Breakfast with Lisa & Josh #26

Welcome back to Breakfast with Lisa & Josh!

It’s close to impossible to describe what being in Fez, Morocco is like. I could use inaccurate, inexact, unclear, borderline faulty words to describe it - like “busy” or “overwhelming” or “beautiful”… but they’re far from painting the picture. Let me try another way.

When we arrived in Fez, we were immediately overwhelmed by thoughts of being scammed by every single person that we saw between the train station and the Riad (hotel) that we had booked. And, indeed, we had just been given a 40 minute long unscrupulous sales pitch from a person that we thought was just being friendly and helpful on the train, but was actually just trying to frighten us into booking a comically overpriced tour with his tour company. “You’ll get lost in the Medina, there’s over 9400 streets.” “You can’t trust your hotel, they’ll give you a bad guide.” “Make sure that you have someone to show you the tanneries, they will scam you.” We would find out later that literally all of these statements were untrue, and just scare tactics wrapped as helpful advice all just to get our money. Interactions like this really, really hurt - we want to make friends, and believe that we can trust the people we meet, and then they go and spend 40 minutes pretending to care about us, to just end it all in a big attempt at our pocketbook. It’s that type of stuff that really shakes me to the core - I’m the type of traveler that wants to interact with people, wants to believe them, wants to make a connection. It really shook us, and we held onto that experience for the next day, and it shaped that day. If he was willing to pretend to listen to us, pretend to care for 40 minutes all just to scam us, what wouldn’t the people of Fez be willing to do to get our money? What length wouldn’t they go to?

So we walked through the dozens of people yelling at us the moment we got off the train - “TAXI TAXI THOSE ARE NOT REAL TAXIS WE ARE THE REAL ONES TAXI” with our heads down, hands over our pockets, ignoring everyone in our path. A sad entry into a new city, for sure. Not the right way to kick things off.

We tried to negotiate with the taxi drivers, but they were having none of it. They knew they had us, but they underestimated just how unreasonable we are. We decided, instead of overpaying by approximately $3, that we would instead walk 45+ minutes in the heat all the way to our Riad. It was the principle of the thing. We sure showed them, lol.

I’ve found that whenever traveling, if I’m doing something for “the principle of the thing”, I’m always doing the wrong thing. My principles don’t apply wherever I am. It appears that exchange of currency is the only principle that applies in Morocco, and that just happens to feel very bad for me. I like my marketing more subtle - more indirect. Instead of looking at it all like a game ( which it very clearly is in Fez) I took it as an insult. It’s not like the marketing that I’m used to is any better. 500 or more instagram posts in a row all put there specifically to make you feel bad about the way you look followed up immediately by an ad for a weight loss supplement and the opportunity to buy some new clothes? That’s the American way. At least in Morocco you get a chance to fight back - to look the person who is trying to hustle you in the eye. There’s some beauty in the straightforwardness of it all.

The unfortunate side effect of this is that the realization that them trying to scam you is not personal, even though it all feels VERY personal, is that you don’t really have another choice but to stop trusting every person that you meet. You spend most of the first few moments of every interaction with each person you come across trying to figure out their angle - how and when they’re going to try and get your money. Again, it’s all a game - it just feels like a super rigged game that uses your own friendliness and wanting to connect against you. And that’s kinda all we are - friendliness and a want to connect. So, we lost this game many times.

However, it was not all that. Once we got settled, shook off the bad energy of the train station and the 3 mile walk from it, we started to see that we could just do all of it ourselves. We didn’t need a guide. Turns out google maps works just fine there. We didn’t need someone to show us the tanneries. We just needed to get more comfortable with saying no. Turns out that we absolutely could trust our hotel. That’s why we looked at all the reviews before, and picked the one with the kindest host. We just needed to stop taking the advice of people who were very clearly incentivized to not tell us the truth. And to stop taking it all so damn personally.

Hmm… I bet this would work for Instagram too.

Once we did that, everything changed. Fez turned into this beautiful playground of chaos, and beauty, and shopping, and wonder. It truly is a one of a kind place. And, what a magical place it ended up being.

Morocco. A complicated, uncomfortable, and very happy place.

Videos this week

We snuck into an abandoned hotel in the Azores. This one is great :)

The final, final, final word on whether or not the Eurail pass was worth it.

We’re on our last few days in Europe before flying home for a wedding. It’s a bittersweet feeling. What a bookend to a trip in Europe Morocco ended up being. Where to next?

So, that’s it for this week. More great videos coming soon!

See you next Sunday…ish :)

- josh (and lisa)

Oh, and if you want to learn how we afford to take all these trips after quitting our jobs last year, you’ll likely be interested in our Skillshare course on Travel Hacking and Frequent Flier Miles. It’s been really taking off lately, but we still have a few uses of this link left for those of you who want to see the class for free. It comes with a free month of Skillshare, which is more than enough to watch our class and any of the other great courses on there!

Check it out here: https://skl.sh/3wstHhf

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