Question Time - Morocco

1.    What were your impressions of Morocco before visiting?

My initial impressions before arriving in Morocco was that it was going to be a lot more behind European standards and less developed than it turned out to be. I also thought it was going to be a beautiful country, which it turned out to be. But I was in general terrified about everything; the water, the food, the people, the roads, the fact that it was a scary thing to do, and the actual cycling in Morocco.

2.    What surprised you the most about Morocco?

The fact that it wasn't as far behind European standards as I thought it might be, and that the cities were a lot more developed. I was also surprised with the road and travel infrastructure; it was very good and the public transport, although we did not use it much, seemed very reliable. The guidebooks are partly wrong about Morocco I think.

3.    What was your favourite city in Morocco and why?

Rabat was definitely my favourite. It was modern, laid back and had that Capital feeling. There was no hassle as you walked about, which was common in most other big cities. Also the street food was lovely and there was plenty of choice. The fact that it had beautiful views overlooking the sea was a nice factor too. If I was going to live in any city in Morocco, from what I have seen it would be Rabat.

4.    What was your favourite sight?

The Cascades D'Ouzoud. They were well worth the very hard cycle to get up there. They were beautful, especially seen from above away from the touristy bit, with no hassle and no other people. It was really peaceful and made for a lovely spot to sit and just relax.

5.    What didn't you like about Morocco?

The hassle. By the end of it I was fed up of all the staring and people wanting to guide and sell you different things. I also didn't like the very strong male culture. Although I didn't encounter it much personally, I didn't like the way they treated their women. I would not like to be a woman in Morocco.

6.    Was the language barrier ever a problem?

Not as such, you could get by with everything you needed with English and just a very few words of French. But I would have liked to have known more French as people were really friendly and wanted to talk to you, but we were unable to because of this. This was more so in the smaller villages outside the cities as a lot of people in the cities could speak English.

7.    Are the Moroccan people friendly?

Moroccan people are very friendly, most of them try to talk to you wherever you are. Whilst cycling along the roads everyone was saying bonjour to you and waving, and they are very happy to share their culture. A good example of this was at a riad where we were invited for a mint tea and homemade biscuits whilst having a chat with the owners, it was a really nice experience.

8.    Was there enough choice of food? And what was your favourite food in Morocco?

In Morocco there was plenty of choice of food, street food is everywhere and it is soooo good. Choosing a favourite food in Morocco is tough, they were all so good. The breakfasts were a highlight, with amazing breads and especially the pancakes. The pancakes were amazing, they were probably my favourite of all. But special mention must also go for the weirdest food I tried, which was camel tagine, also really good.

9.    What was the highlight of your time in Morocco?

The highlight for me was the morning when we cycled from the woods where we had wild camped outside a small village called Sidi Moktar to Essaouira on the Atlantic coast of Morocco. What made it such a highlight was the road, it was very smooth and quick, we completed 60km in 3hrs and had some lovely views along the way, the best being at the top of the last hill before entering Essaouira where you saw the village right next to the sea. It was also especially good coming after a very bad day the day before.

10.    What are the roads like for cycling?

That depends, they vary from extremely good, where they are newly paved, smooth, wide and with a cycle lane to very bad, with loads of potholes, which make cycling a pain as they kill your speed. But overall I would say Morocco is a good country for cycling in, and they have a lot more cycle lanes than I was expecting.

11.    What piece of equipment would you say is most essential if cycling through Morocco?

Apart from the obvious; the bike, I would say good strong panniers, with strong clips for the different terrains you have to go on where it can get bumpy, but also ones that are waterproof and hard to get into, with plenty of room to store food, as it's so cheap and you need plenty of energy when cycling around!

12.    Would you recommend Morocco as a destination for others to visit?

Yes definitely, it's beautiful, it's cheap, the people are really friendly, the food is amazing and you feel really safe, I never felt at all threatened at anytime, even when wild camping.

