Day 23 – Lunch in Meknes

As there were not many marinas in Morocco, we decided to leave the boat in Rabat and go from there on a road trip to see a bit more of the country. We rented a car and booked accommodation for one night in Fes. It was a three hour drive to Fes so we had a late lunch stop in Meknes. It was great to see Morocco’s landscapes. We drove past cinnamon trees and a lot of other farmings. The landscape is a desert, but however its very beautiful and varied. In Meknes we had a quick lunch and a trip to the Medina – where I finally found Moroccan poufs and leather bags.

Fes – staying at a family home

After Meknes we headed to Fes with a mission to find our booked ”Riad” for the night. Thankfully, I did not have to drive in the Moroccan traffic, but Jocke was doing well! We found the Riad, but despite our reservation it was full. We were relocated to a family home, a man guided us into the darkest alleys until we reached the family house of Boulevard. We got a common room upstairs with windows facing the courtyard – their so-called Riad. It was a nice apartment with several floors and small narrow stairs with marble and patterned tiles. We took an evening trip to the Medina and found really good street food – including saffron-fried potatoes with chili in bread and some kind of kebab called Chauana. We finished with Moroccan tea on a roof terrace with nice details and a fountain overlooking the minarets.

Day 24 – the Tanneria

We were served breakfast by Mrs Boueden in the Riad – such a pretty room! I would also like to have a riad in my future house… We said goodbye to the family and went away to the Tanneria where they clean and color skins. It has to be a really tiresome job where they are halfway in the barrels of chemicals while working. It was so many stores that was selling a lot of stuff in leather. Puffs, bags, shoes, belts etc etc. So many nice stuff, and so cheap! I wanted everything…

Waterfall in Sefrou and wild monkeys in Azrou

After some shopping and negotiations, we jumped into the car again and drove to Sefrou Cascade. At first we didn’t find the waterfall, we thought it was too dry. But a man showed us the way and at last we came to the right spot. We did not stay for a long because of our tight schedule. We went off against the cedar trees in Azrou where there were wild monkeys. People wanted us to buy food for the monkeys but the monkeys were spoiled enough to pull our trousers anyway unfortunately. They got a little water and seemed extremely thirsty. On our way home we drove through Ifran – a really cool city with inspiration from the Swiss Alps. It was very different from the typical Moroccan style tan with yellow autumn leaves and a beautiful Swiss-inspired houses. We did not stop there but it’s well worth a visit! Then we drove full speed back to Rabat without any time for lunch to get back to the car rental on time. We had time for dinner in town and some supermarket shopping for the next long ocean crossing before we crashed for the night.