Hilda and I vow to get up early in order to paint from the rooftop of the Dar Seffarine - and we manage to do so, witnessing sunrise over the city.
Our guide for the day, Hafid, is a sweet young man with gap teeth and curly black hair, who speaks very little English, but has a nice airy tourist van he has rented. He drives us out of the ancient city of Fez toward Volubilis and we get a look at fields and crops and the Rif Mountains in the distance.
Becky is convinced she can see sand dunes and the desert beyond, and we are perhaps all a little wistful that we have not taken up Livingston's invitation to join them. Ikuko and he and little Richard were having their own adventure on camel back into the Sahara desert. So much too do and not enough time in our one long weekend off.
I am seated behind Hafid and become unofficial translator as I am the only one with some French and very bad French at that. This becomes quite plain soon enough.
My accent is so poor that real French speakers often cannot understand me. I see on the side of the road as we leave Nouvelle Ville Fez, that there are people camped in the trees with tents on the side of the road. They appear to be eating and some playing soccer. I ask, "Ils fair du camping? Du picnic?" and Hafid becomes very confused thinking I want him to take us to a super-marche for shopping. He seems to want to please us, but I manage to indicate, "Non, non, non" and we keep going.
It is a beautiful crisp, sunny day as usual. We pass sheep and fields of vegetables and olive groves.
A farmer on the back of a donkey.
Agave and cactus here and there.
We stop on the side of the road at an overlook above a distant lake and the peaks of the Rif in the background. Hafid points out the lake in the distance and tells me in French, "It is very dry. Normally we have more rain. It is a disaster for our country. For our crops."
There's a farm stand and a man selling bags of olives and almonds and oranges. I buy a bag of almonds to share in the car and he tells me they are from the trees below indicating the slope we are looking down on. They are so fresh they are almost chewy. Almond cookies are the big item in the patisseries we have seen in Rabat.
Eventually we see the ancient ruins of the Roman city Volubilis rise out of the distance in a field of bright orange flowers like daisies.
We drive down a dusty road to the very unofficial looking entrance - dogs wandering around - drivers waiting in the hot sun for their tourists. Hafid indicates he will wait for us. We can take our time. The bathroom attendant tries to get everyone who stops in to exchange two five dollar bills for dhiram. Some American must have handed them to him instead of the 2-5 dhiram (.25 to .50) which is standard for such tips. An expensive pee.
The tour guides try to get us to hire them, but we opt to go it on our own. We've read the tour books and there are a few sun faded signs in French. Volubilis was the western most outpost of the Roman empire and was later occupied by the Arabs,and then Moulay Idris who then moved onto Meknes, which became the first imperial city. It's a very beautiful example of a Roman city and the first I have ever seen. You can still see where the streets were layed out, where the houses were.
Many of them were quite palatial with numerous tile filled rooms. The intact floor mosaics are the most amazing feature at Volubilis, which are very casually only protected by a few rope barriers to prevent walking on them.
The tumble down walls of houses are still amazingly intact after millenia, although now covered in orange and green lichen and surrounded by the ubiquitous yellow/orange daisies, garbage like plastic bags and soda bottles and other plants like thistle and wild grasses. The place is filled with guides leading groups in all languages: Italian, German, Spanish. French.
I walk down the main promenade past columns decorated with symbols of animals and then to the Great Arch and main plaza - no doubt a temple.
It is breath taking and eerie. One can imagine the people who lived here over centuries and I wonder what ghosts could remain. The ingenuity of the Roman Empire is very present in remnants of their sophisticated sewage system.
I catch up to the others and before leaving scale a small hill where you can get a panoramic view of the countryside around.
A small cat befriends me and follows me back down the hill toward the van. I stop to pick up a snail shell packed with sand and a flat white stone - ancient souveniers - as well as a dried palm frond and one daisy to press in my guide book.
It will take years I imagine, to integrate all I have seen in the last two days. I wonder what images will emerge in paintings, encaustic, writing...
We drive on past more farmers on donkey pulling carts filled with wood, artichokes...
Hafid drives us down another dusty road though a pine and cedar grove to another overlook. This time it is a small town - all whitewashed and nestled between two peaks: Moulay Idris - the original holy city of the Moroccans.
Moulay Idris and his son Moulay Ismael were directly descended from the prophet Mohammed. All of the kings that have followed have been as well - all the Hassans and Mohammeds - down to the current one Mohammed VI. The tomb - mausoleum - of Moulay Idris is located here and many Moroccans view this town as second only to Mecca and make pilgrimage here as well to pay their respects and gain in religious status.
