{"id":4449,"date":"2025-05-08T10:14:50","date_gmt":"2025-05-08T14:14:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/?p=4449"},"modified":"2025-05-19T17:27:16","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T21:27:16","slug":"morocco-tour-day-6-april-19-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/?p=4449","title":{"rendered":"Morocco Tour, Day 6 \u2014 April 19, 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>After breakfast (yogurt, crepes with jam, olives, orange juice, and orange and banana slices), we \u00a0were joined by Fatima, the student we had met a few days before. She had asked Hassan if she could spend a day with us to increase her use of English, and our group was happy to comply.<\/p>\n

The Jewish neighborhood of Fez is called \u00a0the Mellah. We Americans know that in Fourteen Hundred Ninety-Two, Columbus, an Italian sailing for Spain’s King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, \u00a0sailed the ocean \"\"<\/a>blue and made landfall in the Caribbean. What else of significance happened that year? A decree was issued in Spain \u00a0that gave \u00a0Jews and Muslims three choices: convert to Christianity, leave Spain, or face death. Many of Spain’s Jews moved to Morocco. In 1948, a \u00a0large number of their descendants left Morocco when Israel was created.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Within the medina, or old town, we \u00a0visited Synagogue Aben Danan<\/em>, which originated in the 17th century after 1600 Jewish families moved to Fez. Hassan, wearing a traditional caftan, explained the history of the Jews in Fez to us. \u00a0The Jewish cemetery was closed, but Nick went up to the roof to see it and get photos.\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>We headed deeper into to the medina. The medina is filled with \u00a0souks (shopping areas) displaying a great variety of items for sale \u00a0including rugs, leather goods, slippers, scarves, \u00a0jewelry, \u00a0threads, yarn, fabrics, lamps, clothing and spices. There are lots of produce stalls. We saw a seafood shop \u00a0near which lots of cats were hoping for nibbles, and \u00a0a butcher shop that specialized \"\"<\/a>in camel meat. There are also many donkeys, and of course, \u00a0lots of people, both locals and tourists. The sights, sounds and the aromas were unlike anything that was familiar to us.\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>Inside a weaver’s shop, many members of our group bought scarves that they would wear in the desert to protect themselves from the sun and the sand, including Nick. I had brought a scarf from home with me for that purpose. We stopped at the Nejjarine Museum of Wood Arts and Crafts, which orginally was a stopping \u00a0place for traders, where ornately carved cedar furniture from past centuries is on display.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>It was time for lunch. Fatima was surprised that we used forks. She tore pieces of bread and used them to pick up the food on her plate. For lunch we had lemon chicken with olives, veggies, bananas, mint tea, and almond cookies.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>After lunch we visited a tannery at which animal skins, typically camel and goat, were dyed, \u00a0dried, and made into jackets for men and women as well as handbags, belts, and shoes. The youngest member of our group, Tanner, bought a jacket that fit him perfectly.\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

For dinner that night we had an appetizer of lentils, eggplant, zucchini, and carrots. The main course was chicken and other ingredients baked with a crust, or as we would say, chicken pot pie. We were surprised that our savory individual \u00a0pies had a sweet topping of cinnamon and sugar on the crust.<\/p>\n

Fatima thanked us profusely, saying that she would never forget the day she spent with us.<\/p>\n

10,571 steps<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After breakfast (yogurt, crepes with jam, olives, orange juice, and orange and banana slices), we \u00a0were joined by Fatima, the student we had met a few days before. She had asked Hassan if she could spend a day with us to increase her use of English, and our group was happy to comply.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-morocco-2025"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4449"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4926,"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4449\/revisions\/4926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}