Flag Waving Rabat
Trip Start
May 01, 2007
1
12
45
Trip End
Apr 29, 2008
Rabat,
Morocco
Saturday, June 9, 2007
We took the loser cruiser up from Essaouira through Casablanca, and found us a sweet little hotel just inside the city walls for the low low price of 130DH/night (about $19.50 CDN), with hot showers an extra 10DH a piece. I just love traveling in countries where our dollar goes far. We stayed right next to the Medina market area, and so were in the middle of things, while still having a quiet hotel to retreat to (screaming toddler notwithstanding).
In the three days we spent in Rabat, we were able to see the old Kasbah, dating from something like the 12th century. The Kasbah overlooks the ocean, and a smaller town to the North called Salé. The Kasbah is really neat - blue and white houses are packed together along narrow winding streets, with beautiful, ornate doorways to every home
01 Ocean View
. Also in the Kasbah is the picturesque Andalusian Gardens (set up by the French) where two...um...entrepreneurs quite literally grabbed us and started drawing henna tattoos on us, then tried to extort 150DH for the work. When we refused to pay they started following after us shouting, then proceeded to scrape the unused henna off our skin back into their syringes. Joke is on them - it had already set on Terri's arm, so she got a free design. Hah!Chella was a small Islamic village built on the site of a much older Roman city called Sala Colonia. I found it to be pretty weird being able to walk around an archaeological site unaccompanied, and unhindered, but what can you do? The Roman ruins (2000 odd years old) were pretty tough to make out, but were really cool nonetheless. The Islamic ruins were far fresher, with the Mosque minaret still in great shape, although now occupied by a family of storks. The roof of the Mosque was gone, but the walls still stood, so we were able to wander around inside. Great way to spend an afternoon for about $1.25 each.
On our last full day in Rabat, we took a local bus, which is always an adventure in itself, 20 minutes outside of town to the zoo. The zoo was in the middle of nowhere, and we had to walk 10 minutes down a dirt road to get to it. It was nearly deserted, but all the animals seems well taken care of, which was a concern of ours. The highlight of the zoo's attractions was a captive breeding program for Barbary lions, which are extinct in the wild
02 Kasbah Door
. Barbary lions are the type that us Christians were fed to back in Roman times. Isn't history grand? The biggest shock at the zoo, however, were the washrooms. Seriously, they just need to be burnt to the ground with napalm or something, and started over. They were by far the worst toilets we've seen, in a country known for it's horrendous toilets. I have a feeling that it would have been more sanitary (and likely safer) going inside one of the animal enclosures.That night, looking for a restaurant in the Ville Nouveau (New Town), we came across a massive street protest out front of the House of Representatives. The army was there, and there were people running everywhere. Suffice it to say, we beat a hasty retreat from the area, just to be safe. After things settled down, we found a patio to sit on overlooking the protest. It was apparently directed towards the city government, although our waiter's English stopped there, and my French isn't nearly sophisticated enough to find out more. I was just really happy to see that democratic reforms are coming along well enough that these people (who were subjected to a very repressive regime just 10 years or so ago) have now won the right to peaceful assembly and demonstration. Yay democracy!
Our next stop will be a very brief stay in Casablanca, since we've heard there is nothing worth seeing there, from many people.
Casablanca-related update:
Everyone who told us that there was nothing to see in Casablanca was pretty much correct. It lacks the character we found in every other place in Morocco, and can be safely skipped by anyone planning on visiting the country, as far as we're concerned
03 Colourful Street
. We stayed in a rotten Youth Hostel where Terri found a cockroach in her shower stall (how bloody cliched is that, anyway?) The men's toilet smelled like rotten lunch meat, and the owner acted as if we were bothering him by being there, rather than paying his salary.We took a walk through a lovely slum, where some kids threw a bottle at us, and saw a dead cat at the side of the road, to get to the Hassan II Mosque. The Hassan II Mosque is a monument to a dead tyrant - commissioned by King Hassan II and opened for his 60th birthday celebration in the early 90s, the building cost $500 million USD of Moroccan taxpayer money to complete, in a country with 20% unemployment, and a 50% literacy rate. Apparently, entire slums were forcibly moved with no compensation to make room for it. I'm not quite sure how that jives with the pillar of Islam about giving alms to the poor, but I'm Catholic, what the hell do I know about Islam? On the upside, the Mosque was quite a beautiful sight to behold - right out on the ocean with intricate tile work covering the massive minaret.
Now, we're headed north on an 18 hour bus ride to Madrid Spain. What better way to see the countryside?
Comments
toilets
Wait until you get to Asia where the 'toilets' are nothing more than a hole in the ground. - Ben
Typical Moroccan Toilet
Here's a nice clean example of a Moroccan toilet. They usually don't look this nice.
http://www.bikeabout.org/gallery/misc/ngplod10.jpg
Matt