Thursday, February 8.  Pictures tell the tale.  Briefly, bus ride from Rabat to Fez.  At a market on the way Ben gave some of us 100 Dirham ($11) to buy fruits at a farmer’s market.  I’m not comfortable with the fact that he picked me first.  We proceeded to buy fruit.  I wasn’t concerned with sticking to the $11 limit.  I just wanted enough fruit to satisfy the mission of satisfying our breakfast desires for a few days.  Others took the mission to be to spend 100 and not go over.  Anyway, it was fun to interact with farmers.  Apples for 10 cents.

Our “Riad” is a former home for a large family, converted to a small hotel.  Installing bathrooms and an elevator constituted the main challenges.  Only pictures tell the story.

We met a local guise to give us the tour of the largest alley-based community in Africa, if not the world. Just incredible.  One thing though is that it wasn’t the universe-invading experience of Japan.  Everyone tended to leave an inch between bodies.  I never wanted to shove people simply out of anger.  Visited a 600 year-old tannery.  They handed out mint leaves before we climbed to a perch above the pools.  Good idea.  Smelled just as I’ve heard that tanneries smell.  Some of us bought leather products.

Ben was intending to take us to a mall’s foodcourt for dinner, but we asked to go have another moroccan dinner.  Great choice.  I had a grilled steak that wasn’t the best, but certainly well worth $12.  With wine.  (I should mention that dinner last night and lunch today included no olives! Tonight there were olives.  The world can continue spinning.)

The pictures tell a fuller story.  A great day.