January 17, 2004



Fez

After a late night of Sufi drumming, we slept in this morning and got on the bus just before lunch. We ended up just inside a tiled gate leading into a section of the city. The patterning was the same on both sides, though one was green and the other blue. The shape of the arch was a typical arabesque found in most large archways here. We had lunch just inside

the gate on a rooftop terrace overlooking traffic going in and out. I have to say the donkeys trotting along was one of my favorite sights. We had our first true Moroccan cous cous and some of the best-tasting cooked vegetables I’ve had yet this trip. They came in a traditional dish that's round with a cone-shaped lid.

We got back on the bus and drove to the neighboring town of Sefrou to see an old medina that still functions the way the one in Fez once did. We were given a tour by Mohammed, a lively fellow who opened his home (a cave) to us and taught us a song: “One, two, three. With Mohammed. Speak a little English. One, two, three.” This quickly became a sort of theme song for the trip. So we sang and drank our mint tea. On the way back down the steep and winding stairs through the town, we were absolutely mobbed by the town children demanding “stylos” (pens), candy, or dirhams (the local currency). We escaped successfully, walked through a similar medina in another town, dinner, then bed.