775. Morocco Part 2 | Exploring Fes Medina

The Fes medina can be quite an intimidating place if you are a newly arrived tourist. Hiring a guide is necessary to find your way around, are perhaps more importantly - to avoid being bothered too much by locals and getting scammed. With all the streets and alleyways, it is inevitable to get lost and locals always try to offer help/pretty much insist on it..then demand a fee.

The first day we hired a very nice official guide to bring us around for about 6 hours. Most of the photos in my next posts will be during that day, since it was the only time I felt safe taking out my camera lol. But even then, I couldn't take photos of everything that I wanted to as I know some locals don't like appearing in photos. Most times I had to do it discreetly which results in blurry shots. We didn't get bothered as much when locals saw that we were with the guide. One thing I realized is that all the "older" (~50 years+) people are very nice and generally honest. The ones you have to be careful about are the younger ones and children (following very closely asking for money or trying to pickpocket). You also need to be careful at restaurants as some places have a "tourist" menu that they give unsuspecting tourists which lists much higher prices. We already experienced all these things which I'll talk about more soon.

After several days here, we are slowly adapting and learning more about life here. There's many things that are different from what we are used to (how to take taxis, buying fruits, etc.)

So on the first day when we had our guide, he brought us all around the main parts of the medina including the oldest/largest/most popular leather tannery in Morocco called the Chouara Tannery (pic above). Different leather shops surround it and you have to go in one, to the rooftop, to see the view. Then as you leave they always try to get you to buy something. When I researched the tannery before our trip, people all complained about the smell. Apparently they give you some mint leaves to smell to make it more bearable. We didn't get offered this and weirdly enough, I found the smell super mild and had no problem with it at all lol.


We have a housekeeper here who comes in to clean the riad/house a couple times a week and makes us meals upon request. We asked for breakfast the first morning and have asked for it every morning since. It's laid out on the rooftop terrace and consists of fruit salad, yogurt, eggs, and delicious bread (so far a different type each day which I think is all made from scratch). My favourite is the fruits and bread.


At times it can feel like a different time period


This is a real estate office. I found it interesting they don't show any photos of the available properties but I guess that is not a major selling point as it is in other cities. They just describe to you what is available.


I was surprised to see public toilets in the medina and more surprised to see they are this nice and clean. They are actually better than restaurant/cafe toilets I've seen so far. In the few restaurants we've visited, I haven't been able to use the toilets because of how bad/dirty they looked/smelled.

We will have a Christmas tree this year! I really didn't think we'd have anything Christmas-y at all, celebrating it in Morocco. Our housekeeper set it up this morning.



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774. Morocco Part 1 | Arriving in Fes!

We are now in Fes!! Morocco is my 32nd visited country and my first time in Africa. They currently has some entry restrictions due to COVID which I was stressing about for weeks but we made it in without any issues. A couple nights ago we arrived at Casablanca and spent a night at the airport hotel. The following morning, we had a private driver bring us to Fes which is about 3 hours away but I couldn't get any good photos or videos (since it would have passed by the time I got my camera out).

We are staying in the medina which is literally a labyrinth of 9000+ little (pedestrian-only) streets and alleyways. It's inevitable to get lost as Google Maps doesn't work in there. It's also supposed to be quite dangerous for tourists (with pick-pocketing and scams) so we are advised not to go out at night on our own and to be super careful on the streets. It's quite overwhelming as we are the only tourists here that we know of so far lol. We didn't see any others yet. I find the locals quite friendly so far though. We haven't had any bad experiences yet but I will definitely remain cautious. I will post about our first exploration in the medina in my next post.

So yesterday afternoon, we arrived at our new home which is an incredibly beautiful riad. We have it all to ourselves which may be a bit more space than we will use. There's two full floors and two "half" floors. We have a housekeeper who will come to clean a couple days a week and cook for us (upon request). We also have a cat to keep us company. He is already very comfortable with us and likes to sleep on our laps. The main downside is that the Internet is very very slow and even the data roaming I use from Rogers is a bit slow in the medina. Since we both work online it is a bit of an issue. It also takes a really long time to make this blog post so I may not update as often but we'll see.


I'm in love with the kitchen! The owner of the house works in the food industry so it's very well-stocked.


It also has a lot of unique decor pieces. There was a lot of thought put into designing every aspect of the place.