13.    Would you do it again? Do you have any regrets?

Yes I would definitely do it again, as there is plenty of parts of the country we have left unexplored. The only regret would be that I did not speak French, as I think it would have been much better if I was able to interact with the locals. It would have made it more interesting and fun, and probably would have learnt a lot more about local culture. My other regret would be my knee injury, which made some cycling days rather unenjoyable and cut the trip short.

14.    Any other comments?

Try the hammam, it is awesome, and don't be put off by the nudity, it's a big part of Moroccan culture and it's amazing how clean you feel afterwards.

Fes - Saying goodbye to Morocco

Getting to Fes was quite an adventure in itself. We walked to the train station with the bikes and once arriving there found out that we were unable to put the bikes on the train, but we could wait for 3/4 hours to get a coach run by the same company as the trains, which apparently takes bikes instead. We decided against this and instead headed over to the other side of Meknes to the central bus station to catch a local bus to Fes instead. This was a very interesting experience as the place was crowded with locals trying to get as many people onto the coaches as possible before they depart. We paid a mere 15 dirhams each (just over £1) to get a place on the bus to Fes (60km away). We then had the bikes bundled into the storage space underneath the coach, which was painful to watch and then people chucked their luggage on top of them, much to our dismay. We were then charged an outrageous 50 dirham for the bikes, but managed in the end to get it down to 20 with the help of a kind local man.

Riding the bus was certainly an experience as well. Whilst heading through Meknes the bus would stop regularly at unscheduled places to try and pick up extra passengers wherever they could to fill up the empty seats and get some extra money. Once all the seats were filled up however they still kept stopping to pick up more people, forcing them to have to stand in the narrow alley between the seats. This caused our journey to take nearly two hours instead of the direct buses 45 minutes!

Once arriving in Fes I made my way into the medina to search for some accommodation. After searching for a while and getting followed by a local trying to get commission I gave up and went out of the medina and instead went to a small hotel recommended to us by Monique at the very cheap price of 200 dirham a night (£16). Once settled in we just got caught up on some writing and had an early night as we were very tired.

The next day after having a nice breakfast that we went out and got ourselves we headed into the biggest medina in Morocco to explore it. All I can say is wow! What an amazing array of colours, smells and sounds. You could find almost anything you wanted by walking around the many different souks, streets and squares. One of the things we wanted to do in Fes as we were flying back to England in not too long, was to buy a few things, to take back as souvenirs. The first thing Carmen wanted was a Kiis (Hammam scrubbing mitt, used for exfoliating dead skin). We found loads of these hanging up at various stalls down one street and Carmen tested a few out on her hand to see which one she liked and did a bit of bargaining with the stall holder and got it for half the initial asking price, a bargain at 10 dirham.

The second thing that we both wanted to get was a tagine dish (a clay dish used to cook food in). We found this down a side turning just a bit further down the same street and looked at the various different ones on offer. Luckily we had an idea of what we wanted and what to look out for when buying a tagine dish, due to some research beforehand. We bargained for this one too and got the price down from 70 to 50 dirham.

Nice tagine pot

 Next on our list was to try and find another place to stay for our last two nights. This turned out to be quite an adventure in itself, but eventually we found one at the same price as the previous two nights but with breakfast included this time, which was an added bonus! Whilst searching for a place we also met some nice people from another riad (Dar Lmallouki) who invited us to join them for a mint tea when we were available sometime.

After all the stress of finding a place for the next day we just wanted to go find somewhere to eat hassle free and then head back to relax, but as is quite often the case in Morocco in big cities, this was not to be the case.

That night we went out to find ourselves some dinner, but we got annoyed with a few people who kept trying to show us different restaurants to eat at, when all we wanted was some street food. They were very persistant, following you around and constantly telling you to come this way, but we were too tired for it all, so it quickly got annoying. Finally we got rid of them and found what we were looking for; some loubia soup (spicy bean soup) at a cosy little street shop.

On the way back to the hotel we dropped into a pattisserie near our hotel and tried to ask if they had any almond croissants, but neither of us was able to understand the other. So to try and solve the problem the owner suggested I come with him downstairs to go on google translate to see if we could work it out. This made for a very funny conversation, as it took a while to sort it out. Eventually we did, but unfortunately they didn't have any. On the plus side though, I did learn the french for almond (amande).

