Vicarious Nomads: First Friday in Fes

Friday is the Muslim holy day. And Fes is said to be the spiritual capitol of Morocco, in part because of its proliferation of mosques and Quranic schools. Moroccan children attend Quranic school from the age of three to six. The guidebook also says Fes is famous for its “faux guides,” who hang out around the entrance to the medina (old city) offering to take you on tours that turn into shopping tours with prices that provide the “guides” with hearty commissions. That is part of why we decided to stay at a hotel in Ville Nouvelle (the new city) our first night. That and to avoid navigating the maze of the medina after midnight, exhausted with backpacks at the end of a long first day in Morocco.

So, when we met a helpful guy by the name of Zack who spoke good English, we didn’t think much of it. We were trying to find breakfast at a café whose kitchen had closed. His leading us next door for pastries and juice seemed like a friendly enough gesture. He said he was meeting a Moroccan friend who lives in New York and has returned home to Fes for a visit. So, we took the two chairs next to him and struck up a conversation while he waited. He was drinking banana juice, motorcycle helmet on the table. Harmless enough.

His friend shows up about five minutes later in a t-shirt, khaki shorts and flip flops. He introduces himself, but I only catch his nickname - Maximus. A third gentleman is introduced as Simo. He has a shaved head, Ray Ban sunglasses, jeans and a black button-down shirt, collar opened up. We quickly learn that Simo has a hangover from partying last night. He is home from Japan for three weeks. Back in Tokyo, he has a Japanese wife and 9 and 10 year-old girls. Supposedly, he runs a Moroccan restaurant there and imports argan oil for beauty products. Maximus lives somewhere in Long Island that I have never heard of, has a girlfriend from Paris (who becomes a fiancee as the day's storytelling goes on). He just bought a riad in the medina which he is restoring into a guesthouse - a two-year project he is just beginning. Zack informs us Max is from a very rich family and practices real estate between Morocco and New York.

Soon Zach has to run and Max invites us to let him show us the city. Given that we are a day early in Fes and our couchsurfing host isn't available until 7 p.m., we accept. We hop in the back of his double-parked blue Volkswagen Golf and pull around the corner to check our of our hotel and leave our bags at reception. His car smells like Volkswagens I know back home. It is a welcome smell.

Max drives us up a hill to a military museum that isn't open to the public and holds a weapons cache. But there is a great view of the city there, which greatly assists my orientation as I record and modify maps in my mind with each new place. We look over the medina, a jumble of white and beige with highlights of deep sea green porcelain tile along the minarets and roofs of the mosques. It is surrounded by a fortress of a wall, maybe twenty feet high.

We hop back into the car and Max laughs at our response to how long we have known Zack. "I thought you were old friends," he says.

Our next stop is a mosaic and ceramic specialist. Maximus says it is a cooperative and that they will provide us a tour in English while he meets his workers to purchase tile for his riad renovation. So we are led on a tour by an entertaining English-speaking gentleman who designes many of the intricater Moroccan mosaics made to order there at Naji. We walk through a courtyard of gray, freshly thrown pottery drying in the sun. Then a wheel where a tajine pot is being spun. The top fits perfectly, no small feat to accomplish by hand, while pushing the wheel around with his left foot. On to a room where a series of artists and their apprentices are finely painting plates, tiny slippers, bowls and other ceramics. Then the mosaics. Tiles of different colors are broken into different shapes by order. Then refined by the guy next to him. Then laid out by a third guy - upside down from a picture from a mental photograph. Incredibly intricate designs only alive in these artisans' heads. They become bowls, fountains, frames, plates, walls, all works of beauty and art. Eventually, we end up in a gift shop, inspired, where we take quite some time before finally making a purchase.

