Morocco Day 4 (3rd October 06)

* This city is unreal. Fes is believed to be the largest carfree urban area in the world. Fes is classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

• Alley way after alley way. The main form of transport through the thousands of alleyways is by donkey. These donkeys are loaded up and are the equivelant of transport trucks where we come from. These donkeys with all their gear just fit through the alley ways. When the bloke behind the donkey yells out àttention`you know to jump into a shop or you will get trampled by a donkey.
• Went to a carpet store, a Medicine man, a tannery (where they dye the leather - check out the photo) and a pottery. The artisans are very skillful and great to watch. Learnt the Moroccan equivelant of calling someone a stingy Jew , it is a you are a ´berber´ (the original inhabitants of morocco before the arabs arrived).
• One of the boys, Jack, was accosted by a dagger salesman. The bloke left his shop and followed jack up the alleyway trying his best to get him to buy something - when he realised he wouldnt get a sale he said `the next time I see you it will be with god´. One thing about ramadan - the locals cant eat until night fall so some of them get a little hungry and aggresive throughout the day - but rarely towards the locals - over the course of the trip I saw 3 -4 fights between the locals - i felt like giving them a mars bar a saying chill out dude!
• Went into the main town for a 5 course dinner and entertainment at a Moroccon restaurant - was very nice.
• The birth of taxi grand prix! This would have to be a highlight of my trip. Whilst coming back from the restaurant to the camp site - all 26 of us jumped into taxis. I was with Jack (19) and Les the writer (circa 50) - the taxi drivers and the general driving in this place is chaotic like most backward Countries - but we decided to spice it up a little by offerring him an extra 10 Dirhams if he got back to the campsite first. There were a couple of close calls expecially an overtaking manouvere that put us in 2nd place but could easily have ended with us hitting the oncoming truck.The taxi driver loved us as we yelled out taxi grand prix´´ and called him Schumacher. At the campsite he offerred me a drive in his taxi and some hash - i decided to call it a night.