The rooftop and view from the terrace:


Our first lunch. We went to the closest place we found and I got a couscous tagine and mint tea. For sure they will be the first of countless tagines and mint teas lol. So far, all the food we've had have been amazing (and super cheap). I LOVED the vegetables in this couscous. So tender and flavourful.

Our housekeeper is an amazing cook. Everything we've had from her so far have been really good (well one dinner and one breakfast). Even the orange slices she cut for us last night - I have no idea what she put on them but she added something to make them sweeter (not sugar though) and kind of fizzy. I don't know how to describe it..like the fizz sensation you get on your tongue from a soda but more lol. Last night she made a Welcome Dinner for us which was chicken tagine, beans and fried sardines. I loved everything. She also makes bread from scratch which I didn't show in this photo but I will next time:



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773. Canary Islands Part 13 | Sunday Walk + Next Destination!

We've now finally decided and booked our next travel plans and I'm really excited!! This will be a fairly long post (in text, not in photos).

As I briefly mentioned in my previous post, our next destination had to be a non-Schengen country yet still within Europe/a close distance. We've considered pretty much all options but the only ones realistically we could have gone were Croatia, Turkey, or UK. I would have REALLY liked to go to Russia but it wouldn't be possible to get the visas from here (I'd have to do it from Canada). We also had to factor in each country's current COVID situation and restrictions, which didn't leave us with many options at all. It was a very stressful few weeks. I researched non-stop for a few days and now I am quite familiar with all COVID restrictions around the world (well all the European and Asian countries lol). One thing is that each country's restrictions are not very clear. There is no one website that lists out all the details so for each place (who is allowed in, what steps to take before entering, quarantine rules) so I had to contact their embassies to clarify things. Many were not really responsive.

So the top choice for some days was the UK as it would have been the easiest to fly to (we are a few hours away from London now). With the limited flights during this time, getting to other destinations would have been more difficult. England, Scotland, Wales & Ireland all have different rules. Yesterday/Dec 2, England ended their national lockdown so we thought of going there. All the cities are split into different tiers with different levels of restrictions which meant we would be able to go to tier 1 or 2 cities only. I spent a really long time researching pretty much all the cities in England. My top choice was somewhere in the Cotswolds as its always been a dream of mine to visit there..but it wasn't ideal to be there a month if we didn't have a car. The other major problem was that UK is EXTREMELY expensive to stay a month over the holiday season.

We also considered Turkey but now I'm very glad we didn't decide on that as their COVID cases shot up literally overnight.

Amidst all that, we didn't think of the place that was most convenient and that I was hoping to be able to visit due to its proximity to the Canary Islands - Morocco! So I started researching and discovered that foreigners fron visa-free countries are allowed in now, subject to certain restrictions. We will need to bring a negative PCR test taken within 3 days of arrival, and have a confirmed hotel reservation to enter the country. There are also some more steps to take exiting Casablanca (the city we need to fly into) but I won't get into that lol. Basically it's easiest if you hire a private registered driver to bring you out.

I've always wanted to visit Marrakech but when searching for accommodations, I found a place I really wanted to stay in Fes. Then I started researching about Fes and it seems a lot more interesting and authentic than Marrakech. In fact, many people seem to prefer Fes over Marrakech. Fes has the largest pedestrian medina in the world. The medina is the "old town" and it dates back to the year 789AD!! It's a walled-in area containing over 9000 streets and little alleyways, and countless souks within 540 acres of land. No cars are allowed in there - only donkeys. & Google Maps will not guide us through the streets so we will get lost for sure. Apparently everyone gets lost in there..even locals sometimes but it is part of the fun. I've watched a lot of travel vlogs of Fes and it seems so cool..very ancient like places you only see in a movie. I'm really looking forward to the exotic fruits and food there hahah.

I'm so excited yet a bit nervous (in a good way) to experience life there for 6 weeks. I hope we will adapt. I think I will experience pretty big culture shock as I've never been anywhere like that before. I hope during that time the restrictions will be loosened a bit and we could go to Chefchaouen (a magical-looking place), Marrakesh, the Sahara Desert & the Atlas Mountains as well. Also it will be my 32nd visited country!

Anyways here are some photos from our walk last weekend around Las Palmas. We walked past this really nice neighbourhood with beautiful houses.



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