We are parked up tonight in a campsite on the outskirts of Fes. It's pretty scuzzy but we are used to that by now and as long as we have access to water we are ok. We left Moulay Idriss this morning and stopped at the Roman ruins at Volubilis on the way here and whilst I'm not usually impressed by a jumble of two thousand year old stones I have to say it was pretty impressive. The city was the most southerly outpost of the Roman Empire, housing over 20,000 people at its peak in the second century and is the best preserved archeological site in Morocco with many original mosaics. Unlike many sites of ancient settlement or cities it's not sterile. In between the Roman baths, arches, houses and aqueducts wild flowers bloom, storks nest, donkeys roam and the only areas cordoned off from the visitors are the mosaics. Again we were lucky arriving in the morning at this time of year and apart from one coach party and a few Moroccan families we had the place to ourselves.
After a couple of hours wandering around the site we set off for Fes and the mysterious rattling we've had from the back of the van got worse. The last couple of times we'd parked up for the night we had repacked the cupboards and the garage all to no avail. Today Phil stumbled about in the back of the van as we drove along trying to locate the source of the noise and reckoned it was outside the van underneath the bed area. We stopped at a Marjane supermarket in Fes (we were down to our last can of beer!) and I crawled under the van pulling and poking until I discovered that one of the brackets holding the spare wheel had jumped off its housing. Ten minutes later and with the aid of Paul and a scissor jack everything was good. No more rattles. While we were in the car park a guy came up and asked if we were going to the "Camping International" campsite and when we said we were he offered to show us the way if we followed him on his motorbike. We declined saying we could find our own way and he got quite angry and a little aggressive. He was still there when we came out of the supermarket and again we declined his "services". Off we set, Paul leading the way and as we exited a roundabout a moped pulled up alongside him weaving around the potholes,dodging pedestrians and shouting and gesticulating that he would show him the way to the campsite. It was pretty scary for me following behind, I fully expected the guy to hit a bump as he was spending more time shouting at Paul than he was looking at the road and the thoughts of him ending up under my van or wrapped round a lamppost were quite worrying. Eventually he got the message that we didn't need a guide and pulled over to the side, much to our relief.
Tomorrow we are off to take in the sights of Fes. We've read and heard from other folk some pretty negative stories about the place in terms of the hassle and hustle factor so we've decided to take a full day guided tour setting off from the campsite at 9.30am. There's nothing left we want to buy now in Morocco so we can keep out of the carpet shops and avoid the soft (hard) sell. I'll let you know how we get on!
Some photos from Volubilis. The Triumphal Arch:
Not carpets but two thousand year old mosaics:
The Basilica, with Stork:
The small archway at the top of the site:
Oh yes, if you want to see a pic of me snowboarding in Morocco go here: http://travelwithpaulandchris.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/25-feb-barbary-apes-and-cedars.html
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