My journey through Fes with a man named Muhammad

Africa. The final frontier of my travels during my time abroad. Going to Morocco was of instant appeal to me when my program offered the trip up to us. What other opportunity would I have in my life to feel the sand of the Sahara beneath my feet, ride a camel to a local village, and taste the sweetest tea on Earth.

Between all of the travel of Morocco, my trip really had two main focal points. The first was the city of Fes. We arrived in the city late at night by bus and had a great dinner at our hotel. Afterwards we all just went to sleep because we were so tired from travelling all day long. In the morning, we proceeded to hop on our tour bus and meet our tour guide Muhammad. Throughout the rest of the day we would be his blind followers, going down random allyways that are only accesible by donkey in the famous Medina of Fes. Flecked with bits of cultural education, such as the fact that Morocco is composed of 97% peaceful and open-minded Sunni Muslims, we were taken to 5 shops that showcased the pride of the Moroccan market. The first was the rug store...let me just say right now that Moroccans are very VERY proud of their rugs. The owner of the store sat us all down and gave us a 10 minute presentation on all the different kinds of rugs that they have and gave us all tea. If I ever want a rug...I guess I will go back...but I definitely did not want a rug haha. Needless to say, they were really trying to reel us in and get all of our Dirham(Moroccan currency).

Afterwards, we proceeded to the tannery, which produces and dyes all of its own leather, the apothecary, the scarf shop, and the pottery district. In each of the areas, we either received personalized tours or in-depth demonstrations of products. Additionally, the entire time we were walking we picked up a pack of travelling salesmen that followed us wherever we went trying to sell necklaces. They would even go so far as to wait outside of shops until we came out and then would follow us throughout the Medina.

After the long day of shopping we headed back to our hotel and walked around the town in this area that had a little light up fountain secion. That night we went out to see a belly dancing show with the program which was pretty funny. By around 12 though, we were all ready for some well deserved sleep as we got ready to journey forth towards the SAHARA! And yes, we went into McDonalds to see what strange things they might have in Morocco...the McArabia and the Chicken Mythic!!