Fez Scam and back up scam

Upon arrival to ancient Fez, I was expecting a bit of a hassle. Everything I heard and read about it suggested that the most aggressive touts would be waiting for me right when I got off the bus. So when we were approached before we even got out of the bus station, I wasn.t to surprised. Now I.ve been scammed quite a bit in my travels, so I usually can deal with it. Right away the guy.s giving me the Where do you want to go? Oh that place, it.s full. Oh you.re meeting people there? I think I picked them up and took them to a different hotel. Oh, you are sure, then we will take you. I should have really known something was wrong when he got in the cab with us. So I.m pointing to a place on the map to the cab driver, but only the unwanted guide will speak to up. He says, well it.s the old city I can.t take you all the was there, I.ll get you close and then you can walk. Great a back up scam. So they drop us off and introduce us to a guy he claims works for the ministry of tourism, oh he will take you it.s no problem he says. Sure I.m thinking. So we start walking with all our stuff and of course it.s unbearably hot, the guy goes on and on about the old Jewish section we are walking through like it.s some kind of tour. I.m more than worried that this will be a wild goose chase and will be completely lost if we don.t fork over some money. After about 20 minutes we end up at his restaurant, so this was the scam, but at least he didn.t want any money. So we finally make it to the ancient medina, in the part of town we want to stay, but now we are totally out of energy. At least no one got our money.

Now Fez is really old, and it looks and smells it too. This was a complete contrast to lovely Chefchaouen. There was a lot to see, but most of the fun was just wandering around the ancient medina streets which are more than a thousand years old. No cars because they are so narrow, but it.s hard to avoid getting lost. Which the next day would lead to a an unwanted tour scam. This involved a guy showing us a tannery, which by the way if you don.t know how leather is made, let me tell you that it involves large amounts of piss and shit. We didn.t really ask for this tour, it just sort of happened, but it was fine, and we got to see plenty of stuff we never would have on our own. The food was not as good here and I got a little ill, but it was not like my previous trip experience. So we ended up staying an extra day and chilling out, the we headed off to the Saraha desert...