The next morning we moved to our new pension hotel then went out and had lunch at a place called Thami's, which is quite famous on tripadvisor as a good spot to enjoy food, especially fish. So of course I ordered a fish tagine and carmen had some couscous, as this was another Moroccan speciality we had not had yet. They both turned out to be amazing, but I especially liked the fish tagine. The rest of the day was taken up by a few essential bits and pieces we needed to get sorted out before our flight.

In the evening we went to visit the guys from Dar Lmallouki and brought them a little gift of some sweets we got from a stall on the way. We were greeted warmly and given mint tea and some really tasty homemade biscuits to enjoy and had a nice chat with the owners about Morocco. This was a nice night and learnt some interesting things from the owners about Moroccans, especially their affinity for languages. We left eventually to head back to get some sleep.

The following day we chatted at breakfast with Julien, a blogger from France who was staying at the pension as well. He was getting paid to stay in Morocco and then write a blog article about it. We were very jealous when we heard this, as this would be something we would just love to do!

After breakfast we headed out to explore the ruins on the hills around Fes. Whilst going up one of the ruins we came across some kids, one who tagged along with us trying to demand money, because we were on the same hill as him. He kept following us demanding money, but we kept refusing, until finally he left saying "fuck you." A pleasant encounter to say the least.

Some lovely views from atop the hills around Fes

We saw lots of locals drying out animal hides on the hillsides we were climbing as well, in a whole range of colours, black, brown, white, and red, hundreds of them. This was quite nice to see, as inside the medina of Fes there is a similar attraction where you can go to see the hides being tanned at a cost, so it was nice to see a different part of the process for free instead.

Pile of hides, drying in the sun

We finally made our way to a hilltop bastian, which we went in to explore as it had been converted to a weapons museum. It was showcasing guns, swords, cannons, armour and other various weapons from thousands of years ago, up until the 18/19th centuries from different countries throughout the world, it was quite interesting.

The Bastian where the weapons museum was

In the evening we got chatting with an American guy who mentioned a music concert displaying African music with free entry at a hotel very close to where we were staying. So as it was close we decided to go along and have a look. Unfortunately once turning up, we were told by a waiter it was only a concert for Moroccans, so we were rather disappointed as we had been quite looking forward to this. Later that night though we heard from the American that he had gone and there were quite a few non-moroccans there, so we were even more disappointed and additionally annoyed because we were told wrong.

Instead of going to the concert, we headed to get some food. We went to Thami's again to get his fried fish, but he said he had none left, so we decided to go somewhere else. As we left though he was kind enough to give us a potato cake complimentarily, which was very nice of him. We ended up in a place called snack Omar instead where we had Moroccan KFC, at least that's what the owner called it. I must say it tastes a lot better than KFC though! and cheaper!

Once getting back to the pension we stayed up late into the evening chatting with four people who were currently volunteering in Malaga, Spain, doing some work helping Erasmus students. They kindly invited us to visit them when we are in Malaga, which we shall do for sure!

The next morning we packed all our bags and left them at the Pension along with our bikes, this was in preparation to take them to the airport later, whilst we went off in search of a few souvenirs. We bought a couple of magnets, for half the advertised price for Carmen's family, as it's a tradition of theirs, and we also bought a couple of leather bracelets to remind us of morocco. These were bought from a nice Moroccan guy who said we could pay whatever we wanted for them. Then finally we bought a charm for Carmen for Martisor (as it was 1st March) to put on her bracelet, which we again bargained for and got for 2/3rds of the price. We felt that we were getting better at this bargaining stuff!

We had a late lunch at Thami's again, where this time we got the fried fish we wanted. It turned out to be worth the wait. Unfortunately we didn't have quite enough money to pay for it, but he happily let us off of this and sent us on our way with a smile.

After packing up the bags and bikes we said goodbye to the people at the Pension and headed off to the airport. Cycling to the airport felt like being back in England already, with rain the whole way. So by the time we got to the airport we were completely soaked after riding for 20km.

