Meknes. Volubilis & Moulay Idriss

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We started the day with the standard breakfast of bread and jam before meandering our way through the medina, finding shade where possible as it was once again a spectacularly hot day without a cloud in the sky.

The Place el Hedim is a large square that marks the entrance to the souq. It is bordered by shops selling the usual Moroccan fare of carpets, tagines and jewellery and made a nice spot for a morning coffee as we watched the world go by. We were visited several times by stray cats hanging around looking for food scraps and several more times by some local youths looking for the same thing.

The Souq in Meknes is made up of narrow cobblestone and dirt streets that struggle to hold the flow of humanity that rely on it for a living. Paul, Jo and I took turns deciding which way to turn at each intersection in an attempt to get completely lost and ended up seeing a nice mix of residential areas and shops. The now familiar approaches from shop owners inviting us to look at their wares were declined but we were enjoying the more laid-back attitude of the Meknes shopkeepers. They were nowhere near as persistent as the ones we had encountered in Tangier or Rabat. Surprisingly (an perhaps a little disappointingly) we emerged from the Medina no more than 100 metres from where we had entered so we decided to go back to the café from earlier in the day for lunch.

The cats and kids scrounging for scraps had not gone anywhere and even our waiter was on the take. It seems he had a nice little sideline selling hash and was doing particularly well from the table of tourists next to us. Within a few minutes of each sale, a big bloke in a dark suit and sunglasses came to collect the loot from the waiter and disappeared off into the souq.

After contacting home from an internet café we headed out into the Ville Nouvelle, stopping at a McDonalds so Jo could use a western style toilet, complete with toilet paper - a luxury in this part of the world.

We were keen to visit Volubilis, 33km from Meknes and the site of some Roman ruins. Lonely Planet recommended that we wait at the taxi stand and try to get a group of six travellers together to split the Dh300 return taxi fare. It soon became apparent that we could be in for a long wait so we decided to approach a tout and make arrangements for the three of us to travel. We were to pay Dh150 immediately and Dh150 on our return. We paid up and were surprised to see that the driver only received Dh100 of the Dh150 deposit. Not a bad commission for a few minutes work by the tout and, judging by the raised argumentative voices of our driver, a bit more than is usual.

The driving in Morocco was far worse than anything I had seen before. We were in a row of four cars doing a reasonable pace when another car decided to wait for a blind corner to pass the lot of us. Sure enough, a car came the other way and I'd tell you how the collision was avoided if I'd have seen it... I turned away and braced for the rebound the moment before I expected the impact. Our driver spoke no English but soon got the gist of our hand gestures indicating how bad the driving in Morocco was. He nodded wryly in agreement.

Within 30 minutes we arrived in the near-deserted carpark at Volubilis . The site is around a kilometre square and we used all of the two hours our taxi driver allotted us to get around it. I'd hate to hazard a guess at the number of photos I took of the columns, arches, walls and mosaics but suffice it to say that the memory card was near full by the end of our walk. There wouldn't have been any more than 30 other tourists in the whole of the ruins and with the sun starting to get low in the sky, casting shadows cross the hills, we were sure we had visited while the ruins looked their very best.

Not being 100%!c(MISSING)ertain about the morals of our taxi driver, we were pleased to get back to the carpark and find that he had waited for us. We got in and took the 5 kilometre drive to the stunning and unique hillside town of Moulay Idriss where we were given an hour to take a look around.

Moulay Idriss is a very strict Muslim town - non-Muslims are not allowed to stay there overnight. It is built on two steep hillsides at the edge of a range of mountains. We stopped briefly at the Mausoleum of Moulay Idriss but as non-Muslims we could take photos but were not allowed inside. With plenty of time left we decided we'd attempt the climb to the top of one of the hills... it must have been 300 steps or more. By a quarter of the way up we'd shaken off a number of would-be guides but one persistent kid tailed and then headed us up. He was a very polite child of no older than ten who spoke good French and had enough of a grasp of English to get us through. Ashrif was also fit - very fit indeed. Still, if I climbed the stairs ten or more times a day to earn a living, I expect I'd be much fitter too. The walk was worth it... as the sun set in the distance the colours of the town below fell into shadow and after having a moment to take in our surroundings we made our way back down the hill. Ashrif got a Dh30 tip for his trouble.

After a snack of delicious BBQ spiced mince and bread from a roadside stall, we got back in the taxi for the ride home. MOst of the trip was spent with the driver laughing at us laughing at other motorists' driving habits. We passed a transit van that was so full that two of the passengers were hanging on to the open door for dear life. At one point our man turned up his $5 car stereo and blasted some Arabic music at ear-bleeding volume. I slid the seat back to a bigger angle, rolled the window part way down and cruised boy-racer style for a few kilometres. We were dropped back at the taxi rank and tipped the driver another Dh30. He smiled, patted me on the back and left happy.



After a small break Jo and I headed back to the barbers shop where I had a cut-throat shave (Dh10). The bloke did a superb job and even tidied up my hair a bit. He remembered me from the previous night and was evidently not very happy with the way I was wearing his style.

We had pizza for dinner whilst watching CSI with Arabic voice-overs.

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