Dusty Dogs & Dodgy Dudes - A Search for Leather in the Ancient City of Fes - UNESCO Morocco

After my day trip to Meknes, I was back in Fes, the ancient Moroccan city and UNESCO World Heritage site. Fes is known for many things, whether it be its beautiful architecture, its labyrinth of over 9,000 alleys, or various traditional handicrafts. One of those traditional crafts is leather tanning, and it is something this city has been known to produce in high quality for over a 1,000 years. In a previous post, I visited the largest and most famous of the old leather tanneries, the Chouara tannery, which was built in the 11th century.

Since arriving in Fes, I have made it my unofficial side mission to purchase a leather jacket while I am here. On my first trip to the Chouara Tannery, I found that the fame of being the oldest and largest tannery in the city had made it a prime location for taking advantage of tourists, and the prices of the goods in those shops reflected that. I knew I could get a good quality leather jacket for a price that reflected it being bought from the source, so I continued my search.

As this city has a history of leather tanning, there are actually many smaller tanneries scattered around the city, and I thought that I may still be able to find a good bargain if I visited one of these less visited tanneries. When I spoke to the receptionist at my hotel, they marked a few places I could try on the map, and I decided to head to the Sidi Moussa Tannery, which seemed far enough away from the main tourist sites.

Navigating the alleys of this city is not the easiest or at all a relaxing experience as you would hope when visiting such a beautiful and historical place. Any time you leave your accommodation, you will be followed by many different people trying to sell you their goods or services as “guides.” If you are alone, you can attempt to avoid this by putting in headphones or avoiding eye contact and pretending not to understand, but many of these “guides” have a unique talent of pulling you into their orbit. Because I was with a friend on this day, I couldn’t hide behind the excuse of headphones in my ears, and a man latched onto our path. At first he seemed friendly (they always do), with a “my friend, my friend, where are you from, where are you going?” and next thing you know it is just him and us in a dark deserted alley.

As we were close to the Sidi Moussa Tannery, he must have known what we were looking for, and before we knew it, he was leading us to a place we had already nearly found. As none of the alleys or tanneries are well marked, it is easy to be close to a place, but still not quite make it there. At the perfect time, Google Maps also cut out and our exact location became unclear. Our new “friend” was nice enough to take us the last few turns until we were at a small tannery on the outskirts of the medina (old city).

This tannery was much smaller than the Chouara tannery, but the smell of cow urine, pigeon poop, and dead animals was just as pungent. This time around, we were not given mint leaves to mask the odor. Just like the other tannery we had visited, we found ourselves on the private balcony of a shop overlooking the tannery. The shop owner was not very friendly, and the jackets he had available were not as nice as some of the others we had seen. When we tried to leave, our new “friend/guide” insisted on taking us out a different way as we came in.

He took us through the actual tannery, which is not the most pleasant place to be, as there are bloody skins, and vats of other interesting/disgusting things all over. When we came out the other side, there was a hill covered in garbage, small shacks, and more hanging animal carcasses. I got bad vibes from this place, but now we were with him and some other men who emerged from one of the shacks. This was a secret spot he claimed only the locals enjoyed or knew about. Up the hill there was a cool view of the city, but this was not a place we wanted to hang around as the sun was getting low.

When we leave, it is not long before what I was suspecting would happen, happened. We were alone in a shady crossroads with our “guide” and 5 of his friends surrounding us demanding money. In the end, we decided it would be wise to buy a little something from him, and hope they would leave us alone. Almost immediately after getting money, he insisted on exchanging contact information in case we needed anything else while we were in Fes. No joke, this guy called and texted every hour or so for the next two days until one of the hotel employees graciously scared him off by yelling at him on the phone in Moroccan.

I later learned that we were likely taken to the Ain Azliten Tannery, which is a few streets away from the tannery we meant to go to.

Despite the situation getting a little dicey there, it was still an interesting travel experience. I am glad things didn't get as bad as they could have, but I did learn an important lesson, which is that you must be very careful when talking to anyone that comes up to you on the streets in Morocco, or at least Fes. I still did not find the jacket I was looking for, but I knew tomorrow would be a new day.

To end on a more positive note, I did meet this cute but very dirty dog while finding my way back to the hotel. He was most certainly a good boy.

I hope you enjoyed reading my post. All photos were taken by me.