As our flight was the following morning we spent the night in the airport. Although we didn't really get much sleep at all as it was rather cold as they didn't close the doors. Before boarding the plane I had a last minute scare when I thought I had lost my debit card. Luckily we eventually found it after 15 minutes when it fell out of the inside of my jacket! (dufus!) So it's back to England for a few days to drop off the bikes before heading off to Spain to continue our journey by foot. See you there!

Meknes - Eating camel and a nice hammam

It was a late start leaving Sale but getting out  of the city was quite simple, the roads were smooth and fast and we made really good progress, covering 25km before stopping for a quick lunch in a shaded spot beside the road.

Getting back on the bikes after lunch we had a problem though, Carmen's knee was starting to cause her pain again. We kept on cycling taking it easy from then on, stopping regularly to give some respite before continuing on again. We kept going until it started to get foggy when we decided to look for a place to stop and camp as it was late afternoon and there would only be another hour or so of light. So we found a good spot and stopped there, we had covered 65km that day.

About 30 minutes later a local man came along, and due to not being able to communicate in any language between the three of us, we resorted to pointing and gesturing, which made for an interesting conversation. By the end of it he smiled and walked away, and from what we could gather he was either saying, "You camp here, I am over there if you want anything." or he was inviting us to come set up our tent next to where he was. Either way he seemed a very friendly guy and after that we put up the tent and settled in for the night.

Next morning Carmen's knee was no better and we had about 75km more to cover before Meknes where we could get some accommodation. We stopped frequently along the way to give her knee some respite but it wasn't really helping. Carmen eventually deciding she wanted to find a place to stop and camp 20km short of Meknes and then do the rest the next day. Unfortunately though we were unable to find any suitable spots at all in the last 20km and eventually found ourselves in Meknes itself, right by the medina. A local offered to show us a place to stay and we accepted and made our way there to stay for the night.

A nice spot where we stopped for lunch on the second day

Next morning finally got in touch with a Belgian lady named Monique who had previously accepted a couchsurfing request of ours and made our way over to her house in the new section of Meknes. We were greeted very warmly and shown to a room in her spacious apartment where we could sleep. She explained that she was expecting some more couchsurfers later that evening and then we went out to explore Meknes with her as our guide.

She first took us to a cafe in the main square where we had our first taste of freshly squeezed Moroccan orange juice. It was very nice. I will just take the time to explain something about Moroccans as this was highlighted more than anything right then. Moroccans LOVE sweet things, sugar especially, they put it in everything. This included juices and smoothies. They would put big stachets of sugar next to your cup of juice for you to put in it, and when I say big, I mean at least double, if not triple the size of ones you would normally find in England, and for orange juice!

Moroccan sugar cubes (look at the size of them!)

 Monique then showed us around the old city of Meknes, the famous gate of Bab Mansour with it's now rather faded green tiles, and told us of it's brother in Fes, Bab Boujloud, and how the two cities always argued about whose gate was prettiest. We then saw the underground dungeons where Louis XIV had his soldiers imprisoned when he fell out with the current ruler of Morocco Moulay Ismail because he refused to allow Moulay Ismail to marry one of his daughters, as he already had 500 wives! We imagined it must have been a horrible place to be kept prisoner because back when they were imprisoned they had not made holes in the ceiling where light could come through, so it would have been in total darkness. An interesting fact we were also told was that, prisoners kept there were not fed unless they paid or their families brought them food!

Then went to see the royal golf course, where previous ruler Hassan II had it made just for his pleasure. Now other people are allowed to use it but at a fairly expensive cost £12 - £50 for 9 holes. It is a beautiful place to go though and has a nice cafe up on a terrace that overlooks the course where you can sit, even if you're not a member.

Afterwards Monique headed back by taxi to meet up with her other couchsurfers and we went for a walk to visit the masoleum of Moulay Ismail and we got to go inside and see some lovely mosaics and carvings.

