THE FALSE GUIDES OF FEZ AND THE BITTERNESS IN THE MOUTH AFTER MORE THAN TEN YEARS
The post you are about to read is the continuation of a Travel diary in Morocco - from Spain to Fes
Quickly so as not to make our little companion wait, we prepare ourselves while we repeat all the good intentions of the night before: "We will read the guide to share with him the visit of Fez... we will give him a ballpoint for the school...".
We leave the hotel and we find them waiting for us. Anticipating our needs they take us to breakfast and unaware of why they are here with us (we'll find out later) we offer them breakfast.
We start the visit of the Medina of Fez and at the first opportunity one of the two introduces the fateful argument: "my father has a carpet shop you go if we go to visit him?" Only this phrase should make us understand what's going on, but we accept it anyway.
On the way, as we walk through the winding alleys of the Medina, a woman overcomes me and whispers to me in French: "pay attention to the false guides" and disappears inside a door.
We stop for a brief moment to see the extraordinary spectacle of leather tanners. From a terrace of a shop, we admire a Fez made of the sweat of the skin, smell of leather, colored dyes.
Just outside we are taken to the shop of the notorious father of one of the children, an old man with whom we do not even greet each other. We are shown various carpets but we kindly break up and leave. One of the two children has a dark and angry face. We are taken to the spice pharmacy but even here we do not buy anything. It's the apotheosis, the two children leave disillusioned and immediately after we are attacked by a man who says he is the brother of one of the two and claims from us to be paid for the inconvenience caused. We refuse and it rains on us a pile of insults, luckily some tourists help us to divincolarci but we really stay with the bitterness in his mouth for this bad adventure. We no longer want to turn and decide to return to the hotel to recover a little.
Fez has tired us and we decide to leave the next morning for Marrakesh. It must have been the bad experience, the tiredness, the narrow alleys, the people who do not leave you alone but we want to leave and leave behind.
I reread my travel diary in Fez and still taste the bitter taste of that day, I remember as if it were yesterday the woman who tells me to be careful and a minute later disappears behind a door, I feel the effort to meet a different culture from mine, I understand, perhaps only now that I looked at a country through the glasses of my culture, that I walked through it intimidated and perhaps prejudice prevented me from really meeting a people.
I only now understand that more than ten years have passed. And I want to make peace with him.
Travelers who have been to Morocco I am looking for you, I would like to know your experience, discuss this phenomenon of false guides, listen to your experiences and maybe tomorrow decide to leave again ... thank you, Elisa