Meknes

Last Saturday morning we headed to the city of Meknes, which is about an hour's drive away. Meknes is one of the four imperial cities of Morocco (along with Marrakech, Fez and Rabat) that were at one time or another the capitol of the country. Our first intent was to catch the 9:00 a.m. bus from the marche, but we concentrated a little too long on our Saturday morning lounging (breakfast and coffee to prepare us for the dearth of such things during the days of Ramadan). We then made a concerted effort to make it to the main road from our apartment by 9:00 a.m. so that we could potentially flag the bus down. We left just a few minutes too late and saw the bus go by as we were walking. On to Plan B: catch a grand taxi (larger taxis that go from city to city vs. petit taxis which stay within a city). While walking to the marche to catch the grand taxi, a couple that we met a few weekends ago (John and Ramiza) drove by, stopped and asked where we were headed. Turns out they were driving to Meknes to go to Marjane (the nearest large supermarket), so we caught a ride from them to the edge of Meknes, then caught a petit taxi to our hotel. How fortuitous!

Our time in Meknes was at times pretty cool, at times very interesting, at times somewhat annoying but overall, a good experience. Our hotel was in the medina, the old portion of the city, which is surrounded by a huge wall and has labyrinthine corridors and giant, gorgeous gates leading in and out. Some streets in the medina are wide enough for cars, and others are only wide enough for two or three people walking side by side. The Meknes medina is reasonably navigable, though you inevitably get a little lost while twisting around ... in contrast, the medina in Fez (a UNESCO world heritage site) covers some 7 square miles and is known for its maze-like ability to get nearly anyone lost. In the heart of the medina, shop keepers both real and faux have set up their businesses and you can buy nearly anything you might want in there if you can a) find it and b) haggle to a reasonable price. These areas are packed with people and you really need to be assertive if you want to move forward at all. And there are many people who think the one thing you need in your life is a new Berber rug. And they can be pretty sneaky.

So, in the morning we walked to Bab el-Mansour, the main gate into the medina that was built as a tribute to one of Morocco's great leaders (eleventh century), Moulay Ismail, by his son. The minute we dove into the narrow alleys of the medina, we were invited, quite persuasively, into a rug shop. We made it clear that we were not looking for rugs (the prices were quite a bit higher than rugs Sam bought in Azrou, a village near Ifrane), but our host was insistent on showing us perhaps twenty rugs, laying them one on top of the other on the floor, and describing the symbols on the rugs and the materials that went into making each one. Having no real place that we needed to be, it was very interesting learning about these beautiful rugs, and our host was exceptionally nice (another down side to Ramadan: typically these interactions involve drinking some mint tea). And in the end, we didn't buy any rugs, which may have bummed the guy out (though Sam bought some earrings).

We then wandered further into the maze and scored a yogurt maker (that last batch didn't fare so well) and also found an excellent shop to buy several types of coffee beans and have them ground on the spot. We witnessed the deaths of a few chickens. We stood out front of a pastry shop for a while watching a woman drizzle honey from what looked like a huge colander over a giant pile of shebbakia and baklava ... and then we bought some samples. At some point in the day we grabbed some snacks at a stand (bread with olives, onion and cheese baked into it) and took our non-Muslim, couldn't-fast-for-an-hour-much-less-a-day asses to out hotel room to snarf down some food.

After lunch we had our second rug experiene, this one a little more annoying. We were trying to locate a mosque in the middle of the medina (which is a tricky task), and at some point ran into a guy going to get some milk for Ramadan. He spoke English a little and said he loved to practice. We were just walking with him for a bit, at some point he asked what we were looking for, and we told him the Grand Mosque. He said he'd show us and also suggested the architecture at a Koranic school along the way. The "Koranic school" had a gorgeous, palace-like interior with amazing mosaics, and the "professor" told us about the history of the place. Then he started breaking out the rugs. We told him we weren't interested, but he kept talking and told us how when we heard the prices of the rugs, we'd thank him. We didn't thank him, nor did we buy a rug. And the douchebag who led us there was outside after thirty minutes of us being inside, saying he'd now take us to the grand mosque and asking for some "chips" for his troubles. No chips for you.

When the end-of-fasting cannon went off at 6:20 or so (seriously, there is a huge cannon blast that you can hear throughout the city at 4:30 or so in the morning and again in the evening), we high-tailed it to a cafe to get the caffeine fix we'd been missing all day. Sam got some strange looks because, naturally, a coffee shop is for men. We then, in an attempt to have a quick snack before heading to a restaurant we had scoped out, ended up getting served a full f'tour at a shop in the medina. F'tour is Arabic for breakfast, and during Ramadan this consists of harira (a thick tomato based soup with lentils, chick peas, noodles and cilantro), potato dumplings, savory and sweet "pancakes", olives, dates and an array of honey-saturated pastries. It's fairly tasty, but we've had a few Ramadan f'tours already and didn't necessarily want another. Thus satiated, we skipped the restaurant we had been considering and walked to the ville nouvelle, the new, French portion of the city.

One prominent aspect of Moroccan culture, at least during Ramadan, is the evening promenade. After everyone has eaten their f'tour, the streets and coffee shops fill with people. In Ifrane, this "filling" is a bit subdued, but in Meknes, there were people EVERYWHERE. There was a carnival of sorts set up on the hill above the medina, and it was packed. People and cars mingled somewhat harmoniously in the streets. We ended up walking around all evening and grabbing a pizza when our f'tour wore off. The ville nouvelle was a lot more lively and young than the medina, but we still didn't see many women in coffee shops ... apparently there are some younger establishments that are more amenable to a mixing of the sexes, but we didn't hunt them down that evening.

The only remaining aspect of the trip to Meknes to mention is the trip to Marjane. Since Marjane is the closest supermarket and since we were already in Meknes, we figured it just made sense to stop there before heading home on Sunday. We took a petit taxi there and then spent an hour or more wandering around this giant, crowded store. Prices were all clearly marked, which was refreshing compared to shopping in the medina (though my yogurt maker was quite a bit cheaper than those on display). It was like being in a giant candy store, since they had all sorts of things that we can't find ANYWHERE in Ifrane. Like frozen pizzas, cereals other than Corn Flakes, huge bags of rice. The line took us a good twenty minutes to get through.

So, then we've got a bunch of bags and are ready to head back to Ifrane. A grand taxi can SUPPOSEDLY fit six passengers, two in the front and four in the back. I have yet to see this happen, but prices are based on these six passengers (25 D per person). So, if you want the whole taxi for yourself, the trip will cost 150 dirham. We fortunately bumped into two other people from Al Akhawayn and decided to share a grand taxi back. This involved Sam and I going back into the medina in a petit taxi to get our stuff, making our way to the grand taxi station, negotiating a grand taxi to Ifrane and explaining that we had two more people waiting at Marjane and wanted to buy the last two seats, all in French. The conversation went something like this: "Ifrane. We are four. Two are Marjane. I pay all. Understand?" What with this vocabularily challenged exchange, the aggressive passing behavior of our driver and the pleasant lack of seat belts in the grand taxi, I'm somewhat surprised all four of us made it back to Ifrane in one piece.

And that's the end of the Meknes tale ... Sam's got some grading to do this weekend, so we're going to stick around Ifrane again and do a couple of day hikes in the surrounding countryside that were recommended.

Only took a few pictures ... check 'em out: Meknes.