We buy brightly colored caps from a man who says, "They were made by my mother," even though we can see they are machine stitched. Never mind. They are pretty and a nice deal at $4 each.
Hafid stops at a restaurant overlooking the city. Chickens wander around in the street. The walls are whitewashed and the waiters wear soiled Kelley green jackets and fez on their heads. We are lead to a shaded terrace. They seem polite but not overly excited to see us. This is a regular spot for tourists it seems. A French family sits down across from us.
We are served the usual olives and the menu consists of tajine again or couscous. Chicken or lamb, with or without "raisen" or prunes. Very simple. A surprise at desert: fresh dates with an almond tucked inside. What a good idea - delicious.
Hafiz zips through Moulay Idris, basically down the hill and through the narrow main street of the town which appears much grittier than its white washed veneer from on high. I expect to see more women who are veiled as it is a small and religious town, but there appears to be the same mix of older women in djellaba and head scarf, some with Berber tattoo and women in more Western dress of blue jeans and jackets walking arm and arm down the street. Same amount of men lingering at the sidewalk cafes sipping tea. It is after all Sunday- the weekend.
Hafiz informs us that the tomb of the kings is closed so there is no point to stop and he drives straight thru. The riad out if town appears more modern, updated with new curbs and freshly painted walkways, unlike the dirt road we came in on. It also filled with people and mostly kids out for their Sunday afternoon stroll just as we had seen in Mohammed V Square in Casa, and at the Hassan II mosque. Kids are riding bikes, playing ball.
A small boy on a bike rides in front of the van and his friend or younger brother rides out as well on a tricycle. He is tiny. No more than five I would say. Hafid appears to drive right into the older boy on the bike. It is not hard and he isn't hurt but he falls off the bike, moves it back and he's clearly scared. Hafid yells and gestures at him, then continues driving and wags a finger at the younger boy on the trike as well who smiles back at him devilishly. Clearly they have different ideas about child rearing here. As we go around the curb and down the hill there is a policeman, all dressed up in his uniform smoking a cigarette not a 100 yards away. I am made to recall several incidents in my own town where kids are hit by cars during the busy pickup time after school at the local high school and the lawsuits and the finger pointing and the collective guilt, which followed.
The sky has become overcast for the first time since our trip began. We continue onto Meknes the Imperial City....
We bid farewell to our cozy room and take a few last photos of this palatial home wanting very much to return some day.
My room in Dar Seffarine
Becky and Raquel parting shots
Our guide for the day, Hafid, is a sweet young man with gap teeth and curly black hair, who speaks very little English, but has a nice airy tourist van he has rented. He drives us out of the ancient city of Fez toward Volubilis and we get a look at fields and crops and the Rif Mountains in the distance.
Becky is convinced she can see sand dunes and the desert beyond, and we are perhaps all a little wistful that we have not taken up Livingston's invitation to join them. Ikuko and he and little Richard were having their own adventure on camel back into the Sahara desert. So much too do and not enough time in our one long weekend off.
I am seated behind Hafid and become unofficial translator as I am the only one with some French and very bad French at that. This becomes quite plain soon enough.
My accent is so poor that real French speakers often cannot understand me. I see on the side of the road as we leave Nouvelle Ville Fez, that there are people camped in the trees with tents on the side of the road. They appear to be eating and some playing soccer. I ask, "Ils fair du camping? Du picnic?" and Hafid becomes very confused thinking I want him to take us to a super-marche for shopping. He seems to want to please us, but I manage to indicate, "Non, non, non" and we keep going.
It is a beautiful crisp, sunny day as usual. We pass sheep and fields of vegetables and olive groves.
A farmer on the back of a donkey.
Agave and cactus here and there.
We stop on the side of the road at an overlook above a distant lake and the peaks of the Rif in the background. Hafid points out the lake in the distance and tells me in French, "It is very dry. Normally we have more rain. It is a disaster for our country. For our crops."
Rif Mountains behind dry lake bed
There's a farm stand and a man selling bags of olives and almonds and oranges. I buy a bag of almonds to share in the car and he tells me they are from the trees below indicating the slope we are looking down on. They are so fresh they are almost chewy. Almond cookies are the big item in the patisseries we have seen in Rabat.
Eventually we see the ancient ruins of the Roman city Volubilis rise out of the distance in a field of bright orange flowers like daisies.
We drive down a dusty road to the very unofficial looking entrance - dogs wandering around - drivers waiting in the hot sun for their tourists. Hafid indicates he will wait for us. We can take our time. The bathroom attendant tries to get everyone who stops in to exchange two five dollar bills for dhiram. Some American must have handed them to him instead of the 2-5 dhiram (.25 to .50) which is standard for such tips. An expensive pee.
