We arrived in Meknes by train, about three hours from Casablanca. We chose a first-class ticket hoping for a bit of solace on what could have potentially been a busy foreign train. It was reasonably priced, and the most modest first-class experience I imagine there is. The toilet emptied directly out onto the tracks of the train, moving or stationary. There was toilet paper though; I’ll give thanks for that.
We booked our night in a riad; one of the traditional lodgings in Morocco. To add to the immensity of cultural tradition we were about to experience, it was in the center of the maze of streets known in Morocco as a medina.
We had plenty of help getting there, including the cab driver who took us to the gates and then communicated with a local, who apparently had nothing else to do that day, who took us to the door of our stay, carrying our bags in a cart he drew (and quite possibly made) himself.
The Riad was totally amazing. We ducked into the ornate front door and sat at the shared table on the first floor. Light poured in from the windows at least 4 stories above our heads. As hot as it was in North Africa that day, the walls of the riad encased us in a sweet coolness.
After filling out a few carbon copies of our information, we were ushered up to the top of the building to our room. As it turns out, we seemed to have scored the best room. The door led us to a windowed lounge room with an L-shaped couch and coffee table. Through the slight corridor was a bathroom on the left and two more doors opened into a bedroom, complete with its own couch, bureau, and pair of nightstands.
The windows of the bedroom opened up to the terrace. In my excitement, I climbed right out of our own window, taking in the 360 views of the medina that surrounded us. The terrace itself was equipped with sun-soaked chairs and a corner housing yet another couch concealed by a reedy-sun-shielding canopy.
After just a few moments of observing the somehow secluded surroundings, I found I wasn’t so alone after all. In a similar excitement, I barreled back through the windows and shuttered them up. Right beneath our window frame were wasps, in pairs, tending to their nests.
Window screens aren’t common in Morocco.
The sun that we had escaped below found us in our 4th-floor room. We sat sweltering in the lounge room with the windows and doors open, sharing a bag of chips.
*Travel tip: every country has its own profile of flavors that inspire even their potato chips. As a chip connoisseur, I always seek to try at least one.
We could hear footsteps coming up the same way we did, and soon were met with a young man who ducked into our line of vision. He was looking for the terrace, which he accessed through a door that was just outside of our own, introducing to me the civilized manner to explore the rooftop rather than my own hazardous route.
He went out for a moment–presumably unencumbered by wasps–and returned inside, stopping for a moment by our door to say hello. We invited him in.
Turns out, he was traveling on his own; a civil engineer from Lebanon living in Morocco for a month for work, and taking his weekends to explore other cities.
“I don’t think there’s even anything to do here,” he said of the city we three found ourselves in at that moment, “but if I didn’t go somewhere I’d just end up staying in and sleeping!”
We explained to him the little-known fact of what there actually is to do in this part of the country and invited him to join us at the ruins we had booked for the day. In solo-traveler fashion, he accepted. And just like that, we had our translator.
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