Meknes, Morocco

Time of Visit: November 10-13, 2022

To be quite honest, I was quite Morocco-fatigued when I reached Meknes, especially after Fes, where three days straight of constant vigilance had taken its toll on me. Luckily, Meknes was a fantastic place to close out my Morocco trip, because the tourist volume there hadn't reached the critical mass capable of supporting an underclass of scumbags like in Fes.

Outside my hotel in the medina.

A nice park-plaza outside the medina.

Mausoleum of a Moulay Ismail, former sultan of Morocco.

An entrance to Dar Kebira, a residential neighborhood built upon the abandoned ruins of Moulay Ismail's palace.

Meknes' medina was perhaps the most livable of the ones I visited. Modern amenities and services were readily accessible, with bakeries, small grocers, pharmacies, convenience kiosks, tailors, phone repair stores, and various medical practices all scattered throughout. Ironically, one might be hard-pressed to find these everyday services in a larger medina like that of Fes or Marrakesh. An employee of my hotel, also 21 years old, used to live and work at a hotel in Fes' medina but took a pay cut to come to Meknes, citing safety and convenience. I don't blame him.

The whole population of Meknes crowds into the medina every evening.

The main road from the new city to the medina.

The next day, I went to Volubilis, a partially excavated Roman city dating to the 1st century AD. Most people go on a bus tour from the city, but I decided to save a few bucks and took a grand taxi to the shitty nearby town of Moulay Idriss Zerhoun and walked 4 kilometers under the blazing sun to the ruins, which is located in the middle of nowhere. A concerned farmer on an ox-drawn carriage stopped and said something in Darija to me, but with lots of smiles and thumbs ups and repeatedly saying the word "Volubilis," he understood that I was not insane, but merely stupid.

Yeah I'm omw just gimme a few...

I arrived at Volubilis at the same time as two busloads of Moroccan schoolchildren, who proceeded to run roughshod over the mosaics and stones while the old chainsmoking guards lazily looked on.

On my last day in Meknes, I visited a wonderful music museum where I discovered the existence of Moroccan drum and bass. The only other visitors were some Moroccan girls taking Instagram pictures inside the beautifully restored building. I guess you gotta make do with what you have when your city doesn't have The Color Factory or a teamLAB exhibit.

It's called kiwano and it tastes awful. Cucumber seeds with the astringence of unripe banana and none of the sweetness.

In the evening, I walked about 2 kilometers from the old city, where all the tourists stay, to the new city, where most actual residents of Meknes live. I'd never received so many stares in my life, but it was worth it to get a $1 sandwich from a shop I'm almost certain no foreigner had ever stepped foot in.

Olives, egg, and tomato sauce.

This series of posts on Morocco has been terribly shallow. I decided after this trip that I won't visit any place where I don't speak the language or the locals don't speak English - it makes it very difficult to understand a place beyond the surface level.