The tour guides try to get us to hire them, but we opt to go it on our own. We've read the tour books and there are a few sun faded signs in French. Volubilis was the western most outpost of the Roman empire and was later occupied by the Arabs,and then Moulay Idris who then moved onto Meknes, which became the first imperial city. It's a very beautiful example of a Roman city and the first I have ever seen. You can still see where the streets were layed out, where the houses were.
Many of them were quite palatial with numerous tile filled rooms. The intact floor mosaics are the most amazing feature at Volubilis, which are very casually only protected by a few rope barriers to prevent walking on them.
The tumble down walls of houses are still amazingly intact after millenia, although now covered in orange and green lichen and surrounded by the ubiquitous yellow/orange daisies, garbage like plastic bags and soda bottles and other plants like thistle and wild grasses. The place is filled with guides leading groups in all languages: Italian, German, Spanish. French.
I walk down the main promenade past columns decorated with symbols of animals and then to the Great Arch and main plaza - no doubt a temple.
It is breath taking and eerie. One can imagine the people who lived here over centuries and I wonder what ghosts could remain. The ingenuity of the Roman Empire is very present in remnants of their sophisticated sewage system.
Sewage drain
I catch up to the others and before leaving scale a small hill where you can get a panoramic view of the countryside around.
A small cat befriends me and follows me back down the hill toward the van. I stop to pick up a snail shell packed with sand and a flat white stone - ancient souveniers - as well as a dried palm frond and one daisy to press in my guide book.
It will take years I imagine, to integrate all I have seen in the last two days. I wonder what images will emerge in paintings, encaustic, writing...
We drive on past more farmers on donkey pulling carts filled with wood, artichokes...
Hafid drives us down another dusty road though a pine and cedar grove to another overlook. This time it is a small town - all whitewashed and nestled between two peaks: Moulay Idris - the original holy city of the Moroccans.
Moulay Idris
Moulay Idris and his son Moulay Ismael were directly descended from the prophet Mohammed. All of the kings that have followed have been as well - all the Hassans and Mohammeds - down to the current one Mohammed VI. The tomb - mausoleum - of Moulay Idris is located here and many Moroccans view this town as second only to Mecca and make pilgrimage here as well to pay their respects and gain in religious status.
We buy brightly colored caps from a man who says, "They were made by my mother," even though we can see they are machine stitched. Never mind. They are pretty and a nice deal at $4 each.
Hafid stops at a restaurant overlooking the city. Chickens wander around in the street. The walls are whitewashed and the waiters wear soiled Kelley green jackets and fez on their heads. We are lead to a shaded terrace. They seem polite but not overly excited to see us. This is a regular spot for tourists it seems. A French family sits down across from us.
We are served the usual olives and the menu consists of tajine again or couscous. Chicken or lamb, with or without "raisen" or prunes. Very simple. A surprise at desert: fresh dates with an almond tucked inside. What a good idea - delicious.
Hafiz zips through Moulay Idris, basically down the hill and through the narrow main street of the town which appears much grittier than its white washed veneer from on high. I expect to see more women who are veiled as it is a small and religious town, but there appears to be the same mix of older women in djellaba and head scarf, some with Berber tattoo and women in more Western dress of blue jeans and jackets walking arm and arm down the street. Same amount of men lingering at the sidewalk cafes sipping tea. It is after all Sunday- the weekend.
Hafiz informs us that the tomb of the kings is closed so there is no point to stop and he drives straight thru. The riad out if town appears more modern, updated with new curbs and freshly painted walkways, unlike the dirt road we came in on. It also filled with people and mostly kids out for their Sunday afternoon stroll just as we had seen in Mohammed V Square in Casa, and at the Hassan II mosque. Kids are riding bikes, playing ball.
A small boy on a bike rides in front of the van and his friend or younger brother rides out as well on a tricycle. He is tiny. No more than five I would say. Hafid appears to drive right into the older boy on the bike. It is not hard and he isn't hurt but he falls off the bike, moves it back and he's clearly scared. Hafid yells and gestures at him, then continues driving and wags a finger at the younger boy on the trike as well who smiles back at him devilishly. Clearly they have different ideas about child rearing here. As we go around the curb and down the hill there is a policeman, all dressed up in his uniform smoking a cigarette not a 100 yards away. I am made to recall several incidents in my own town where kids are hit by cars during the busy pickup time after school at the local high school and the lawsuits and the finger pointing and the collective guilt, which followed.
The sky has become overcast for the first time since our trip began. We continue onto Meknes the Imperial City....
No comments:
Post a Comment