On arriving back at Monique's house we met the other couchsurfers. There were three of them, a couple from Canada and a Moroccan guy, who was their unofficial guide. We went out in the evening with them and Monique to a restaurant run by a friend of Monique's where we were treated to our first Moroccan feast. It was a three course meal, with a selection of olives, four different salads and bread. Followed by a main course of chicken tagine, camel tagine, vegetarian tagine and a goats cheese pastry with some vegetables in. Finally for dessert we had fresh fruit salad. It was unbelievably good. Monique's friend was a very good cook. The highlight for both of us being the camel tagine! We ate really well that night.

There was also some drama that night with regards to Brandee and Matt's unofficial guide Houssen. Apparently, he had initially been someone they had couchsurfed with, but he had persuaded them to rent a car and he will be their guide and then they can go wherever they wanted to go whilst in the car, for the mere price of 60 Euros a day! However this didn't quite work out as they expected as, he would not stop in the places that they wanted him to, he seemed to be on his own schedule. There was the added surprise as well that they had to pay for his food and accommodation also.

They were obviously very unhappy about this and we only heard about it that night and said to them that they needed to do something about that as it would cost them a fortune. So they had a chat with Monique the following morning, and with her help translating, they talked with Houssen and told him that they would continue the rest of the way on their own and they didn't want his help. He refused to refund any of their money from the days that they were not going to be with him and he even asked them to pay his petrol money back to Marrakech (where they started). Rightly they refused. He then left and we all went together, minus Monique, by taxi to a city called Moulay Idriss.

Beautiful view of the holy city Moulay Idriss

Moulay Idriss is the holy city in Morocco and is a pilgramage site for them, second only to Mecca, as this is where the religion of Islam was first brought into Morocco. We were dropped off there by taxi and made our way through the small cities twisting streets, getting lost many times. Until we eventually found our way to the viewing point of the city and the holy mosque where you got an amazing view, and made for a really good photograph. We also saw whilst in the city the only round minaret in Morocco.

The circular minaret

 After this we walked about 5-6km to a nearby site called Volubilis, which was the capital for the Romans in northwestern Africa, however it is now in ruins. Lots of the bricks that used to be in Volubilis were used to help build the city of Moulay Idriss hundreds of years ago (about 800 AD). This was a fascinating area, and if you are an archeologist or a history fan, this would be a great place to spend the whole day. They had beautiful mosaic floors and some fairly intact walls and arches, and the floor plan of the entire city was still pretty much totally intact. One of the best examples of Roman ruins in the world outside of Italy.

It was starting to pour with rain when we finished looking around Volubilis and a taxi took pity on us giving us a lift back to Meknes for the locals price, which would not usually happen. Once getting back Monique suggested a visit to the local hammam to warm ourselves up. This was a very interesting experience!

Now I will be telling this experience from my point of view, which was slightly different to Carmen's, but nevertheless interesting!

For those of you who don't know, a hammam is basically like a public bathhouse. You go there and wash yourself in a room with other people in (at it's most basic form). If you are going to do this in Morocco I would recommend going with someone who knows what they are doing or read up on it beforehand otherwise you might find yourself a little bit lost, as Matt and myself did at first.

There are a few essential pieces of equipment you need in a hammam before you go in.  You can hire them for a small fee from the hammam, but it's better to have your own, mainly for hygiene reasons. The first and most important of these is a hand mitt, known as a Kessa. You will also require a mat to put on the floor, some soap (there is a special black soap, which is made from the kernel of olive nuts and has good exfoliating properties) and a small sort of water scoop to pour water on yourself.

Kessa Glove

When you first enter, you undress down to your underwear and take your mitt, scoop, soap and mat with you, also remembering to pick up a big bucket as well. You leave all your clothes and other things behind in a kind of locker room and pay a man the small fee of 1 dirham to look after your things. You then make your way through into the actual hammam section. The hammam rooms are divided up into three rooms: the first room is the coolest, and they get hotter the further you go. The idea is to go in whatever room you feel most comfortable in and start washing yourself.

However when me and Matt went in we didn't have a clue what to do. We had all our equipment (courtesy of Monique) but didn't really know what we should be doing. So we set our mats down in the first room and sat on the floor on our mats and started filling up the big buckets from the taps that are on the walls around the rooms. We then started to pour the water over ourselves and put some soap on and start to wash ourselves. As we did this we kept looking at the only other guy in this particular room to see what he was doing, and what we should do next. He just continued to wash himself before then leaving.

