We got up super early to go see a nearby Roman outpost called Oualili in Arabic. The Romans mutated the name into Volubilis. Apparently the town was inhabited until the 18th century, but since then it has been damaged by an earthquake and also scavenged for building materials for other nearby towns. It was still pretty neat, though. You can really see the layout of the town: where the roads are, where the houses were, how big they were, etc. There are quite a few immaculately preserved floor mosaics as well.
After Volubilis, we drove over to Moulay Idriss which is a tiny little town with a very large shrine and mausoleum to Idriss I, an 8th century ruler and the founder of Fes. It was a very pretty town with very few tourists. Of course, we were not allowed into the shrine, since it is one of the holiest places for Moroccan Muslims. Apparently, 5 trips to Moulay Idriss counts as one haj (trip to Mecca). That's how important of a religious site it is.
I was willing to walk around the town a bit since we were there, but of course some guy walks up to us and offers to take us up to a terrasse where there was a good view. I was immediately against it. Why? 1) Because our cab driver had already taken us up to a hillside where we got an excellent view of the city, and I didn't believe this new view was going to be significantly better. 2) I didn't want to pay this guy to take us on a walk when I was perfectly capable of walking by myself. 3) I was tired of being ripped off and I just knew this guy wasn't going to charge us a fair price. But, Ali and Jonathan said yes before I could really voice my objections, and off we went. And, y'all, it was far. Every time we turned a corner, and we were still going uphill, I stopped and glared at my companions and voiced a complaint. So, yes, I was grumpy and not a good sport at all. We finally made it to the top of the hill, and the view was nice, but I think I still would rather have walked around by myself for free.
Anywho, here's a list of some interesting things we saw:
Donkeys walking up and down the streets in a caravan with no one leading them. They were laden with bags of sand or something, and they knew their route so well they didn't need anyone to tell them where to go. Pretty cool.
Bakers baking bread by hand. They have a particular kind of bread that you see everywhere, and we saw them actually making it which was neat-o.
Two kids spinning thread. One kid was at one end of the street holding the threads up as high above his head as he could get them. Another kid had a little hand held machine that wove the threads together. They took up the whole side of the street. It was pretty neat to see that, too.
So, despite my complaining, it was a very charming town and I'm glad we went. We cut the day kind of short and took the train back to Fes. Our last night in Morocco! We ate pizza and watched more movies. Good times!
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