Around The World – Rabat, Morocco
My goal for this leg of the trip is to travel further south in Morocco to the capital Rabat.
Got up in the morning in Fes, packed and had breakfast. Walked across the street and found a taxi down to the station. He rang up a few extra Dirham by taking the long way around and we both knew it, but hey.
Got a first class train ticket to Rabat, 3 hours in a warm 6-seat compartment which was full. A boy sitting next to me indicated he wanted to plug his iPhone into my laptop to get some charge. I let him do it but disabled the device driver so he couldn’t hack into my machine – the computer equivalent of a pickpocket!
I arrived in Rabat and after being waved off by three taxis because my Airbnb was too close, I was helped by a local university student who translated for the driver. He took the two of us as passengers and also stopped on the road and picked up yet another person, this is very common here.
I arrived at the location specified by Google Maps but no #29 to be found. I rang the phone number given by the host and a young man came and got me and took me up to the family’s apartment. I pointed out there was no #29 sign on the front gate… Once inside, wow! This modern and beautifully decorated apartment would fit in anywhere in the western world. I found out later the father worked in the Canadian Embassy for 33 years, issuing visas to Moroccans who wanted to visit Canada. The son is in 2nd year engineering and wants to be a programmer and work in the solar power industry. So we had a lot to talk about!
I dropped off my stuff and walked a block to the tram station. There is an X-shaped tram system in town, built in 2011, with beautiful Alstom (a French company of course) coaches. They don’t sell day passes, only single journey tickets so I bought 5 from the machine for a total of 30 dirham because it doesn’t give change. I rode all the way to one end, then back again and switched at the crossing point to the other end. At the far end there is a beautiful river marina overlooked by the ancient wall and a medina. At the near end is another larger medina in the heart of the city. Overall the city center is very modern looking while at the outskirts you start to see standard Moroccan buildings.
Walking back to the Airbnb from the last stop, I had a tuna pannini for dinner and went into a Carrefour grocery store and picked up milk, DC, Boursin cheese and some other snacks. No Cool Ranch Doritos to be found. As I went to pay, I was 1 Dirham short, including all of the coins in my pockets. I tried to put back one small item but the checkout girl waved me off with a smile, thank you! I went straight to an ATM and withdrew enough cash to get me through the next 9 days before I’m on the ferry to Italy. As I walked back up the street with a relatively good tiled sidewalk, I caught my shoe on an uneven point and went straight down to my hands and knees. Luckily nothing in my grocery bag was breakable. I got slowly up and took a small bow to the enjoyment of those who witnessed the incident.
In the morning I walked out to the tram and went to the medina on the other side of the river. It’s a huge walled city, originally called Sale, twinned with another walled city on this side of the river called Rabat. They were combined into one city many hundreds of years ago. I walked through a park and saw over a dozen homeless men, first time I’ve seen that here. Walked through a Bab (gate) in the wall and through the medina towards the ocean and marina. As I came around a corner, I found what I think is the most striking unexpected thing I’ve seen on my whole trip. It’s a cemetery. The graves are sitting above ground level, similar to pictures you’ve seen of New Orleans, but these are quite low to the ground, no more than a foot and the headstones maybe one foot more. They’re all built with concrete and stone and painted different colors or have different patterns of tiles applied. The graves are very, very densely packed and follow along several small rolling hills towards the ocean. I’m asking you to make sure to see the pictures, my description can’t do it justice.
Beyond the cemetery was the oceanfront built up with huge boulders and concrete blocks making a breakwater for the marina on the river. At one end there appeared to be raw sewage going right into the water and a fisherman was wading around, throwing his net in the shallows. Turned me right off seafood in this town. I continued over to the tiny marina where the fishermen had brought in the day’s catch. Not anything like the sophisticated operation I saw in Portugal.