We eventually decided to move into the second room, which I must admit was rather nice, being a fair bit warmer. We started pouring water over ourselves a bit more until a guy came over to Matt and slapped the floor and motioned for him to lay down on the floor. Once he was lying on the floor the guy put the soap all over his body and then washed it off, this was followed by the application of the black soap. The guy then told Matt to lay down again and put the mitt on and proceeded to scrub his skin with it, making all the dead skin come off. I was chuckling to myself until a different guy came along and started to do the same to me.

At first I found it a little bit awkward, but after a while you just get used to it, and although I was not totally relaxed, I relaxed a little bit and was able to enjoy it a bit more. You finish off by being rinsed off and left with your bucket to do what you want. We both decided to head back and wait for the girls. The girls were an extra hour than us, and were of slightly different opinions than us. They thoroughy enjoyed it and had a really good time. It was one place where they had occassion to meet and talk with Moroccan women, which is not normally possible outside of a hammam. They also didn't mind as much being washed and scrubbed by other women at all, which helped. For women in Morocco, the hammam is a very social place, it's a place where they can go and meet up with other women and socialise as they do not get many opportunities outside. It is not uncommon for women to spend up to 6 hours in the hammam chatting. This is quite the opposite for men who just seem to go in, wash, and then come out again, without really talking.

I would say also that if you are female and a little bit shy then a local hammam might not be for you as the women in there all go topless, and some even go completely naked. So I would recommend to go instead to a more touristy hammam where people are all in bathing suits.

That night after getting back from the hammam, Carmen and I decided to cook a meal for everyone as a way of saying thank you for letting us stay. We decided to cook couscous and chickpeas, which is typically Moroccan, unfortunately we didn't do it quite so well as Moroccans, but people still seemed to enjoy it. This was our last night with Monique in Meknes, which we were sad about, but Fes beckoned the next day, so we had to go!

Rabat - Capital of Morocco and our favourite so far

It was with a small feeling of sadness that we arrived in Rabat, the capital of Morocco. The reason for this being that we were going to be parting ways with our travel companions for the past week; Bianca and Matteo. We initially left left our bikes and luggage on Gustav, whilst we looked for somewhere to stay, and they went and explored Rabat. We would then later meet them back at the van to unpack and say good bye.

So we headed off our seperate ways. Unfortunately our search was not nearly as easy as we were expecting. We really struggled to find internet cafes, so instead ended up going to a cafe and ordering some drinks to use their wi-fi. I was finally able to have a hot chocolate, which I had been craving for a couple of weeks and been unable to find in the supermarkets.

Here we looked up accommodation and eventually found a few options over in Sale, the neighbouring city just across the river. Although more expensive than anything we had paid thus far, and more expensive than we wanted to pay, it was cheaper than staying in Rabat. We booked for 2 nights and then headed off to have a look around some more of Rabat before Bianca and Matteo called us.

We decided to explore some of the medina whilst we were there and found it quite relaxed and quiet in comparison to other big city medina's so far. Following this we headed to the river and visited the Kasbah Udayas. The Kasbah was a beautiful place, blue walls and little dead end streets snaking everywhere, it was a really quiet little community, seperated from the main city. Whilst we were in there we had a man come up to us and try and guide us around, but we eventually got rid of him without parting with any of our money either (although he asked for some).

Kasbah Udayas from the outside

Inside the winding streets of Kasbah Udayas

We explored all over and found a nice sitting area which overlooked the river, but this was very crowded with tourists having mint tea and some moroccan pastries so we didn't stay long, just got a picture and went. We eventually found our way to the courtyard in the Kasbah which was a lovely peaceful area where there were not many tourists and more locals sitting and singing or studying and it was really nice to just sit and enjoy the tranquil atmosphere (especially the guitar and singing).

