We arrived in Morocco after a long border crossing in Melilla. Since then, we have been completely overwhelmed by the culture, the sights, the sounds, the tastes, the smells, the people, the heat, and Moroccan life. Every little experience seems worth posting and I need to sift through hundreds of meaningful moments before posting a coherent update. In the meantime, I posted some pictures below with little descriptions to give you a taste of what we are experiencing. The first two are from Nador, close to the Spanish border, and the others are from Fes. We will most likely move on to Meknes tomorrow.
Pictures
1. Mosque in Nador
2. Brian buying cherries from a donkey-drawn fruit cart in Nador
3. Entering the Fes Medina- "the old city" and the largest urban car-free center in the world.
4. Another Medina entrance
5. Medersa Bou Inania, an Arabic theological school and mosque- courtyard
6. Medersa Bou Inania- mosque
7. Medersa Bou Inania- doorway
8. Medersa Bou Inania- detail work (amazing!!)
9. Brian filling up water from one of the many public fountains in the Fes Medina. Most mosques have a nearby fountain (and there are over 350 mosques in the Medina).
10. Relaxing on the guesthouse terrace
11. Brian in our room
12. Our guesthouse sleeping room
13. Guesthouse breakfast of lentil soup, bread, eggs and mint tea
14. One of many medina bathrooms- squat toilets in individual stalls, 1 dirham usage fee. I have never seen such a beautiful bathroom!
15. Horse eating in the Medina
16. Brian walking in the Medina
17. Medina street
18. Spice stall where we were given a mixture of ground cumin, oregano, caraway and corriander to eat and chase with water for upset stomach.
19. Chicken stall
20. Sitting with our favorite harira stall owner (harira is a yummy soup of tomato base, onion, cilantro & spices, garbanzos and tiny little pasta bits). He gave us his address so we can mail him the pic.
21. Friends of the harira stall. They also want a copy of the pic.
22. Example of the amazing doorways, tile work and architecture of the medina
23. Women making Argan oil. Argan is a nut that is collected from the poo of goats who eat them off trees and whose digestion softens the nutshell. The oil can be used for cooking or cosmetics. It has really helped my sunburn and is said to have strong antioxidant properties, lower cholesterol and fight wrinkles, acne, and more. It is also used for massage in the hammams- traditional Moroccan bath houses (more on these later!).
24. View from a terrace in the tanneries
25. Tannery dye vats. From the terrace, we could see all stages of leather making- removing the wool, processing it in chemicals, dying it, drying it, etc. Young children and adults alike climb in the vats of chemicals and dyes. The dyes are reportedly from natural sources- saffron, wild mint, henna, poppies and indigo.
26. A sample of lunch from a stall- beans and a sandwich of eggplant, fried fish, potatoes and sauce. If we eat in the tiny stalls, we get full of yummy food for 75 cents to $3. For instance, last night we ate fresh baguettes off the street filled with potatoes, saffron rice, hard boiled eggs, salad and sauce for about $1. Bread is baked fresh each day in communal oven rooms.
27. Mustafa, the carpet salesman, showing us many different carpets. They are handmade in Berber villages with cactus silk, wool and camel hair. Each piece is one of a kind and absolutely amazing. We enjoyed the show, but decided to pass on their offer to make us carpetsalesman (it would require that we purchase many carpets from him and sell them for big profit in Europe or the States).
28. Henna artist working her magic.
29. Final design. I scraped off the henna paste the morning afterwards to find a beautiful orange design underneath.
No comments:
Post a Comment