A cab picked us up from the site at 10am as arranged by the man here, Mohammed. It was about a 1/2 hour drive to what they called the Blue Gates, actual name was Bab Boujloud or باب بوجلود in Arabic so we stuck with calling it the Blue Gates. It’s the old Moorish arched gate to the old city of Fes.
Once through the archway and into the Medina it’s a maze of tiny streets full of markets, shops and food sellers. Any sense of direction or where you are going goes out the window and at the same time you are being asked if you want to come in or guided somewhere. It’s intense, as you are taking in the marvels of the place while trying to judge the helpful from the less scrupulous.
One of the big attractions in Fes is the leather tanneries, in particular the Chouara Tannery. Now finding this even with the aid of a phone and Google maps is a challenge. There’s always someone who will tell you they can take you there but we were cautious. Despite that caution we ended up in a shop selling leather goods where the guy wad less than pleasant, when he realised he wouldn’t get a sale.
Being even more cautious we dismissed one guy’s help but we just were not finding this tannery. We ended up taking the offer from a young chap who said he would give a gas mask, which was actually a bunch of mint to put over our noses. He then he took us through a shop up to an open roof terrace where we looked down on the site of men working in large stone tubs filled with dye or coloured liquids for softening the hides. Hides of cows, sheep and goats, processed by soaking in a series of liquids made from various mixtures of cow urine and pigeon faeces. The young guy told us they get paid the equivalent of about £500 a month, a good wage for Morocco.
We had lunch in a small food sellers stall in a less touristy area. He filled a Moroccan bread with sardines fried in breadcrumbs, aubergine, broad beans and a potato in batter and we ate it in this little room next door that was the size of a small shed. It was lovely and cheap.
We had a coffee further along, again in a local hole in the wall type shop. For the equivalent of £1 we got two coffees that put Starbucks to shame.
We were tired of the hustle and bustle and felt it was time to make our way back to the Blue Gate but hadn’t much idea how to get there. As always you will eventually find your way but during our walk out a youngish man said he would show us the way. Mistake …he took us around, up and down and not to the Blue Gate and then wanted a tip 😠
Eventually we made our way there by our own devices and called for our cab to take us back to the campsite for a cup of tea 😁
