Moroccan Transit. The City of Fez. Look, Don’t Buy

Look, Don’t Buy The story begins here — Moroccan Transit. The City of Fez. Another Cinderella Story The children were hungry. And no palace-courtyards could distract them. Mohammed called (out of the goodness of his heart, of course, not for any benefit of his own) a certain Rashid from a restaurant where “they cook today for today, not today for tomorrow like everywhere else.” Through a maze of winding alleyways, already beginning to turn into a colourful market, we slipped through an inconspicuous door that no one would ever have guessed led to a restaurant. Inside was another magical box, just like our hotel: the same courtyard-well layout covered in painted ornament, only darker and older throughout, and therefore even more atmospheric. The dining room was on the roof. From there, the entire old city was visible. As we took in the surroundings and munched on delicious local food, one of us even forgot that he was, like, a raw foodist ;). After lunch, the mellowed-out crew nevertheless resisted the invitations of the seemingly modest Rashid to visit “my brother” and buy some unnecessary thing or other. The Tanneries We escaped in search of the tanneries—enormous clay and concrete vats one and a half times the height of a person, where hides have been dyed for nearly two thousand years. They are dried right there, and all the surrounding rooftops are yellow with the outlines of goatskins. You can view the tanneries from a terrace, to which a cooperative of leather merchants eagerly escorts anyone who wants to go there (and not only those who do). Its members include — a tout on the street, — a leather salesman somewhere far from your destination, and — several more of the same, already up on the rooftops. The smell of leather and sour, raw meat is strong and unpleasant. But you quickly get used to the stench. The leather shop overlooking the tanneries promises free viewing and photographs. The Price to Pay But in the end, as payment, you have to buy something from them, anything from a wallet to a wholesale batch of jackets. Andryukha haggled desperately over the two belts he bought, and the performance should have been filmed. We were the last visitors, so out came the jokey threats about how “my wife lie down sleep here now if you not give last 20 dirhams.” “Ha-ha-ha. Oh, of course, let her sleep! All right, I’ll knock off another five.” “Oh, nooo, then we’re leaving!” “Fine, ten...” And so, with jokes and sailorly high spirits, we became the owners of two leather belts and countless photographs. The little rooftop cooperative cheerfully led me off to buy a wholesale batch of jackets. But the captain immediately turned gloomy and barked: “No!” Everyone understood at once that the joking was over, and they let us go, asking one final question: where had we come from? “From Mother Russia, our dear homeland.” Mohammed had also advised us to see the world’s first (!) university, the madrasa, and the main mosque. But we had walked our feet off in the colourful alleyways and bought a bedspread of magical beauty. I stood my ground, and the captain gave in, convinced that without this bedspread our yacht simply did not look like a home. Now we just need another couple like it, plus a pierced metal lantern for the boat. ...Two! And also... And also that beautiful thing over there! And... And then Lady Mary will become a floating padishah’s palace, since we have already acquired an Oriental engraved teapot with a curved spout. The finale of our Moroccan adventures — Farewell, Morocco and the Colours of the Oriental Bazaars