As the afternoon wanes so does our energy. Communication with Hafid is minimal at best and he seems to have an agenda of regular stops so we just go along with it. He is after all very good- natured despite his dubious driving techniques.
We stop above Meknes to see the skyline - another ancient city surrounded by new.
Named for the Berber tribe Meknassis who settled here in the 10th century, it was made into the first capital of the kingdom of Morocco by Sultan Moulay Ismael in the 18th century. The city has 25 km of walls with impressive "babs" surrounding a palace which was never completed. Such work is a testament to Moulay Ismael's control over his people and ability to crush any opposition and enemies of the new kingdom of Morocco.
The neighborhood we drive through to get there actually seems quite posh; reminiscent of Brentweood in LA again, with large stucco walls and houses surrounded by secure iron gates, bougainville, datura, palms. A young boy picks among the trash below the overlook and then begs for a few dhiram. Hafid chases him away. The contrast in wealth in striking.
Down the hill we stop at a large reservoir, Agdal Basin, which served to provide water for the king's extensive gardens as well as a pleasure lake and has many carp or large goldfish.
Next stop is one if the largest bab or port ways in Meknes and it is truly spectacular - if a little grungy from centuries of smoke, car exhaust and pollution.
We stop for photos and then drive past the old palace and the Dar Jamai museum into the medina.
Here there is another even grander Bab el-Mansour which is the grandest of all the imperial Moroccan gateways with elaborate inscriptions. It was completed in 1732 by Moulay Ismael's son and overlooks the Place el-Hedim which is the center of the Meknes old medina. This square was used for royal announcements and executions. It is Meknes' equivalent to the great plaza, which Marrakesh is known for, the Djemaa el Fna. Unfortunately this is when my camera battery failed alas - no picture. You will have to imagine.
Hafid drops us off and instructs us to go around the corner to see the grand Bab. He asks us how long. We agree on twenty minutes and he is surprised but we are getting tired. By the entrance to the first port we see our first camel tethered to the wall chewing. Chewing on something, "most scrutiatingly idle," as Kipling wrote in his "Just So Stories." He appears to be waiting for tourists to be propped up on his back for photos. The scene in Meknes seems a smaller version of what might await us in Marrakesh should we decide to go.
We turn the corner and just as Hafid promised the grand Bab el-Mansour appears. It is big enough to rival the Hassan II mosque in size, but blackened with soot and age as the other port had been. Across we find the square very similar to the Mohammed V square in Casa. It's is filled with strolling couples and children as this is again a weekend/Sunday and everyone is out to relax. There are hawkers with toys and bubble shooters of course, and groups crowded around specific spectacles. There is a game using toy fishing rods, where grown men attempt to place a rubber ring around the neck of a standing bottle. Hilda and I watch. One guy is very good and succeeds three times. The man handing out the rods spots us - we do stand our as tourists with out i-Phones - and comes after us with the rods. "No,no," we say and move on. Musicians playing drums and stringed instruments. Boxing draws a big crowd. Teen boys wearing big gloves take their turns with each other. A man officiated and tossles hair when someone loses. It all seems so good natured and innocent. From another time another century.
We hear the distinctive sound of the snake charmer's flute (like an oboe or clarinet) before we see him. There is a crowd around him too, but a more wary one. He lifts a basket cover and a cobra rises up. We are fixated. Another smaller snake slithers across that stone tiles - red and white speckled. He picks it up holding the snake's head so that it cannot strike. We assumes these are both venomous snakes. Before we can say or do anything -and we are all mesmerized - he comes over and slips the snake around Raquel's neck. He holds fast to the head, but keeps it close to Raquel's face. He forces her to sit and places a traditional hat with cowrie shells on her head. She endures this long enough for us to snap several photos and then is released to us and we all laugh and giggle hysterically. Immediately that hat is turned over with expectation of payment and we hand over some dhiram.
He tries to come after another one of us with the snake, but we beg off and he settles for us watching him charm the cobra out of the basket with his flute. A little further on we see a giant boa constrictor, black and white speckled just slithering the through the crowd aimlessly, no doubt the charge of another snake charmer.
