Fez

The next day we traveled to Fez. After a nice fruit juice mix for breakfast (most juices here and in Europe are freshly squeezed with juicers and are amazing), we headed towards the “bus station”. The bus station was really not a station, but rather a gravel parking lot where a few buses were stopped. Once the bus to Fes arrived, we were ushered in Arabic to run down to the end of the street with all of our luggage to catch our bus. Then for the next six, yes six, hours we road this cramped, hot bus with no air condition, though thankfully there were only people on the bus and not any type of live stock. In addition to the heat, the lovely smell of shit and weird cleaning supplies constantly bombarded my sense of smell, while crappy Arab music played from peoples’ cell phones added a nice cacophonous symphony to our journey. This bus was not exactly like the charter buses seen in Europe or the U.S. The open hatch in the roof served as our air conditioning. The bus driver would get off a couple times to have meal and tea breaks because he wouldn’t come back for twenty minutes or so. This creepy guy with black teeth who would check tickets frequently hit me on. My knees were scrunched against the seat in front of me and there was definitely no bathroom. On a side note, the bathrooms in Europe are terrible and the ones here absolute dreadful. The fad in Europe just seems to be little to no toilet paper at bars, but here there is never toilet paper and usually no toilet seats. I guess in Arab countries people don’t really use toilet paper; they use a bucket of water to clean themselves instead. I have not ventured to do this yes, especially typhoid is a common concern here, but usually spend quite a lot of time asking around for it and now carry a thin cinnamon scented one that I found at the hostel in my purse. They also rarely have soap in any of the bathrooms—no wonder typhoid is a problem.
Other than the buses, bathrooms, and hassling my other new experiences in my first visit to a 3rd world country have been with horses, donkeys, shit all over the streets, the constant smell of BO in every public place mixed and with food venders. Though tourists are strongly cautioned against eating food from street vendors, fruit without thick skins, and drinking the water, I quickly abandoned these rules and have done all of the above. So far I have been fine cross the fingers here but the food is so cheap and the fruit—especially the cherries—looks so good, even when it is next to hanging horse heads and vendors beheading chickens and I sometimes get so thirsty and don’t want to brush my teeth only with bottled water.
As for the two cities I’ve seen so far, Chef town was beautiful and a bit more relaxing than Fez. It’s either Fes or Marrakech that is the 3rd largest city (tour guides claim that each is the 3rd largest). Fes was incredibly crowded, Saimah and I getting lost and stuck in the main street vendor portion of the city, although we did manage to make it over to the tanneries. Though this is supposed to be pretty interesting to see, it was not worth the smell. Because of the extreme acidity of pigeon poop, it is one of the main components in a lot of the dyes and leather treatments. In addition to this reeking smell, the surrounding streets are surrounded with competing amounts of horse and donkey poo poo. A guy gave us some mint to help with the smell, but of course with my luck, my sprig if mint also smelled like shit. Eventually Saimah gave me some of hers and that was quite nice for a few. We walked around for a while, kept getting harassed until I came up with the brilliant idea to only speak Russian to the vendors! Thanks Vlad and Christy! I figured that I could quite easily pull of German. Russian, not so much, but maybe could be mistaken at German. Given that I didn’t know any German, I decided Russian was just going to have to do. It generally worked for all I received were a few confused looks and a couple scratching of the heads, but no future pestering. My next challenge after conquering street vendor harassment was to avoid getting horse poop on my boot—cuz that would be too disgusting—and to avoid donkeys and horses in the streets. I did get stepped on my one donkey as I pushed myself up against the side of a mosque trying to avoid collision with this heavily loaded animal. Well, guess I wasn’t quite thin enough, because the donkey ran right into me and stomped on my foot. Luckily the donkey stepped on my bad foot, because it was so tightly bound in this metal-reinforced boot that I barely felt anything. Thank God I possess the tank of the orthopedic world. The donkey herder—not really sure what to call him—did what I think must have been profusely apologizing, but since I couldn’t understand what he was saying, I didn’t really know. This was one time that I wish I could have just hopped into the mosque to avoid harms way, but because I am not Muslim, I am not allowed in any mosques. Saimah can go in but I can’t, but that’s alrite because I get the experience of waiting by where everyone takes off their shoes and almost getting run over by donkeys.
This trip always manages to be an adventure.
I am now on my way to my third Moroccan city, Marrakech. On Tuesday, I will leave this place and fly to Rome, staying there until Saturday at which point we will travel to Florence and then Venice. Though I am enjoying seeing all these places and different ways of life, I am excited for when I can settle down in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, for a little bit. Before heading to Mallorca and after leaving Venice, I’m going to hit Barcelona for a few days and then hopefully fly into Palma on the 25th and stay there until I head to Madrid to fly home.
I am also beginning to miss my family and friends back home more and more and am realizing just how good I have it back in the states. Though there are some things such as the corporate America feel that has now tainted the once beautiful grounds of my home town, my friends are all there and the food, especially my cooking, is of a hell of a lot better than most of the food I’ve had over here. I wonder a lot what everyone else is doing back home, how everyone’s summer is going, and if I cross anyone’s thoughts at all because I know that I sure do think about everyone else back home quite a bit. I wish I could e-mail and skype more, but my internet connection, if any, is usually quite poor and given the rapid place of city hopping, my only free time to write these entries is as I travel around on planes, buses, and trains. I knew I would have a bit of a hard time, which I am sure is just exacerbated by the culture shock of Morocco, but am thinking that I am quite glad that I didn’t decide to study abroad for an entire semester. A few months away I can tolerate, but more than that I’m not sure how well I’d handle.
Miss you all and hope that anyone who reads this is having a wonderful summer! :)