Meknès

In Meknès, we were happy to have a campsite with hot showers as many of our group didn’t go to the hammam when we did, and still hadn’t washed after 5 days of bush camping. The only problem was the campsite was really far out of town. On the other hand, it was a short walk to the nearby village of Sidi Ali, which our campsite owner Abdou explained to me was a pilgrimage site like Lourdes.

There were little green bottles for sale with fleur d’orangier in them for anointing. Unfortunately most of the animals for sale were sacrificial.  Some of the goats must’ve been trying to be picked last by standing half way up the wall.

A sheep must’ve known its fate as it was baa’ing frantically as it was carried along on its new owner’s shoulders and later dragged along the ground… One of our cook groups was interested in getting an animal for dinner so I had to find out the prices for them using my French. A goose or turkey was 250 dirhams (1 euro = 11 dirhams); a good quality goat was 1,000 dh and a good quality sheep was 1,500 dh. Given that our daily food budget is 270 dirhams for brekkie and dinner (300 dh if you have to do lunch too), that was well out of our budget (luckily). Essentially, we are living on just over 1 euro a day per person. And meat (1 ½ to 2 kg) takes up generally one third of the total budget. It makes food shopping tricky but typically we buy at the local markets if we can which helps.

I ate my first prickly pear fruit which Shaun picked for me. Luckily he handed one to me as opposed to Sonny, who he threw one at. Sonny was picking out thorns from his hand and shoulder (which the fruit hit) for the next few days! Despite it being a massive pest plant, the fruit was actually pretty tasty.

It rained most of the time we were in Meknès which was a bit miserable. A few of us wandered around in the rain, though it was worth seeing the Mausoleum of Moulay Ismail

and the Bab El-Mansour gate.

Down the back streets of the old medina, we found some absolutely delicious cakes for 5 dh and vanilla slices for 3 dh. I had to have a praline cake and a vanilla slice – seriously 30 cents or so for a freshly baked vanilla slice – how could you resist?!

We also came across many stalls selling silk-like thread for 3 dh per roll and Johanna bought up lots as she does embroidery back in Ireland and thread like that typically costs a fortune.

We went into the intricately decorated Medersa Bou Inania

and could see the Grande Mosquée from the rooftop.

Time slipped away from us and it was getting dark so we walked out of the medina, passing through the local markets on the way with stalls selling djellabas

and again saw sheep skins being piled onto the back of a truck.