The square is ringed by cafes and the waiters come after us with menus when we get near speaking French then English. We beg off and try sticking together to make out way across the square and back to the bab and Hafid with the van.
The next stop Hafid pulls in front of another great wall with a small plaque which reads "greniers.". What is that we ask? The guide book is not readily descriptive. Hafid tells us smugly, "C'est tres interesant.". Okay. We pay our 10 dhiram and head in. Of course we are approached immediately by the guides - only 10 minutes 170 dhiram - 16 dollars. Despite our ignorance we just wanted to wander and we enter magnificent chambers that are very plain just stuccoed in red earth. The height is immense and I understand enough to know that this was a grannery and a giant one. We enter an exterior part or perhaps just where the roof has fallen away over centuries, but the height and depth and number of rows of arched doorways and supports are astounding. These are now populated by weed gardens of thistles and other wild plants. I even find a fig. We begin to speculate what this magnificent structure might have been and not going get a little silly. We are punchy with fatigue and don't know who started it but begin to play i-Phone tag. We hide behind the giant arches and run out and photograph each other from behind. Later I read in the Lonely Planet that this was the stable for Moulay Ismael's 12,000 legion of horses giving you again the sense of his power and the might of his military forces.
Clearly it is time to head to the train. Hafid is surprised as the next stop is the museum which would be really important to see at this point for some history, but it is almost 6 pm. Our cozy rooms at the Hotel Splendide are still two hours away by train. Down around the nouvelle ville we notice that the petit taxi are light blue. They are red in Fez and dark blue in Rabat.
We say good bye to Hafid with his sweet gap toothed smile and are now laden with our bags filled with the spoils of the Fez medina: rugs, pottery, scarves - and we realize that our train for Rabat leaves in 4 minutes. We run up and down several sets of staircases with the bags and get some instruction about which track is right. Eventually all is well and Hilda, Jennifer and I settle into three seats together. Becky and Raquel are further up the aisle. We watch the landscape fade away with the setting sun and discuss plans for the morning.
We stop above Meknes to see the skyline - another ancient city surrounded by new.
Soccer players near the city
Named for the Berber tribe Meknassis who settled here in the 10th century, it was made into the first capital of the kingdom of Morocco by Sultan Moulay Ismael in the 18th century. The city has 25 km of walls with impressive "babs" surrounding a palace which was never completed. Such work is a testament to Moulay Ismael's control over his people and ability to crush any opposition and enemies of the new kingdom of Morocco.
The neighborhood we drive through to get there actually seems quite posh; reminiscent of Brentweood in LA again, with large stucco walls and houses surrounded by secure iron gates, bougainville, datura, palms. A young boy picks among the trash below the overlook and then begs for a few dhiram. Hafid chases him away. The contrast in wealth in striking.
Down the hill we stop at a large reservoir, Agdal Basin, which served to provide water for the king's extensive gardens as well as a pleasure lake and has many carp or large goldfish.
Next stop is one if the largest bab or port ways in Meknes and it is truly spectacular - if a little grungy from centuries of smoke, car exhaust and pollution.
We stop for photos and then drive past the old palace and the Dar Jamai museum into the medina.
Here there is another even grander Bab el-Mansour which is the grandest of all the imperial Moroccan gateways with elaborate inscriptions. It was completed in 1732 by Moulay Ismael's son and overlooks the Place el-Hedim which is the center of the Meknes old medina. This square was used for royal announcements and executions. It is Meknes' equivalent to the great plaza, which Marrakesh is known for, the Djemaa el Fna. Unfortunately this is when my camera battery failed alas - no picture. You will have to imagine.
Hafid drops us off and instructs us to go around the corner to see the grand Bab. He asks us how long. We agree on twenty minutes and he is surprised but we are getting tired. By the entrance to the first port we see our first camel tethered to the wall chewing. Chewing on something, "most scrutiatingly idle," as Kipling wrote in his "Just So Stories." He appears to be waiting for tourists to be propped up on his back for photos. The scene in Meknes seems a smaller version of what might await us in Marrakesh should we decide to go.