The courtyard in Kasbah Udayas

Another section of the courtyard

Afterwards we headed down the coast back to the van to meet up with bianca and matteo. It was perfect timing actually as they called us just as we were making our way back. They were then very kind to give us a lift with them across to Sale, where they dropped us off and unpacked our bits. Then we said a sad farewell before parting for the last time (although we hope to meet up with them sometime in the future).

After making it to our accommodation, and eventually getting inside after half an hour of waiting at the door (this was to become quite common over the next few days), we were shown around and it was a lovely riad, the nicest we had been in so far in morocco! We glady accepted to stay and got settled in for the night.

The next day we went down for breakfast and had a real feast, two types of pancake and a semolina bread each with butter and jam plus coffee, orange juice and olives, our best breakfast in morocco so far too! We were so pleased with this we decided to stay an extra night to enjoy and relax in the Rabat-Sale area as it was really nice. We also got a reduced rate, which added to our delight!

Our destination for the day was Rabat. Our first stop was the Hassan Tower. Construction for the tower started in 1195 but was never actually finished. At the time when it was being constructed it was planned to be the largest Mosque in the world, with the tallest Minaret in the world as well. The tower had some nice views from outside it, just a shame it could never be seen how it was meant to. It also meant you couldn't go up inside it were not able to see the view from the top, which would have been truly magnificent.

The incomplete Hassan Tower

Next up we headed into the Mohammed V Mausoleum, which is right next door, and I got my picture taken with the horse guards.

Me with the guards outside the Mohammed V Mausoleum

Getting to see inside the mausoleum was quite a privilege for us as it is one of the few that non-muslims are allowed to go inside of. It was amazingly decorated with loads of carvings and gold decorations, there was even a muslim vicar inside next to the Qu'ran who presumably did readings at different times throughout the day, although we didn't hear him. There were also guards inside as well who took my camera away, but gave it back after checking I hadn't taken any pictures of things I shouldn't have.

Inside Mohammed V Mausoleum

Next we headed for some ancient ruins, just on the outskirts of the city, a place called Chellah. Chellah was a Roman city originally, and was then later used by the muslims as a necropolis. Chellah was one of our favourite sites in Rabat as it was outside, and not very touristy, and we could just explore it at our own leisure, enjoying the peacefulness of it. It was interesting to see where different parts of buildings had been before. We spent a good hour or so there before heading off

Inside the city/necropolis of Chellah

We then headed towards the Royal Palace but found that we could not see it due to it being not allowed on that day at that time, they instead said to come back tomorrow. This was a bit disappointing for us, but we couldn't do much about it. So instead we headed back into town where we explored a bit of the new part of the city where the university and grand mosque were. We also saw where a protest had been, as some of the banners were still up. This also helped to explain why we had seen so many police all over the city.

Banners outside the parliament building where the protest had been

We eventually made it back to the medina of Rabat where we had a nice traditional Moroccan soup called harira, which is made with­­­­­­­ chickpeas, noddles and some spices, it was really nice, and just what we needed as we missed lunch.

Then we started to head back out of the medina along a different street, and that is when we found the real food section of the medina. Pastries, doughnuts, pancakes, fresh fruit and veg, nuts, spices in stalls all along the street, olives piled high and freshly grilled meat sizzling away, your senses were hit from all sides. We immediately bought two doughnuts for a very cheap price (even in Morocco), before deciding to use the tram to get back across the river to sale to see what their public transport is like. It was a great experience, clean, modern, friendly staff and a couple of lovely people on the tram who stopped the door for us as we were going to miss the tram. So all in all, a big thumbs up to Rabat public transport.

Rabat's tram - very nice!

We got off in sale, bought some salad bits from the supermarket and headed back to our room. Later that night we made the salad, which I was very excited about as I really wanted an avocado salad, as I really enjoyed our one the previous night. Unfortunately the next day proved that this was a very bad idea!

The next morning I woke at 5am to a very painful stomach, causing me to dash off to the bathroom. After a long period of time in there I went back to bed, although I was unable to really sleep properly, waking every 15 minutes due to the pain. I then headed to the bathroom again at around 9am where the pain was much better reduced. Then feeling a bit better I thought some breakfast would be a good idea to help settle the stomach and get rid of a horrible oily feeling in my throat. After breakfast however it only got worse. My stomach became very painful and bloated, it felt like something was trying to push its way out through my belly. This was not helped at all by two more trips to the bathroom.

