Rabat

Last weekend (10/6 - 10/7) we caught the bus to the capitol city of Rabat. Sam was on a quest to find some new dress clothes and some socks, and Rabat was said to be the best place to search for such things. Plus we both were very excited about the wealth of international restaurants we had heard about. Since Ifrane is a small town (10,000 people), there is only one bus a day that first goes to Meknes, then on to Rabat. There are other ways to get to Rabat, but this seemed like the simplest approach, since we didn't have to negotiate prices and we didn't have to change modes of transportation in Meknes. The 2 ½ hour car trip took 3 ½ hours on the way there and close to 4 on the way back, so next time we're going to try another approach. However, I talked to a grand taxi driver in Rabat about going straight to Ifrane, and he started at 1000 dirham ($120). I know that an expensive price would be 450 dirham, and I was really not in the mood to negotiate, so we just walked away.

As with Meknes, the trip to Rabat had its ups and downs. As far as ups: Rabat is right on the Atlantic, so we sat on the cliffs over the water for quite a while and it was absolutely wonderful. Lots of fishermen, and down the way there were people swimming and trying to surf (the king was a co-founder of the surfing school in Rabat). We did quite a bit of walking, which was really nice: we walked up to the kasbah, the huge fort looking over the mouth of the Bou Regreg river, then down through the medina, then quite a ways further to a neighborhood called Agdal where the shopping and dining wonders were. The kasbah was beautiful inside and had a gigantic, ornate gate leading into it. The walls and streets were painted white and blue in the Andalucian style, and it felt very clean and bright. And the Lebanese food we had in Agdal (when we could actually eat after the Ramadan cannon) was divine and well worth the hours of travel. We talked about how we could bring tubs of the stuff back to Ifrane.

(AN ASIDE. We got coffee right after the Ramadan cannon since most of the restaurant workers are having f’tour and won’t serve food until later. We sat outside on a corner in Agdal. At one point, a car going VERY fast came at the intersection, turned its wheels and hit the brakes and did a Hollywood-car-chase sliding turn onto the main road in this shopping district where the speed limit had to be 25 mph. We also saw a car blast down the road at an incredibly fast speed and fly through a red light. Neither car was being pursued by the police or gun-toting gangsters. Which makes me wonder: is this just like high school thrills in the States? The city is like a ghost town during f'tour, so do teenagers take this opportunity to try out stunt driving with just that tantalizing amount of fear that they MIGHT hit someone or MIGHT get chased by the police?)

Really I think the main down side of both the trip to Meknes and Rabat is the fact that traveling during Ramadan can be pretty tough for someone who is accustomed to eating and drinking water during the day. You can buy little bits of food here and there, but no restaurants or coffee shops are open until the evening. We had breakfast on Saturday in Ifrane, then snacked a little bit and finally had dinner around 7:30 p.m. Fortunately Saturday night I went out and bought two coffees, two yogurts and two croissants, because NOTHING was open when we got up Sunday morning. The coffee was cold, but better than no coffee at all! Ramadan ends this coming weekend and we’ll be in Marrakech, so there is definitely going to be some celebrating.

The other down sides of the trip to Rabat are the normal things that will become more tolerable with more exposure, a better grip on the language, a full stomach and normal blood caffeine levels. The clothes Sam was looking for were either non-existent or incredibly spendy. The socks she bought ended up having holes in them. In the more touristed areas (such as the kasbah), there are plenty of touts and hustlers trying to guide you, sell you something or get you to pay for views/pictures/air etc. In the kasbah, two or three men told us that the kasbah was closed for a religious service, but there was a shortcut through an alley to a great view point. Thanks, no. In the medina, a kid insistently tried to sell us a plastic bag for some milwee (bread with onions, olives and other goodies baked into it) that we were buying, even though the lady selling the milwee had plastic bags. What really stinks about this is that it is hard to trust or be friendly with much of anyone. Which sort of makes me feel like an asshole after a while, because I tend to just ignore people talking to me when walking about. This is one wonderful thing about living in Morocco: in Ifrane, we get to know the people at the marche and the souk and the restaurants, so we can actually have nice conversations with folks.

Overall, we really enjoyed the trip and plan to go back after Ramadan and grab some Thai food and more Lebanese. Check out the pictures: Rabat. (The scenery on the road between Meknes and Rabat is gorgeous, so I snapped a bunch of pictures with the camera in action mode, pressed against the window, to give you all a feel for the landscape).