Then back to Max's back seat to the much-anticipated medina. He lets us out to see some mosques with Simo as our guide. He says he will meet us at his great riad renovation in progress - Palace Maximus, he jokes. So we follow Simo. Annette begins to wonder if these guys are more hustlers than friends, but we dismiss the thought at the moment, given that they don't seem to be profiting from their efforts. We look at some mosques from the outside and follow Simo through the narrow maze of the medina, streets he grew up on. Finally, we end up at Max's palace in progress. Three stories. Incredible courtyard. Intricate detailed cedar doorways and colorful mosaic-tiled walls. A gem being extracted. Still dirty, but you can see how it will shine. Max asks a worker to tour us around the building and goes on to arrange lunch.

Lunch is in a beautiful palace restaurant, tiled head to toe in beautifully geometrically-patterned ceramic. Lunch is delicious. Cous cous with lamb. Dessert is fresh pomegranite and a sweet yellow melon. I wonder whether the bill will come to us or Max. It comes to us. 80 dirham with cokes and water. That's $10 U.S. Definitely worth it.

Then comes the rug store next door, supposedly a cooperative for widows. We drink mint tea, laugh, and enjoy as rugs are flicked, rolled and spun before us. Different styles, Fes, Berber, old rugs, new rugs. The stack of rugs spread out before us grows over a foot tall. We take off our shoes and walk and lie on some of the rugs. Some silk, some wool, some embroidered. Annette narrows down the ones we are interested in. Then we talk prices, which are astronomical. Well over $1,000 U.S. for each rug. The negotiation gets heated. We are reminded of the widows. I, as minister of finance, am playfully pitted against my wife, minister of the interior of the house. For the first time of many, we are pressured to buy something we didn't need or want before we walked down this street. Even Max joins in, supposedly selecting a carpet as a gift for his fiancee. He encourages us to buy. Says we can re-sell them through an auction house in Louisiana. He even knows somebody there named Michelle who can help. We sell one and that will pay for us to buy one. The rugs are beautiful but it is becoming evident Max is out to profit of our purchases. I offer $250 U.S. for two rugs. They laugh at me. We leave. Max leaves and hands us off to Simo, saying he will fetch our ceramic purchase from his trunk.

Simo guides us to the leather tannery, where we are greeted with a sprig of mint upon entrance. Then we are taken upstairs to look over buckets and buckets of different color dyes, a huge wooden washing machine, buckets of pigeon dung which are used to clean the leather. It stinks. Then three stories of leather goods we also don't want. We try them on. We enjoy it. We don't buy anything. Simo then turns us over to a teenager and tells us to give this guy 20 dirhams to lead us to a cab. Simo promises he will meet Max and get our bowl to us at our next stop. I begin to wonder if we will ever see it again.

On we go to a fabric store. Then argan oil beauty products. Each place provides a demonstration and then pushes for a sale. We are tired and drained by now. We go through the motions. Prices are astronomical so hardly negotiate before leaving. Our bowl returns with Simo. The teenager leads us through an alley back to a busy street with cars and taxis. He asks for his 20 dirham ($2.50 U.S.) We pay.

We try to hail a cab. No luck. They are all full. Children and young men alike offer to help in exchange for dirham. Everybody seems to be trying to sell us something. Finally, we meet two girls from Italy with ample piercings and tattoos. They seem to be in a similar predicament. So, we agree to split an over-priced (still no more than $3 per person) cab back to the Ville Nouvelle. It drops us off around the corner from our hotel.

We check in to make sure our bags are still there. They are. We drop our new purchase off with our bags and head around the corner for a beer, but all we can find is a Sprite. We sip sprite at an outdoor cafe and sort through the day. What of it was true? Were all of their stories made up? It was Zack who got us into the whole thing. By the end of my Sprite, I am thoroughly impressed. What an intricate scheme that was. We dub Zach, Simo and Max "frustlers". Half friend. Half hustler. We laugh about it, trying to shake off the feeling of shame, embarassment and exhaustion that follows such a days adventure.

We call our couchsurfing host, Abdul. He says he will catch a cab to meet us and we can grab dinner in the Ville Nouvelle before returning to his residence in the Mellah - Jewish Quarter.

A mosaic table is laid out upside down.