Back through the medina to the tram station, I went to the far end of line #1 which ends at the University. It looks quite modern and I saw IT, architecture and urban planning faculty buildings. I walked towards the ocean, at this point miles away to the west from where I was earlier at the marina. The frontage road is lined with cafes and is being repaved and new sidewalks are under construction. Looks like somebody’s plowing a lot of money into the infrastructure in this town. I cut through town back to the Airbnb when I spotted a men’s barber shop. Now, I decided about a week and a half ago to stop shaving and blend in better with the local men to see if they would stop latching on to me and it worked! But I was starting to look like a homeless Santa with my beard coming in grey & white so it had to go. After much handwaving and pointing by both of us, the barber got out his neck trimmer and buzzed off most of the whiskers. He then lathered me up and shaved me, lather again and another shave, then some kind of oil and a final touch up. Smoother than a baby’s bottom and I look 20 years younger.
As I walked down the street I saw a sign for a pharmacy, but for me it was a Rosetta Stone. At the top it was written in Arabic, then underneath that French, then underneath that a character set that looked a bit like Greek but not quite. I’ll check with my hosts but I suspect it’s Berber.
Another hour walking and I was back home. I was offered bananas and apples by my hosts so I got my Boursin out of the frige and made a dinner of it. I did confirm with my hosts that the letters were Berber. Tracing its roots back to about the 3rd century B.C., the current version of the script still has quite primitive looking strokes and is called Neo-Tifinagh. It was officially recognized in Morocco in 2003 and it’s being taught in schools and signs are beginning to use it.
In the morning I took the tram down to the Rabat Ville train station and got a ticket for Casablanca. I figured I’m this close, I should at least visit for an afternoon. The ticket man sold me a ticket for the train that just left, so I had to wait 30 minutes for the next one. The first class coach was quite nice, two levels and reminded me of my trips in northern Europe. It takes just over an hour to get there, and the train topped out at 95 mph which is pretty great.
Getting off at the Casa Port station, I was instantly assaulted by taxi drivers as I walked outside. I looked right at them and gave them my best La Shukaran and they seemed to go all quiet and let me walk right through. That’s right bitches, this is not my first day in the medina!
Casablanca is the financial, industrial and shipping capital of Morocco. 4 million people and not much else. Like most of the original villages in northwest Africa, it was settled by the Berbers in the 6th century AD. Various kings, battles and invading countries later, it’s a mixture of cultures and languages.
One of the biggest sights in Casa is actually big. The Hassan II mosque. My Airbnb host in Rabat told me to see it, but she said it quickly with her accented English as “mosskweehasandoo”. I finally figured out she meant Mosque Hassan Deux (two in French). I could see its tower as I began walking from the station and it’s impressive. It has the world’s tallest minaret at 210 meters and can hold 25,000 people inside and 80,000 on the patio outside, making it the 3rd largest mosque in the world. It’s built with a base sandstone color and green tiles in geometric shapes, quite beautiful. The top column of the tower has 4 sides, representing North, South, East and West, and then has a rod with three balls of decreasing size which represent (if memory serves) Earth, Water and Sky in northern Morocco but Camel, Sand and Water further south into the Sahara. I’m sure there are other representations around the world.
From the mosque I walked to the relatively small Ancient Medina. I stopped in at a cafe to sit down with a cold drink and I heard English coming from a TV on the wall. There were two guys inside watching the National Geographic Channel, showing a documentary on the Hubble Space Telescope. Now, this is my kind of cafe!
I walked through the rest of the medina, which is really nothing to write home about compared to the ones I’ve seen in Tangier and Rabat. I made my way back to the train station and went into a shop to get a snack for the ride home when I spotted another bag of Cool Cream Cheese Doritos like I saw in Algeciras. Best train ride home ever!
Back at the Airbnb I had another wonderful conversation with my host family. We talked about my trip and my family, the father’s work at the Canadian Embassy, the mother and her Berber background, and the son and I talked about Android vs. iPhone development, Arduino controller boards, many aspects of investing and guitar playing. I see a lot of myself in this kid!
Early to bed for my morning train to Marrakesh and then a bus to Essaouira.
