STOP 6 | Morocco: the labyrinthine Fes + Midelt: where my heart melted!

Dedicated to Mattia and Giorgia, my loves!

Day 5: Fes

 

The day was completely dedicated to the exploration of Fes. Fes (or Fez) is one of the imperial cities of Morocco and it’s made up by 3 parts:

• the ancient Medina – Fes el-Bali - built in 8^th century
• Fes el-Jdid – built by the French in the 14^th century
• Ville Nouvelle – built in 1912, during the French protectorate

 

We started our visit from the top, where we could observe the whole Fes in its magnificence.

Fes is the 3^rd biggest city of Morocco, after Casablanca and Marrakesh and it’s a cultural capital of the country:

• Intellectual capital: it hosts the allegedly most ancient university worldwide, built by Fatima and where algebra was taught
• Spiritual capital: it hosts more than 360 mosques
• Artisan capital: really famous for handcrafted shops.

                                                  

Together with Hakima, our amazing guide, we did a tour of the most important highlights:

• Royal Palace, the biggest in Morocco, with 7 doors, 7 floors
• University of al-Qarawiyyin together with its Mosque
• Funduq al-Najjarin, which today hosts a museum
• Tannery

Probably the beauty of Fes is walking through the narrow medina, made by more than 10 thousands streets, where only humans and sometimes donkeys can pass, and no room for anything else.

 

During the full trip, we stopped at different artisan shops to see the local craftsmen at work:

• Ceramics artisan shop
• Leather artisan shop
• Jewelry artisan shop
• Textile artisan ship

 

We had lunch in a small small restaurant, basically a private house transformed into a restaurant, called Le Patio Bleu. The interior design was so rich, as well as the food: the Moroccan salad was so tasty.

 

Despite me not willing to buy stuff, due to the little to no room in my luggage, I was able to buy some stuff for my mom and sister in law, but also an amazing jacket for myself:

 

 

On they way back, I was able to book a relaxing massage, that was so so needed after walking the whole day, throughout the labyrinthine Fes Medina.

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Day 6: mid Atlas

 

We left Fes around 9am, directed to the mid Atlas. Along the way we stopped at Ifrane, a city nicknamed as Little Switzerland, the coolest city in Morocco.

Ifrane is also considered the cleanest city of Morocco, apparently, and I could breath fresh air (or probably the second cleanest).

Our destination is a city called Midelt. While on the van, I realized I believe I lost some money on the way – not too much – probably left in a pocket on my pants [I thought it was 100 USD, but actually probably around 20 USD, if still holds true). Given my #takelifeasitcomes motto, I cannot make a fuss about it, neither be upset, however I need to collect learnings, and the learning is: pay more attention to my belonging.

 

During the way, we saw also the Barber monkeys, who were staying at us, asking for food

 

 

After lunch time we arrived at Ksar Timnay hotel, which rooms were pretty huge.

We had time to enjoy the pool, despite I dedicated such time to talk to Chase Travel, due to the “ignorance” of their agents that made an unallowed changes to my reservation for which Iberia canceled it (ignorance = "not knowing").

 

 

I literally spent 90 mins with them on the phone, trying to solve my issue, and the result was 350+$ spent to retain the flight I had booked months ago and that they were not able to hold with Iberia. I can spend hours to explain what happened, but why bothering? The final agreement with them is that I pay for the flight again and they are conducting an investigation listening to the recording of my last call – 5 days ago more or less – where their agent confirmed with me he could cancel the second leg of the anticipated flight, and retain the first one. After they can confirm that, they will reimburse me the amount I just paid. The most annoying thing, is for me to have wasted 90 mins of time to reiterate with them 2-3 times what happened and I was passed through different agents and they confirmed they got the download and when I asked them to repeat, they got it all wrong. It’s amazing how companies would love to move to AI and manage all such aspects without humans, while not even humans are able to comprehend and solve issues. 90 mins of wasted time. But #takelifeasitcomes, there was no way for me to avoid it, hopefully it’ll get sorted and I have my money back. I threaten them I will sue them and that I won’t spend any more penny or cent for the flight they had confirmed to me – with a written email as a proof. They kept saying “I am sorry Mr. Casablanca” and at a certain point I lost it: “Please, stop saying every 3 seconds you are sorry, I understand it’s not your fault but you are annoying me, try to solve the issue instead and avoid me to be locked in Morocco”.

 

Anyhow, during the later afternoon we did a tour of the gorge and we visited a Berber village, called Barram. People here live in houses made of clay and mud, with no air conditioning or electric heaters. Usually they are farmers, either they own a piece of terrain or they work for other people. The average income by month may be an average of 2000 Dirham (about 190 EUR, 220 USD). Covid-19 affected them drastically, and the government helped them a bit.

 

The berber family offered to us tea: Intrepid tends to do a lot of such activities to create connection with the local. Aisha was the woman preparing everything for us, together with her sister and her husband. They spoke Berber, not even Arabic too much. And they had 3 little kids: and this is where my heart melted, when I saw Mariam. She is the youngest of the family, about 5 years old and will go to school next year: she was shy in public, but I could detect a line of firm character: basically she was the Moroccan version of my niece Giorgia.

 

My heart melted looking at her, looking at how cute she is, her Moroccan smile identical to the Sicilian smile of my niece. A small tambourine that makes her laughing while I repeated the sound beating on the table. She was adorable, she was happy, despite not having any material accessories we tend to have in the Western countries: she seated between mommy and daddy. Eventually she agreed to take a pic with me, but without leaving her dad’s hand.

 

My trip is about focus (on myself) and balance (in life) and I kept wondering why the world is so different just a few kilometers apart. But also where or when is Happiness? Such people probably don’t have any material things, but I bet their heart is bigger and richer than many of others; and probably depression is not even a thing here.

 

We ended the day having dinner at the hotel, talking about religion. One of the travelers of the group went nuts when another participant made her notice that there are always two sides of the story (referring to muslims) arguing that probably we cannot understand Islam wearing our Western hat. She went basically nuts, till when we ignored her all together and went to pay for our food. Sometimes, ignoring is the best strategy, as the following day everything was sorted.

 

This episode made me recall some of my behaviors in the past, how I made my friends feel, when I went nuts and their counterattack behaviors. I learnt a lot even from this. Now the most important thing is to put it into practice, for ever.