Category Travel
Fez, Day 2: What we ate
Breakfast at the Riad. All the little pots of jam and olives were a welcome expansion on the standard fare we’ve had for the past week. Lunch at Cafe Clock. We picked this British-owned place because it was recommended in all of our guides, and because we wanted a break from traditional Moroccan fare. Finding […]
Fez, Day 2: City streets
In the spirit of giving Fez a second chance, we set out on a walking tour of the Fez medina after returning from Volubilis. We still were struck by how different it looked and felt from the souqs in Marrakesh, but the longer we walked the more it grew on me. The whiteness of the […]
Fez, Day 2: Volubilis
By the second century BC, the Roman empire extended through a network of fishing cities in northern Africa. During the last century BC, they established themselves in Volubilis, not far from current-day Fez. The city remained under Roman control until the Berbers drove them out in the 300s AD. The Arabs took over in the 8th […]
Fez, Day 1: Dinner amidst the din
You know that saying, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all”? That’s how I feel right now. We’ve been in Fez for only a few hours and I really miss Marrakesh and the desert. Fez feels much bigger than Marrakesh — the buildings are taller and made of a […]
Trek, Day 3: Merzouga to Fez
It’s a long way from Merzouga to Fez — we left around 9am and didn’t arrive until shortly after 5pm, and we didn’t stop much along the way. The natural differences in countryside were much more pronounced on this leg of the trip than they had been between Marrakesh and the desert. At first we […]
Trek, Day 3: Sunrise in the desert
The Berbers called out from their tent shortly after 5am: dawn was breaking over the desert. We crawled out of our stuffy tent, bleary-eyed and relieved, to see the early rays kissing the dunes around us. The sight was lovely to behold. Dust and clouds on the horizon weakened the glare of the sun enough […]
Trek, Day 2: Sleeping under the stars (or not)
We had the choice of sleeping in the tents (which were stiflingly hot and smelled like sheep) or under the stars. Since the windstorm by this time had died down, leaving an open sky and a light cooling breeze, we opted for the latter. As you can imagine, the spread of stars that you can […]
Trek, Day 2: Life in a Berber camp
We quickly settled into the routine of life in a Berber camp. It was a simple but noble existence, moving smoothly from sand-boarding to playing dress-up to eating delicious tagines by candlelight to singing round the table and asking each other riddles until we fell asleep. Sandboarding (Keep in mind that I’ve never snowboarded in […]
Trek, Day 2: Into the desert
At long last — the time had come. At the stroke of 6:30pm we left our room in search of Said — we were off to the desert! Almost. First, we had to have the obligatory round of tea — or, in our case, mint leaves in boiling water — which was served in a […]
Trek, Day 2: To desert’s edge
As we continued on our journey, the pretty green valleys gradually disappeared. The world outside the car became more and more desert-like. First there were camels . . . then sand dunes amassed along the edge of the highway and kept at bay by a series of flimsy-looking wooden barriers . . . and wells dug by […]
A More Gentlemanlike Manner 