Day 9 of Moroccan Vacation: Chefchaouen to Fes on February 13th, 2017

Towards the end of our short visit in Morocco, as we woke up to a rainy morning in Chefchaouen. No surprise as this was early February under Mediterranean climate, in a tiny mountain town.
The plan of the day was to reach Fes, the second largest city in the country and capital of modern Morocco until 1925.

The images in this post are hosted on Imgur. Email me should there be any display problems.

After we had our breakfast, our hotel manager offered to drive us to the bus station on their way to a market out of town, which was much help given it was raining heavily at that time.

So we left our hotel at 10am hoping to catch the 1030 CTM bus to Fes. We very much preferred the state-owned CTM over other nameless companies, as we heard tales of how terrible buses in Morocco could be. Unfortunately, when we arrived at the bus station, we were told that the 1030 CTM was sold out. A gentleman approached us telling there’s another 1030 bus to Fes by a different company at the same price, only for us to find out later that they charge checked bags almost the same price as seats. So it was 90 dirhams per person to Fes including checked bags, compared with 55 from Meknes.
Oh, with Moroccan punctuality, the bus came at 1050am.

Not long after we left Chefchaouen, the sky cleared up, and we were treated with views of lovely North Morocco countryside.

As we approached the outskirts of Fes, our views were filled with slums run-down buildings, a sign of all the mayham this city was about to bring us.

Not long after that it was the jaw-dropping middle-of-the-road market.
Well, in Chinag Rai, Thailand, I’ve seen how a bus station could be night market at the same time (the vendors pack up their stands when bus comes). The Moroccan people were bringing this to a new level.

Our hotel/riad was near Bab Rcif, which was the other side of the Medina of Fes bus station. Thinking it’s still early in the day (quarter to 4pm) and not trusting the taxi drivers waiting for their prey outside the bus station, we decided to make our way on foot to the riad.
Which was a mistake. Perhaps our success at navigating previous Medina’s gave us some unfounded confidence, but Fes Medina was much larger any other previous Morocco medina’s we had been to, that’s why asking-for-direction was such a lucrative business for the locals, and it had so many side alleys that’s not on OpenStreetMap (forget about Google Maps), and we had two luggage bags with us, and, GPS signals were often blocked by surrounding buildings in narrow alleys. But, through dirty vegetable stands, passing local schools were boys and girls were going home after school day, we made it, on our own, which was definitely something to boast about.

We had some difficulty in arranging check-in with a French-speaking local lady, but we sorted that out. So it was 5pm, about an hour to sunset. We decided to head for Tombeaux Des Mérinides (Marinid Dynasty Tombs) Ruins, a historic ruins outside Fes Medina on a hill, with panoramic views of Fes Medina, and a (not-so-)perfect viewing spot for sunset.

This time, navigating in Fes Medina was much easier, since we were walking on some main streets, and don’t have luggage bags with us.

After getting out of Fes Medina, there’s a trail leading uphill towards Tombeaux Des Mérinides.
Once there, it was a spectacular view of Fes Medina around us, and ruins of ancient structures and ranges of mountains behind us. It was nice enjoying sunset in gentle breeze.

After that, we headed back to Fes Medina for dinner.
As for lunch, well, the sweets from Chefchaouen was remarkably good.

Al Quaraouiyine University was the oldest existing, continually operating university in the world. But, like other Islamic institutions in the country, it wasn’t open to visitors.

Well, a common problem Moroccan medina’s post towards tourists was that, there were few restaurants in them. This wasn’t particularly a problem for us before because, in other Moroccan cities we’d been to, there’s new city immediately outside medina’s. This wasn’t the case for Fes, as its Medina was huge, so we never went out of it except going onto this nearby hill for sunset viewing.
Well, after wandering for some time, we bumped into a food street with 10-square-meter miniature food stands (that amazingly, offered some seats). And they were much cheaper than conventional Moroccan restaurants.

So we just sat there, (for the first time in our Moroccan trip) watching a typical Moroccan gentleman preparing our food with his bare (presumably unwashed) hands. Luckily, nothing seemed to go wrong.

Well, in the pictures, the menu seemed to be well-prepared courses served in plates. But the reality offered was take-away style sandwich, with fries and ketchup squeezed in. But given the difficulty of finding proper restaurants in Fes Medina, and its remarkably low price, it was a nice dinner.
One shouldn’t expect such roadside stand to fill his belly. So after this food stand experience, we gladly headed for the nearby street food market, and bought our second take-away dinner of local fruits. Oh, I shall say they were cheap and delicious.
END

Day 9 of Moroccan Vacation: Chefchaouen to Fes on February 13th, 2017 by Huang's Site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.