![]() At a Fez restaurant that night, the magician pulled everything from everywhere...from creatures out of hats to a bra from the blouse of an audience member. The setting was an old riad, formerly a wealthy family's residence with separate quarters for each wife; the expense means most riads have been converted to restaurants and hotels. Some locals frequent the riads, but ...not surprisingly.. the main clientele are tourists..often French groups. The French seem to escape to Morocco much as folks in USA flee to Florida or Arizona for fun and warmth. Musicians, Berber dancers, and belly dancers completed the evening's entertainments, with some audience participation thrown in for good measure. |
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![]() Yes, that butcher is displaying a camel head. It's estimated there are over 83,000 shops in the Fez markets. |
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![]() Making the thin dough sheets (filo) for pastries requires deft hands; on a form that looks like something a milliner would use for hatmaking, sheets are quickly dried by the hot coals inside. |
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![]() The knife maker and sharpener. |
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![]() The silk dyers. |
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![]() The jalabya tailor. |
![]() Obviously someone using this rooftop has a whimsical sense of humor. |
![]() At the tannery, skinning and de-fuzzing the hides comes first. | ![]() |
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![]() The vats in photo in row ABOVE this one contain a dirty grey solution of urine, limestone, and pigeon excrement to soak the hides for at least a week. Then the leathers are dyed in many shades and taken outside the walled medina to sun dry on hillsides. An aside: A huge tub of mint leaves was thoughtfully supplied for the nasally squeamish at the top of the stairs that we climbed to get to rooftop to overlook the curing and dying operations of the tannery. I noticed none of our group partaking of this courtesy, although the French tour group stumbling upwards at our heels certainly did. |
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![]() About 45 kinds of dates grown in Morocco; big export market; quality varies. Top of line are the best I ever ate. Dates, definitely a quick energy food, are the first thing people eat after the sunrise-to-sunset fasting of each day in Ramadan. |
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![]() Mary calculating at the rugmakers, where kilim after kilim and knotted rug upon knotted rug were on offer. Gloriously diverse designs, made from silk, wool, cotton. So many stacked that clerks simply tugged out and flung them everywhere for us to view. |
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![]() Lunched at yet another riad, where restoration efforts on the doors went on in side rooms. |