Wednesday, January 17, 2024 – Fes (Fez), Morocco
Jan 20th, 2024 by rallyadmin
We just move along steadily on the rolling hills toward Fes. We pass through a lot of small towns and coming out of one, I’m grabbed for speeding. This isn’t really a big deal and the police are very friendly and polite.
The officer asks for my passport, my drivers license and the car registration (the V5). He compares the drivers license to the passport and gives me back the drivers license but keeps the passport and V5. He tells me to wait and hands the passport and V5 to another officer sitting in a police car.
The had already stopped 2 trucks and they were doing the paperwork for them while my passport just laid on the dash of the police car. When the 2nd officer is done with the trucks he simply hands my docs back to the 1st officer and I’m not sure what has happened. He calls me over to the police car and tells me that I was doing 74 in a 60 kph zone. The speed limit in town is 60 kph and I start to speed up to the next speed limit, 80 kph an that was the problem: speed up to 80 kph after passing the 80 kph sign.
He’s very friendly and says that the fine will be 400 hundred dirhan (about $40) payable in cash. But after I hand him the 400 dirhan, he gives me back my docs and one of the two 200 dirhan notes just because he was a nice guy. We thank him for the discount and shake hands and walk back to the car. Pinky goes back offers him some cigarettes and tells him that he is a cop. They tell him that he should have said so right away and the fine would have “gone away.” A couple of Got Cats? Stickers and we walk back to the car again.
As we drive off we realize that we’ve been had. There’s no ticket. The fine discount. And the passport and V5 just sitting there on the police car dash until we give him the cash. Ah, live and learn. Not another case of police corruption. Just another case of police poverty. Gotta make a buck whatever way you can. At least it was a friendly transaction.
The rest of the trip to Fes is boring and uneventful. We get to Fes about 5’ish and Google Maps brings us right to the front door of the hotel. We park the cars a 100 meters or so from the front door and we are immediately set upon by a you Moroccan man who want to give us a 4 hour walking tour for 5 euros a piece. We agree to the walking tour but first we have to check in to the hotel and get our rooms. The tour is scheduled for 6.
But before we can do that, we have to park the cars in a secure area which the hotel doesn’t have. Fortunately (and not surprisingly), our new found guide, Abdullah, knows just the place. He leads us up the main road and then through a maze of side streets until we are directly behind the hotel. We pack and return to the hotel.
The rooms are on the third floor up a very narrow set of stairs. After we check in with the young Moroccan woman who is the small hotel’s manager, I ask her if there is someone who can carry my duffle up the stairs. I’m hesitant to try to get it there myself because the stairs are so steep and narrow. There are a number of men working on some rooms in the hotel but instead of having one of them carry the bag, she wraps her arms around the bag and carries it up to the room. One strong, tough young woman.
We meet Abdullah at a bit after 6 and he takes on a walking tour through the labyrinthine maze of alley ways and narrow streets. He tells is the current status of Fez (about 1.2 million people), some of the history (once the capital of Morocco until the capitol was moved to Rabat), shows us a few of the sites in the area that we are in (the oldest continuous university in the world is in Fes), finds a money changer for me and tries to find a lithium battery for another in our group. (Yes for the money changer, no for the lithium battery.)
He takes us to the oldest tannery in Morocco and another man at the tannery tells the facts about the tannery and how the hides become dyed, soft leather. Camel is the toughest and strongest. Goat is the softest. Then the obligatory walk through the leather shops to try to sell us a jacket, a hat, a belt, a piece of luggage. But there are no takers.
The last stop is a restaurant for a very good tagine meal. Abdullah leaves us at the restaurant while we eat. We pay and wander back to the hotel. The guided walk was well worth the 5 euro. And a very interesting young man.
Tomorrow, the drive to Tizi-n-Test in the Atlas Mountains to where we are staying, 20 kilometers from the epicenter of the recent earthquake.
Obi-wan