Sunday, September 26, 2010

My name is "Mohammed Couscous" (plus Sahara photos)

We find ourselves in the wonderful labyrinth that is the Fez medinah. This pic is of a nougat and nut brittle vendor chopping a few dollars worth of delicious merchandise for us. There are heaps of these guys as you turn a corner and plunge further into this incredible marketplace. Unlike Marrakech which has a really touristy medina and souks, Fez's has a lot more artisans and people banging away making brassware, wood carvings and other crafts much in the manner they have done for hundreds of years.

The hotel we wanted to stay at was full so the owner, who said we should call him "Mohammed Couscous" - I kid you not - led us down the road, through a maze of streets to the house of his relative. So we are staying with a Moroccan family who I guess have turned their spare rooms into a "B and T" (Bed and mint Tea). The house is four incredibly narrow stories, linked by an even narrower and somewhat scary tiled staircase, which I would shudder to negotiate drunk. Luckily alcohol is scarce here (Meknes seemed to have more bars than New York though). The top has a roof terrace with views towards the nearby hills over the roofs of houses. As I speak the Saturday afternoon crowd has gathered behind enjoying tea and chatting away in Arabic. I assume none can understand this (as the screen is facing all of them), it would embarrasing if they could

Below just a handful of some of the photos we took on our four day Sahara adventure...














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