Continued from Fes Day 2 Part 2, Moulay Idriss.

Last night, we told the riad staff that they didn’t need to prepare an big breakfast spread for us since we were the only guests staying here. We said we’d just come down when we woke up and get the food and bring it up to eat in our room. This morning we woke up to find the spread setup right outside our door…This level of service is intense.

I mean, it’s here, so I’m gonna enjoy it.

Love the view from our room. Love this room.

There’s a slight chance of rain today, but today is souk day. Time to hit the market and look around.

A little bit chilly this morning. It’s 10am and we figured we’d get a morning start and try to beat the rain that may come by at noonish…maybe.

When’s the last time you saw a donkey carrying loads of gas tanks?

That’s one old door.

Alright, here’s the souk.

Apparently, they are late risers here. It’s 10am and half of the stores are still closed.

Old water fountain that’s now been disused. Saw these all over the city. Everyone has this new thing call indoor plumbing now. Imagine how cool it would have been to walk through these old streets with the sound of these fountains all over the place. They are really beautiful.

See, half of the stores are still closed.

Another decommissioned old fountain.

Lots of stuff…but nothing of great quality.

Meh stuff.

No bargains to be found here.

What do we have here.

I think we may have found something really genuine and unique.

We decided to buy a piece of art as a gift.

I believe those containers of yellow fat and dark colored meat is khlea, some sort of dry cured meat preserved in fat. Andrew Zimmern ate it once, he said it was disgusting. And if that man said something was disgusting…I believe it.

Bab Boujloud, one of the main gates into the Fes old city. The green side.

Oh, it’s blue on the outside and green on the inside.

Wait, is that what I think it is?

Yup, that’s camel head, and this shop sells camel meat. I wanna try.

Organ meats, no idea what that grey stuff is. Stomach? RL thought they were camel balls.

I was wondering where people buy light bulbs when they live in the old city, now I know where. There are tiny shops like this in the souk that sells random household items.

Tala’s Kebira, one of the main shopping streets in the medina.

Musical instrument shop.

Woah, what’s this coffee contraption?

I ordered a coffee just to see. it’s heated sand with a fire under and the guy moves the pot of coffee until he finds the hot spot and it boils instantly.

Pretty cool, apparently this is some sort of African way of making coffee.

Dried rose petals added to my coffee. It was a spiced coffee, we finished it and could not find a single trash can in the medina to throw it away so we held on to an empty cup for quite a while.

Lots of cats here in Fes. Probably not much of a rat problem here. People treat the cats very kindly here and you can tell this by how un-scared the cats are. They aren’t bothered by the crowds or carts or anything. RL says they aren’t like any stray cats she’s seen anywhere else in how friendly and calm they are.

They do a lot of leather work here in Fes. Here’s a guy scraping a piece of leather hide.

I guess that’s a leather tanning bath.

My girls would love this. I miss my kids.

Frida! It’s a Mexican food place. Speaking of food, it’s almost impossible for us to find food that’s not Moroccan inside the old city. It’s literally like 98% all Moroccan food and they all serve the same 5 dishes.

Hey look, I found some Moroccan sinks.

This old water fountain is still in use.

Apparently this way to view the leather tanneries. We know that they are all surrounded by shops selling leather and the way to view the tannery is to go through one of the shops.

Hope this is the way. The signage in Fes is truly poor, even for a shop that’s trying to sell you stuff.

We think this is it.

OK. Now, where’s the viewing platform?

Found…and that’s that. Occasionally the wind would shift and we’d get a whiff of the super strong odor of raw leather. It wasn’t a good smell.

Here are pigeons. Apparently they use pigeon poo in the leather curing process.

Looks like some rain may be coming our way.

We felt bad and did buy a pair of leather slippers for RL at the shop. But everything else was very very overpriced. However, I believe you are expected to buy something or leave a tip as a thank you for using their stairs and balcony. Makes sense, it’s only polite.

Slim pickings in the souks for local goods. A lot of meh items. I want to buy a Moroccan lamp but haven’t seen one that’s truly unique. Everything I’ve seen so far are the same mass produced lamps that I see in multiple shops.

To be continued in Fes Day 3 Part 2.