Day 128: “For You My Friend, I Make A Very Special Price”

Fez – Meknes – Volubilis – Moulay Idriss – Fes, Morocco

It seemed as if today was not my day. I forgot how overwhelming the big cities can be.  It’s almost impossible to avoid running into shop owners who persist on playing “Lets Make a Deal”.

The typical break down of “Lets Make a Deal”

• Breaking the ice – “Hello Friends Welcome to Morocco, where are you from today”
• Sinking a hook – Inititates small talk, maybe offers information about moroccan culture, history, or just a good story to share. Builds enough trust to make you believe that he’s just a friend.
• The wind up – Starts showing you some art work, jewelry collection, handmade rugs, colorful clothing and accessories, his taxi cab, flea ridden street cats, his own mother, or any other item that they are trying to sell.
• The Pitch – “But for you, my friend I make you a very special offer”
• The negotiation - Not ones for souvenirs, Elys and I have absolutely no interest in buying anything at all. But that doesn’t matter, its time for shouting out prices and for us to say no were really not interested for about 5 minutes.
• Aggression - The seller makes you feel forced into making a deal for something you never actually wanted at all.
• Desperation - The shop owner chases you down the street waving is arms in the air while shouting out lower and lower prices.

Most of the day consisted of such conversions and we got pretty tired of it. Elys came up with the idea to ditch Fes for the day and head on to Meknes by train an check out Volubilis, an old roman city gone to ruins and Moulay Idriss, a city up in the hills which contains the Mecca or Morocco. It was nice finally grabbing some quiet and using some imagination to see what kind of fun could be had with the ruins.

Moulay Idriss was a cool little town but once again you couldn’t take a piss without someone trying to sell you camel hair rugs. We had a look at the mosque some panoramic views and then took off back to Fes.