Problems booking a riad in Fez?

I know how frustrated you must feel. You have sent off an email asking for the Magic Grotto room in your favourite riad - and nobody has replied. You tried ringing and nobody answered. Well imagine what it is like at the other end of the line. The phone won't work and the internet has been down for five days. That is five days being unable to conduct your business. No bookings, no confirmations from intended guests. It is not hard to imagine that thousands and thousands of dollars is being lost every day.

The internet outage in the Medina.

One of our anguished readers travelled into the Ville Nouvelle in order to find an internet cafe so she could send in this personal response:

The god with the winged feet has been hobbled and the red planet appears to be travelling backwards. Of course it isn't, it's an optical illusion. But Mercury being retrograde, all forms of communication are at risk, as are machines and vehicles. This is the time when the washing machine breaks down, the flight's grounded, your phone charger goes on the blink or, indeed, emails won't go. Vast swathes of the medina are affected and while we can sometimes get on line and receive emails, we certainly can't send them unless we come to the Ville Nouvelle.

This has been going on for about 5 days. It means that the general Fez-visiting public must think that all the guesthouses and Fez Riads are ignoring them, that we don't want their business and they can just all go to Marrakech instead. Far from the truth - there is much tearing of hair and gnashing of teeth. Please put this on The View from Fez! I'd put a banner across the top of my website too if I could get on line! Oh, and Mercury will be retrograde until the 12 March. Will I have any teeth left to gnash or hair to tear by then?

So, if you have been trying to contact Fez Riads, or even just your friends, please be patient. They still love you and will be online again soon, inshallah.

Tags: Moroccan Morocco Fes, Maghreb news