October 26, 1996

Rachid would not leave us alone. "I am mild," he said, of his continual bombardment of patter. "The other guides in the medina are wolves. I can protect you." Ah, but who would protect Rachid from me. I can keep up with the best of the hagglers, and, after those seemingly endless ten minutes, Rachid would have to agree. "She is a strong one," he said to John. Unfortunately I'd had to engage in the nonsense of out-talking him. We couldn't dart from his company. He worked at the campground and had followed us to the bus stop. He was desperate to be our guide, to show us all in the Old City that we naturally would miss by ourselves. "You cannot go in alone," he assured us. Well of course we could. We love that sort of thing - getting lost, exploring, finding, warding off the touts. In the end, my patter outlasted his (no easy task I assure you) and we boarded the bus; Rachid right behind us. From my place at the back, I gave him my "Hey-I-won that-battle-so-you-leave-us-alone" look.

Our next battle was to locate the bus that would take us from Nouvell Villa to the Old City. If Rachid were watching he was chuckling. We asked the locals; we headed where they pointed; we walked, we backtracked, alas we never seemed to be at the right bus stop. Ah, consult our Lonely Planet guide. Of course, stand in front of the mosque. Eventually that hurdle was out of the way and the rest of the day was easy. We did all that we said we'd do - explore, get lost, get found - but there wasn't any need to ward off other potential guides. No, the wolves must have been tamed; no one even offered. I think there may have been one attempt when we pulled out our map to ask where we were. "Do you need a guide?" the man asked. A half hearted attempt, a simple 'No' and he left us alone.

But if the wolves were tame, the rest of the medina was not. I stood for a moment on the corner of two intersecting streets and tried to take it all in: the color, the smell, the people, the shops, the noise, the music, the unrelenting chaos. "Do you want to see a carpet?" "Come see the Mansion House." "Here, try my dates, just one." John was suddenly pushed into a dark doorway as a donkey topped with wooden crates clomped through the narrow lane. The man behind him clicked his tongue. "Yella," he called.

We moved with the crowds, pushed our way past shops, past shoes and racks of leather bags reaching into the covered streets. We came into courtyards teeming with metal workers, into alleys lined with buckets of dye, through gates decorated with intricate mosaic that dumped onto intersections that extended in all directions like preying arms. And we followed. Some shops we recognized as having passed before, some we had never seen and would never see again. We tried to find our way back to one shop - we never did. We found ourselves in the date section, the fish section, the spice area, among the silversmiths. We saw beggars clinging to walls, beautiful ancient homes, filthy garbage-laden streets, mosques with exquisite tile-work. At one point we even found Rachid. "Ah ha," he said to me; "Ah ha," I said to him.

By 4 o'clock we were ready to head back to the van. We hopped on bus 19 back to the new city - finding it was not a problem, we even got seats. Unfortunately, we can't say the same for bus 17. It was almost dark when we figuring out that we were waiting on the wrong side of the street. When we did finally get to the right place, we had to yell to the driver to re-open the bus doors. Being late to catch the bus meant we didn't get a seat. For the long haul back to the campground we stood, jostled and bumped at ever turn. My toes were numb from pushing to keep myself upright and I was relieved when John finally said, "There's the campground. Get off here."

We walked slowly back to the van, too tired to move any faster. When we passed reception, I looked for Rachid. I wanted to tell him that we had navigated Fes by ourselves and come out whole. But Rachid wasn't there and he might not have agreed with me anyway - we looked exhausted. I waved goodnight to the man who was at the desk. "Bon Nuit," he said to us, "Good night."