From there, the taxis, of which most could only take three people and were charging quite high prices. After securing one for a price we were happy with, we focused our attention on another, and whilst we finally managed to negotiate a reasonable price, the first taxi drove away! This happened quite a bit, but in the end, all 7 of us managed to arrive at the train station by 6am. We read the board: Fez - 7:45am, "Hmm, yeah, that's not bad." We thought. But as we were about to buy tickets, we were told that the board only displayed arrival times from other places, and that actually, the first train to Fez would leave at 11 something!
So again, the whole separate taxi thing to the coach station; we were not going to wait more than five hours for a train, and the first coach to Fez would leave at 7:45; an hour to wait in this noisy, paranoia-triggering gathering of passengers, beggars and 'bag-carriers'. I remember noticing such a typical North-African-mentality feature of this bus station: it didn't have a clock, and I was alerted to this fact when Redwan panickingly came to me wondering what this old lady was asking him for... the time. The tickets were 63 dirhams (each), and we realised they pulled a Ryanair on us when we had to pay 5 dirhams extra to store a bag underneath the coach. Whilst finally on board and everyone had settled in, and once all the beggars and salesmen had done their rounds, it set off; every one of us effortlessly just fell asleep, with the exception of me. My friend's heads bobbed from side to side and forwards and backwards as the coach turned and slowed down, nothing awakening them. I on the other hand did what I did best and looked out of the window, occasionally shutting my eyes but instantly awoke if so much as a fly buzzed past.
Once we were out of the city, I realised that Morocco was actually quite a beautiful country; so many things growing in what seemed like desert; shepherds and their sheep, cows, the yellow landscape, fields of sunflowers and corn, people producing piles of salt (either that or rice), mountain valleys and fertile soily hills, orchards and funny-looking thorny trees; it's the kind of stuff you'd have set as your desktop background, a couple of green trees in a bare field of yellow, or an artistic set of winding tractor prints on a dry muddy hill. Looking out of the window really helped me relax and remember our adventures the day before, and here I am now, writing on the coach as the others sleep, missing out on the beauty outside, and whilst the stranger beside me watches on, refusing my offers of pineapple juice. Correction: he seems to like paprika-flavoured pringles :P
The slight aroma of the vomiting girl's produce at the back didn't really hinder us from staying on the coach, but what more of an issue was, was the lack of toilet. Two of us were bursting for a couple of hours, which reminded of the ways you could make a sleeping person wet themselves. As soon as the coach doors opened, they ran out and answered the call of nature. This was it: Fez, and it looked like we alighted in the middle of nowhere. Then came the usual taxi-driving stalkers we all came to know and love, and in the end we went to a taxi bay place and took two taxis, our efforts at trying to reduce the 50 dirham "tariff" futile. The first hotel we were dropped off at was full, so we loaded the bags back up and managed to reduce the price of going to another hotel by 5 dirhams to 15; tariff indeed!
'Hotel Royale' had quite decent rooms, with en suite showers and toilets, so we decided we could let our impatient taxi driver friends go and I gave mine 65 dirhams; a 50 note and 15 in coins. He then drove off. I looked at my remaining money and then it struck me,
"What colour was the 50 note I gave?"
"Pink" my friend replied.
"Have you got any 50's on you?"
He produced one... it was green. "Damn, I think I gave him 50 euros!!" The other taxi driver was still there, and after we told him what had happened, instead of cracking up laughing (which he probably saved for another time), he gave us his number, and that we should call him after we got settled in the hotel. Some 'tour guide' character was straight on the scene, and was there giving his two cents on what we should do; I wondered why he'd be so helpful... not!
Some of us went up to check the rooms whilst I was left downstairs to deal with the 'tour guide'. I'm not really a person to say no, and he insisted he show us another hotel, so a couple of us followed him and tried to converse with his broken-English-speaking self. I had a look at the other hotel room; I didn't like it- but I think it was just the feeling of the 50 euros gone that dampened my mood. We settled for our first choice. The rest is boring (apart from our delayed Friday prayer that we missed... the reason why we woke up so early in the first place!), but when we went out to eat (after changing our seating 3 times, doing a group vote to decide which place had the best AC :P), we conveniently bumped into our 'tour guide' again, but Gallael, the legend when it comes to dealing with the locals, told him that we didn't have any money, and that he would be 'touring' for Allah's sake. the guy said yes, but then he changed his mind when he saw that I'd rewarded the taxi drivers for coming back. Yes, I got my pink 50 euro note back!!
Later on, we went through the usual hassle of getting 3 taxis and visited the old part of Fez; the narrow winding alley-like streets and a multitude of 'tour guides' and beggars. With the useless Lonely Planet maps, we couldn't ask anyone for directions, or they'd start to lead the way and expect to get paid by the end, and the more we walked through the run-down labyrinth of filth and insecurity, the more I didn't want to be there; why were we here in the first place? That was until I saw it- the mosque. Amazing architecture and beautiful patterned designs, with two wudhu fountains at either end of the shiny multicoloured tiled courtyard and one in the middle; the place so calm and such a difference from the mayhem outside.
We stayed a few hours, took loads of pictures and prayed asr, after conducting a group vote deciding on whether we should pray inside the mosque or in the courtyard where the front appeared to be. We also saw a boy dunking his whole head into the long basin full of water, and this gave birth to our idea for the 'suicide competition'; who could dunk their heads in for the longest won! The biggest challenge wasn't holding your breath, but holding your laughs; it was hilarious, and the first to lose would probably be the first to crack up; a flurry of bubbles being the tell-tale sign. We later stood in the courtyard and prayed maghrib with everyone else in the fairly-full courtyard (ignoring the chanting at the end). It was a serene experience, but also weird, as everyone wasn't standing in your standard straight line, but slightly diagonally, like we were footballers standing for a national anthem. I blame the architects.
With the dark of the night approaching, we made our way to the tallest point of the city so we could admire the view from the top. The walking journey was long, and we decided to ask only people who looked like they were going somewhere, religious-looking people or shopkeepers. It kind of worked. We managed to shun our 'tour guide' friends by pretending to know where we were going (even though we didn't), just kept walking, said hello to loads of kids playing football, and continued our brisk walk uphill through the narrow musty walkways.
We arrive at the top (which we later found out, wasn't), and found an extremely expensive-looking hotel, completely out of place and somewhere we wanted to get into and take pictures from its gardens. We had to buy something if we wanted to get in, and even then we'd only have access to the terrace. I'm glad we made the decision to go ahead with it; the hours spent on top of the lit-up old city were some of the most chilled-out hours of the holiday so far, especially with the hectic travelling we'd been doing earlier. We chatted about our adventures so far, I updated my diary, we tried to film the most memorable quotes of the holiday so far, we imagined a few scenarios of becoming lost in a silent, dark Fez, if Salman went missing, and the film 'hostel' came up in the conversation.
After totally relaxing for a long while, we got down to business, and considered all of the possible scenarios we could pursue over the next few days all the way to Friday when we'd go home. Every one of us tired, we triple-checked our plans and voted on how we'd like to spend our days, where we'd be travelling to first, and for how long. Just then, on cue, the hotel guy says it's time to close, and we taxied it back to our hotel, stayed up 'til fajr telling jokes in the room with the two double beds (where 4 of us were staying), taking the limits of our sanity to new levels. I finally dizzily staggered to my bed, more than ready for my first long sleep.
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