For two days we wandered around the medina (Fes el-Bali).
Walking around the old, walled city was like stepping back in time.
It was loud, hot, crowded—beautiful.
We constantly waved “no” to people trying so hard to sell us their wares—shopping was a sport. We bargained. (I always gave in so early in the game.)
It was exhausting and exhilarating.
We bought paintings—and met the painter (more on that later).
While attempting to buy tea a Moroccan woman helped us with the language and then invited us into her own home for hot tea (more on that later).
We got lost (but only once!).
I was a little shocked to discover that a toilet in a restaurant was merely a hole in the ground—but I hiked up my skirt and peed.
We bought earrings and shawls and teapots and clothes.
We watched mules walk by carrying impossibly high loads with cardboard blinders on secured with twine.
The experience was so worth the trouble it took to get there and it’s one I will never, ever forget.
“There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign.” —Robert Louis Stevenson