Day 5 – Fes

I’ve been a little remiss in not fully describing the riad, Dar El Hana. Aside from being quite beautiful and possessing wonderful, friendly staff, it does have its individuality. Somewhere quite nearby is a mosque, and at 5.30 every morning they crank out the call to prayer. It’s par for the course when travelling through Moslem nations, you just deal with it. Our local caller, however, really loves his job. The first call to prayer is the grease-megamix-produced-by-jim-steinman-extended version. Long after the other mosques have gone back to bed, our guy is still just getting started. He’s a master artist.

To find the riad, it’s good to have a landmark. In this case, it’s keep going down the large road (there are two major thoroughfares from the Blue Gate, the large road and the small road, and the small road is probably larger than the large one, but I’m sure it made sense to whoever named them), anyway keep going down the large road until you see Best Phone, then turn left. A couple more turns and you’re there. Just don’t forget Best Phone.

Josephine was very apologetic that she didn’t have spare blankets, but the doona on the bed is the thickest I’ve ever seen. If it ever gets cold enough that more blankets are needed, I just don’t want to know.

That’s our riad. I say our because we’re the only ones staying here at the moment. While we’re here during the off season, it appears that this year’s off is a little more off than usual. We aren’t seeing many visitors at all – today we saw our first full tour group, the rest of the times it’s generally couples or small groups of 3 or 4. We’re not the only tourists in Morocco right now, but sometimes it doesn’t feel so far off.

We had a quiet day today, a rest day to relax and digest as we’ll be on the go for the next few days. Breakfast was a fine spread again, with more food than any two people could eat. Today’s feast included fruit, baguette, and scrambled eggs along with the usual jams, breads, tea and coffee.Josephine popped in and we told her how good last night’s dinner was.

I napped the rest of the morning, though with all I’ve eaten lately, hibernate to digest would be a better description. We ventured into the medina in the early afternoon for lunch and a spot of wandering. I thought the medina seemed quite subdued unlike previous days, and then L pointed out to me that today was Friday, which is Sunday in these parts. We stopped for lunch at one of the vaguely dodgy/tourist trap restaurants near the Blue Gate. These places pretty much have the same menu: chicken/beef/meatball on a stick; chicken/meatball/vegetables in a tagine; chicken/meatball/vegetable with cous cous. This place was much the same, however there was something I didn’t recognise, so I ordered it.

After the worst Moroccan Soup I’m yet to encounter (tasted mostly of celery and a few spices, stock lacked flavour, only chick peas in the bottom), out came my mystery meat dish. Turned out to be red sausages, (there’s a local word for them but I’m too lazy to google that right now) with chips and rice. The rice was okay, but the chips were almost as bad as those from the Halfway House at North Bannister. The only thing in their favour was that I wasn’t expecting them, so hadn’t had time to get my expectations up. Any crunch was accidental, and most were that soggy I’m guessing the idea of twice-frying hadn’t made it to the cook yet.

The mystery meat sausages were pretty good, full of lamb and spices, just the colour was a little unnerving, I was wondering what surprises they would hold. An afternoon of googling brought me no closer to the puzzle, however I found no mention of these being an offal sausage, and the chances are it was just the harissa that gave them the red colour.

L wanted nougat, and close by was a cart selling all manner of the brightly coloured sweet. Behind the cart was a vaguely menacing guy with the worst knife I’ve ever seen, quite blunt and bent at the end, and the nougat was swarming with bees but that didn’t bother him. He hacked chunks off the slabs of nougat, before then dividing these up into bite sized pieces. Very haphazard, but I checked and he did have all his fingers. The nougat was very tasty, if a little sweet — L partook generously and was bouncing up and down the stairs for the rest of the afternoon before the eventual sugar crash kicked in.

For dinner we wandered back to the Blue Gate, trying one of the other restaurants this one a “Morrocaine Restaurant Typicque” or some such. Quite good, first a white bean soup then meat patties with cous cous and vegetables.

Then back to the riad, again avoiding the boys playing some sort of soccer out the front of the Best Phone. After lunch I shouldered a pass coming straight at me, and tonight one went sailing over my head. I didn’t see the next David Beckham in the group.

Tomorrow we start a few days on the move, heading south east, into the Sahara, a night sleeping under the stars in tents, before we start heading towards Marrakesh. Not sure how much wi-fi will be accompanying us.