We turn the corner and just as Hafid promised the grand Bab el-Mansour appears. It is big enough to rival the Hassan II mosque in size, but blackened with soot and age as the other port had been. Across we find the square very similar to the Mohammed V square in Casa. It's is filled with strolling couples and children as this is again a weekend/Sunday and everyone is out to relax. There are hawkers with toys and bubble shooters of course, and groups crowded around specific spectacles. There is a game using toy fishing rods, where grown men attempt to place a rubber ring around the neck of a standing bottle. Hilda and I watch. One guy is very good and succeeds three times. The man handing out the rods spots us - we do stand our as tourists with out i-Phones - and comes after us with the rods. "No,no," we say and move on. Musicians playing drums and stringed instruments. Boxing draws a big crowd. Teen boys wearing big gloves take their turns with each other. A man officiated and tossles hair when someone loses. It all seems so good natured and innocent. From another time another century.
We hear the distinctive sound of the snake charmer's flute (like an oboe or clarinet) before we see him. There is a crowd around him too, but a more wary one. He lifts a basket cover and a cobra rises up. We are fixated. Another smaller snake slithers across that stone tiles - red and white speckled. He picks it up holding the snake's head so that it cannot strike. We assumes these are both venomous snakes. Before we can say or do anything -and we are all mesmerized - he comes over and slips the snake around Raquel's neck. He holds fast to the head, but keeps it close to Raquel's face. He forces her to sit and places a traditional hat with cowrie shells on her head. She endures this long enough for us to snap several photos and then is released to us and we all laugh and giggle hysterically. Immediately that hat is turned over with expectation of payment and we hand over some dhiram.
Raquel braves the snake charmer
He tries to come after another one of us with the snake, but we beg off and he settles for us watching him charm the cobra out of the basket with his flute. A little further on we see a giant boa constrictor, black and white speckled just slithering the through the crowd aimlessly, no doubt the charge of another snake charmer.
The square is ringed by cafes and the waiters come after us with menus when we get near speaking French then English. We beg off and try sticking together to make out way across the square and back to the bab and Hafid with the van.
The next stop Hafid pulls in front of another great wall with a small plaque which reads "greniers.". What is that we ask? The guide book is not readily descriptive. Hafid tells us smugly, "C'est tres interesant.". Okay. We pay our 10 dhiram and head in. Of course we are approached immediately by the guides - only 10 minutes 170 dhiram - 16 dollars. Despite our ignorance we just wanted to wander and we enter magnificent chambers that are very plain just stuccoed in red earth. The height is immense and I understand enough to know that this was a grannery and a giant one. We enter an exterior part or perhaps just where the roof has fallen away over centuries, but the height and depth and number of rows of arched doorways and supports are astounding. These are now populated by weed gardens of thistles and other wild plants. I even find a fig. We begin to speculate what this magnificent structure might have been and not going get a little silly. We are punchy with fatigue and don't know who started it but begin to play i-Phone tag. We hide behind the giant arches and run out and photograph each other from behind. Later I read in the Lonely Planet that this was the stable for Moulay Ismael's 12,000 legion of horses giving you again the sense of his power and the might of his military forces.
Playing i-Phone tag
Clearly it is time to head to the train. Hafid is surprised as the next stop is the museum which would be really important to see at this point for some history, but it is almost 6 pm. Our cozy rooms at the Hotel Splendide are still two hours away by train. Down around the nouvelle ville we notice that the petit taxi are light blue. They are red in Fez and dark blue in Rabat.
We say good bye to Hafid with his sweet gap toothed smile and are now laden with our bags filled with the spoils of the Fez medina: rugs, pottery, scarves - and we realize that our train for Rabat leaves in 4 minutes. We run up and down several sets of staircases with the bags and get some instruction about which track is right. Eventually all is well and Hilda, Jennifer and I settle into three seats together. Becky and Raquel are further up the aisle. We watch the landscape fade away with the setting sun and discuss plans for the morning.
