large city. A motor biker pulled up to me, and advised, in German if I remember well, for me to stay in the town, as the next hotel was at least 50 kilometers away and that uphill. Well, we were at the foot of the Atlas mountains. I knew he was right, but it was only about 4:30 pm, so I had at least an hour and a half to move out of the city, plus I had my tent - so I continued on.

It started getting dark and I considered my options, one was to find a hotel, the other was a place to sleep. I found a brightly lit restaurant short ways of the road, I asked if I could pitch my tent - they agreed, but I really did not like the setting, the ground was soaking from the earlier rain. I then got to an intersection, where I asked some men if they knew of a hotel, one offered I could stay at his house. Mhhh, hospitable offer, but I decided against it. Then I got to an intersection with a freeway, where two cops finally told me there would be hotel some dozen kilometers away, somewhat uphill. It took me a while to reach that place, when I did, I was quite a happy fellow - and even managed to negotiate a reasonable price.

That day I had done about 100 kilometers, considering all the backtracking within the city of Fez, here are the details.