Some days in Fez...

Some days in Fez are luminous. Everything sparkles. Walking the Medina streets you hear the music of fountains and pure running water. Overhead the swifts are diving across the clear blue sky and everything seems perfect. Then, miraculously, it just gets better. A man with one arm greets me like a long lost friend and presses a gift into my hand.

A young woman knocks on my door and announces that I am to come with her because she is taking me to the Ville Nouvelle to eat lunch. A long time ago I found her some work and now she feels she must thank me. In R'cif another miracle - a taxi is free, standing alone without the usual rush of people attempting to claim it. More - it has handles so you can open the windows. This is not always the case.

Driving from the Medina the little valley where the river runs is lush and green. Smoke curls up like a wisp of fine spun wool above a fire. Everywhere the smell of spices. I am hungry now and am pleased to see that we have pulled up outside a restaurant famous for its pizzas. Sometimes it is good to have a break from tagine and couscous.

We are greeted, shown to our table and spend ten minutes fine tuning our selection. Then, sipping freshly pressed orange juice, we wait ...and wait. Eventually the waiter announces that the pizza oven is not hot enough and would we please choose again. Fine. I will have the Penne Vesuvio. Within a minute it is in front of me, steaming, hot, as though they had been preparing it all along, certain of my second choice. And it is perfect.

Lunch is followed by a long walk through the new city to a "special" restaurant that only sells fruit salad. Mind you the "fruit salad" is floating in a sea of avocado yogurt and delicious.

Sated, I thank my Moroccan friend for her generosity, and take a taxi back to the Medina. Inside the riad, I am greeted by the cat who is demanding lunch and, as I feed it, the noise of trumpets and drumming erupts outside my door.

Now my street is a very quiet back alley, a long way from the tourist areas and so I go to the door to discover two Sufi brothers from Meknes, who play for me and then tie a string in a complicated knot which I am invited to test. Then it is pushed into my closed fist - which, when I open it, reveals an ordinary piece of string, minus the knots. There is much hand shaking and kissing of my head and then more music. For almost ten minutes they play and sing and then just as suddenly as they appeared, they turn and march off down the alley, the noise of drumming receding with them into the distance.

The phone rings. It is one of the Purple Circle asking me to dinner.

Some days are simply luminous.

Tags: Moroccan Morocco Fes, Maghreb news