November 14, 2007

• morocco recap.

  where to start... first of all, morocco was a great experience. i saw some awesome, great, wonderful things that couldn't be captured by camera. let's start there. everyone thought we were japanese... so literally, every four minutes, people called out, "arigato!" "konichiwa!" at first it seemed harmless. it was somewhat humorous... but you hear that over and over, and it gets tiring. people are constantly on the hustle. you walk down the street and people try to be your guide. you ignore them as saying "no thank you" politely, doesn't seem to work. transport options are endless - we rode trains, we rode taxis, we rode in a limo, we shared a chartered mercedes out to the country with four other strangers... and now, on to the pictures.

  we hired guides to help us navigate through the city. here was one of our fes guides, chilling at the royal palace of king mohammed VI:
  

  navigating the medina, the old part of the city, is not easy, therefore the need for a guide. this is a view of the fes medina - and this is only a portion of it.

  

  the fes medina does not allow car traffic, and the streets all look the same. narrow. again, another reason for hiring guides:
  

  

  

  

  we learned pretty quickly that essentially, medinas are just giant marketplaces. there are all sorts of crafts being created and sold. check out this giant leather tannery:

  

  the round pots are actually vats to die the hides - each pot is probably about five feet wide by three feet deep. you can also see hides being laid out to dry in the sun on rooftops (the yellow and brown figures in the bottom of the picture above). you can see the shape of the animal still... likely a cow though they also use camel, lamb and goat often for leather. the smell of the hides and the tanneries in general is pretty horrendous so you are often given mint to mask the smell when near tanneries:

  

  the dies used for leather are generally all natural- plants, flowers and other compounds give the leather their vibrant colors. same goes for silk which morocco produces decent amounts of as well. here are spools of silk being laid out to dry:

  

  within medinas, you can find various places for respite, and they of course, are all beautiful. these two shots are both within schools in the medinas. the latter is a UNESCO world heritage site.
  

  

  

  kids run around all over the medina as there are schools and homes within:

  

  

  

  everyone speaks arabic, and some of the kids speak french too. but beyond saying bonjour, i couldn't communicate much with them. but they were all curious about me, as i was about them. it was always fun coming upon kids though.
  

  heading north of fes, we went to tangier. this spot is at cap spartel, which is where the atlantic ocean meets the mediterranean sea.

  

  also in tangier, we visited the hercules cave. it's supposed to look like an inverted outline of africa. cool, eh?

  

  here is the area beyond the cave which looks out onto the atlantic:

  

  oh yeah, before tangier though, we went to this area called meknes which is the closest town to a few historic sites. first was moulay idriss, a major muslim pilgrimage site. it is one of five sites a muslim should make in his or her lifetime to reach mecca, i think.
  

  

  from there, we headed to volubulis, an ancient roman ruins site a few kilometers from the town. this area was build about 40 AD, and it is the furthest known area that the roman empire reached. it was simply amazing.

  

   

  

  i'm tired just recapping. it was a lot of walking and we were constantly on the go, it seemed. so... that's it for now. more later. these are just highlights for now of the coolest things i saw. 

  cheers!
  

  • 5:26 pm
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