Three Days in Fes, Morocco

We're in our last day in Fes, Morocco, and it's raining...hard. It's a little reminder of back home in Tacoma. We had another reminder this morning when we met another couple from our hotel and learned that they are from Portland. Fes is a fascinating city. We're staying in the medina, the old city, dating back to 808 AD -- wow! It is the cultural and spiritual center of Morocco, surrounded by an ancient city wall, and it contains 9700 narrow streets with many Muslim houses of prayer (mosques), Quranic schools (medersas), fountains (sakaya), bath houses (hammans), homes (basic dars and fancy riads), community ovens (faran), and tons of shops in the open-air marketplace (souk) containing any item you can imagine and more. Cars are not allowed in this old city of 160,000 people, and donkeys (known as the "car" of the medina) carry the heavy stuff through the streets. You can easily get lost in the medina. A man took us around to see tanneries, weavers, spice sellers, a school, a mosques, and much more. Since 1981 the Fes medina has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The first university in the world is here in the Fes medina.

Yesterday we took a tour by car to the nearby Atlas Mountains, saw monkeys, learned about the rural Berber people, and went hiking a bit. One of the highlights was dinner at the home of a Moroccan family - Mohammed, his wife Fatima, and their three children. We were served traditional Moroccan couscous and "whiskey"(that's what they call it!) It's green tea with mint and sugar - so good!

I (John) have been loving the Moroccan food - lamb and beef tagine (google it!), couscous with chicken, and pastilla (a savory and sweet meat pie filled with spicy pigeon meat and topped with sugar and cinnamon). Leigh likes the beef and prunes tagine and in the morning the chocolate spread on baguette.

We are finishing our Lenten spiritual growth group study and have been blessed in our conversations together as we reflect alongside our Peace congregation about what it means to walk together in the city, growing in relationship with God, family, and community.

Tomorrow we head north to northern Spain, a trip that will take us two days that includes taxis, trains, ferries and buses. We begin our long walk across northern Spain on the Camino de Santiago soon!

Here are some pictures:
- The view from our rooftop terrace at our hotel in the Fes medina
- Eating a dinner of couscous with chicken and beef tagine at our hotel
- Our waitress and wonderful hotel cook serving traditional Moroccan "whiskey" (green tea with mint and a tiny bit of sugar)