Chouara tanneries, Fes, Day 256

Christi is feeling truly awful today:  she’s nauseous and has a low-grade fever.  She can’t bear to eat, drink, or even get out of bed, although she stubbornly refuses any medication from her own traveling pharmacy (aside from Tylenol) or a visit to the local hospital. Which just goes to show that health care professionals really do make the worst patients. Bless her, though, she does insist I continue my exploration of Fes, allowing her to rest in peace. My plan for the day is a visit to the Chouara tanneries. These tanneries are definitely part of the tourist scene in Fes, although actually finding them (without an official guide) is tricky. In fact, negotiating Fes el Bali at all is tricky. However, I stumble accoss some information in our Lonely Planet guidebook to Morocco that should help. There are color-coordinated signposts dotted irregularly throughout the medina designed to help you find your way around, which has got to be an improvement on yesterday’s approach of basically being lost all the time.

And progress is remarkably swift.  reach the Chouara tanneries in only 15 minutes with barely a wrong turn. Of course once you are in the vicinity of the tanneries, a lonesome tourist is not lonesome for long. I’m invited into a leather shop and urged to climb a rickety set of steps to a viewing platform. Indeed, there are several leather shops sitting cheek by jowl with one another and each has its own viewing platform of the tanneries below. Two things strike me immediately: one is the pungent aroma that quickly invades the back of your throat and second the space. The medina is full of tall buildings that block out the light and narrow, winding alleyways that give the place a claustrophobic feel. The tanneries are a breath of fresh air – or at least they would be if the smell was not so overpowering.

Gazing out over the Chouara tanneries is an impressive sight. From the viewing platform, the scene below resembles a series of paint pots where ant-like figures go about the arduous and unhealthy task of cleaning and preparing the animal hides (goat, camel, cow, sheep) for dyeing.  It takes many days of liming, scudding, pickling, and tanning to convert the animal hide into leather which can then be dyed.  These cleaned and dyed skins are then taken by the leather workers (often housed in the same location as the showrooms) to make pouffes / ottomans, handbags, slippers, and jackets. These traditional leather workers are a skilled bunch and it doesn’t take them long to produce an exquisite pair of slippers so characteristic of Morocco.

The tricky part now is to exit the shop without actually buying anything. I’m not trying to be mean – I would have gladly paid for a tour – but I have no desire to carry leather goods around Africa in my backpack.  Still the owners of the shop do not relinquish their hold on we quite yet. Instead of directing me to the exit I’m escorted into an adjacent perfume shop. Normally I’d be even less likely to buy perfume than leather goods, but the shop sells argan oil body lotion and so I buy a bottle in hopes of cheering Christi up a little.

Blog post by Roderick Phillips, author of Weary Heart – a gut-wrenching tale of love and test tubes.

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