We therefore decided to add another night onto our stay as I wasn't really doing much better and didn't think it would be a good idea to leave the next day. Then a bit later whilst laying in bed I had a few seconds to quickly get Carmen to grab me a bucket before I was sick several times in quick succession. This really helped more than anything else so far, making me think I was going to be okay now. But the pain returned shortly after, until I was sick several more times in quick succession, and then again the pain was gone, and the discomfort got better and better as time went on. By the next morning I was totally fine. A lesson to be learned about ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­eating too much avocado; as we learned it was due to this!

This day was a slightly more relaxed day as we went on a nice leisurely stroll around the Sale medina. We saw the Sale mosque and entered a little Medersa (Ku'ranic School) ), which was quite interesting, seeing all the tiny dormitory rooms, and seeing a very small version of what the inside of a mosque looks like, as they had one inside the medersa. There were some lovely views from the roof of the medersa too. A very enlightening visit.

The view from the roof of the Medersa in Sale

We also booked a flight back to England that night as my Grandad had died, and I wanted to go back for the funeral, so we arranged a flight for 10 days time, the day before his funeral. This would allow us time to travel to a few more places that we wanted to visit in Morocco before getting our flight back from Fes, 200km away. The following day we were to set off for Meknes to continue our journey, but also to see how Carmen's knee would cop.

Casablanca - "Here's looking at you, kid"

We arrived in Casablanca to see the Mosque at 10:30. We parked right outside it, and then went to have a look. It was even bigger than we first thought, walking up to the doors you felt like a little hobbit in front of them! (Carmen especially) After taking some nice pictures, we went to try and find the entrance, which we eventually did. The price though was 120 dirham each, again a lot more than we were expecting. We considered this to be too expensive, so decided not to go in as we had already seen the inside of a mosque before several times in Istanbul. But Matteo and Bianca went inside as Matteo had really wanted to see it, one of his must see places in Morocco.

Me by the tallest minaret in the world

Carmen standing by the huge entrance into the Hassan II Mosque

So instead we headed off to walk around Casablanca a bit whilst they were inside. We went over to explore an area that looked interesting and found out it was a festival celebrating Africa, which unfortunately you needed to pay to get into. It was not very expensive, but we still decided not to do it as the only thing inside was books (not written in English obviously) and there would have been little point.

We then walked around the streets and saw quite a contrast between some of the different areas that we walked through, even streets right next to each other had some very big differences between the state of them, some looking very deprived, right next door to a more normal sort of neighborhood. We saw this all over casablanca as we later drove through it as well.

Carmen sitting in front of Hassan II Mosque - beautiful!

After meeting back up with Matteo and Bianca we headed off in the van to try and find a place to stop to get someone to have a look at the vans battery. The battery was letting out a gas which smelled like rotten eggs, which had been happening for about 3 weeks and this was concerning them. We eventually found somewhere, but when arriving there the battery completely died and wouldn't start again. So they had to get the van started again, before heading off to look for somewhere else to go as they did not have the bits we needed to fix the battery either. This Bianca thought was down to more communication problems than not necessarily not having the parts.

We then went to another place and met someone who could speak Italian, and as matteo was Italian it worked out better and we actually eventually got somewhere where they could get the battery working properly again although they still couldn't sort out the smell problem, which was decided in the end to leave until they got back to Spain.

Finally we made it out of Casablanca, but by then was getting late, so didn't quite make it to Rabat as didn't think there would be anywhere to park the van for the night so we stopped in a place called Temara for the night and we stayed in a very small campsite.

We had a quite friendly campsite owner who said that as it was going to rain that night we could spend the night in a small caravan on the campsite for the same price as using the tent. So of course we accepted. We decided though to put the tent up inside the caravan as it had windows without any glass, so it was very breezy inside. It ended up being quite a snug cozy night in the end.

Our temporary accommodation for the night, with our tent inside