PLACES VISITED: Rabat, Casablanca, El Mansouria MOROCCO.
OVERNIGHTS: Rabat Bush Camp (3), El Mansouria (2) MOROCCO.
DAY 11, Mon 23NOV15, 41km, Rabat (Mauritania & Ivory Coast Embassies, City) MOROCCO. The morning after. Why did it have to rain on our first night of bush camping? Boy was it tough. We woke up to rain and had to pack our tent in the rain! Instead of a toilet we use a shovel to dig a hole, swat, poo add paper and cover up. Instead of showers we have baby wipes! What a life! You’ve heard of the song “Singing in the Rain”, I am now singing “Pooing in the Rain”. It was my first poo in the rain and the only upside is that the rain is like a car wash in your ass!!! (For those who know the Nutty Professor: Co-on Clitus, Co-on, Collon cleanse? I’ll give you collon cleanse - gonna run my arse by the car wash!!!). Rabat (Pop 3m) is also very spread out but much greener than Fez. The good news is that it straddles the Atlantic Ocean and even has a beach just below the Kasbah. ABOVE: Hassan II Mausoleum guard.
We left for town at 7:45am so we could visit the Mauritanian and Ivory Coast embassies to get our VISAS. I got busted by Grant/Andi for leaving the bus to cross the road and use the Ivory Coast Embassy wi-fi to post my blog - the Embassy staff were very nice and let me do it! We then stopped outside another “Marjan” megastore near the city to use it as a base for our Rabat city visit. I went off with Keith (British, 60yrs old, retired, divorced with grown up kids, travelling for the next 16mths through Africa and South America) in a taxi to three camera stores - no luck - all small end stuff. No new Sony for me. I will have to try Accra GHANA and or Cape Town in SOUTH AFRICA. Visited the grand Mausoleum of King Mohammed V with the unfinished 44m “Tour de Hana” (minaret tower) just outside - begun in 1195AD this is the La Sagrada of Morocco. The shiny yellow marble sarcophagus sits well-below the viewing level with 6 guards watching on.
It now houses the body of the more recent King Hannan II, father of the present day King Mohammed VI. From here it is an easy and scenic 30min walk to the marina and Bud Oudaia which contains a 12th Century fortress still with its original canons that protected vandals entering the Medina from the Atlantic. Inside the courtyards is a mini botanical gardens set up by the French during the occupation. I then hired a local young guy to take me around the Kasbah which looked a lot like the one that Paul Pappas and I visited in Tangiers in 2006. All the houses there have a Muslim date marker above their door indicating their age and many date back to 1325AD - amazing. The oldest Mosque in town is also here and the highlight is a huge courtyard balcony overlooking two Atlantic beaches below with dark brown sand and smallish waves. From here it was a quick taxi ride into “Bab el-Bouiba” in the centre of town. I then walked down the main drag of “Avenue Mohammed V” passing the President’s Office and Parliament and ending up at HRH Palace. It is a HUGE complex and all you are allowed to do is photograph the gate that sits at the start of a 2km driveway to the actual building!!! Another taxi took me back to the truck and the “other” Marjan where I bought my own toilet - yes, my own shovel!!! Sadly we got back to camp too late to fit a run in - had to set up tent and fill in our Guinea VISA form for tomorrow. We are NOT going to Mali any more since Oasis Overland head office decided against it based on instructions from the UK Foreign Commonwealth Office (FCO) - apparently more attacks are being threatened in Bamako. Instead we are headed for Senegal and Guinea to pass from Mauritania to Ghana. Finally I watched the rest of the movie “90 Seconds in Heaven” before hitting the sack -literally.
DAY 12, Tue 24NOV15, 26km, Rabat (Ivory Coast Embassy, Medina) MOROCCO. Last night was the coldest, dampest night so far. No rain but a film of moisture was on everything in the tent. Ironically I had a great sleep because I changed format. I put my self-inflating mattress INSIDE my sleeping bag instead of underneath it. This expanded the bag inside and made turning much easier and you never roll off your mat. It also allowed me to turn my bag into a cocoon by tightening the chord around the head part essentially making my bag into a tent - how’s that - a tent inside a tent. Bottom line is that I was not breathing in cold damp air - just the warm air generated by my own alcohol processing body!!! Today was embassy day. A boring day but very necessary and part of the adventure. We went in 5 at a time into the Ivory Coast Embassy while the rest of us sat in the truck. Great time to blog! There was only one lady processing VISAS - she was a lovely lady, well dressed, diplomatic hair-do, topped off with big fake pearls. She recorded finger prints of all our fingers, scanned our application and entered it in a computer manually!
Go figure. It took the whole day (9am to 3pm) to process all 21 people of our group - and that is just to place and send the application to the Ivory Coast. We may get our passport VISA tomorrow or the next day. That evening I enjoyed a run through the Moroccan bush along the dirt road that we came in on. Peace and quiet and a brisk cold. Watching the sun set and the almost full-moon rise. Magic. I am running in Africa...
DAY 13, Wed 25NOV15, 30km, Day Train Trip to Casablanca MOROCCO. Today it was back to the big “Marjan” supermarket just outside Rabat centre. We need to hang around Rabat until we get our VISAS for Ivory Coast and Guinea. The good news is that we do not need to go to the embassy in person so everyone was give the option to catch the train to Casablanca for the day. Roberto (Brazil), Keith (England), Vit (Canada) decided to travel together and we just made the 9:30am train by 10sec!!! The 96km journey takes just 55min but we took 85min due to track work. Casablanca (Pop 5m) is the largest city in Morocco and the commercial centre of the country. It is not the romantic, rustic town in the film. It is very busy, construction everywhere, not very well-kept and people and cars everywhere. It is also unique in that the architecture of most inner-city government buildings is a strange combination of Spanish, Moorish and Art Deco (see photos).
The best examples of these are around the main plaza “Place Mohammed V” featuring the Law Courts, Town Hall, Post Office and even the main bank. Keith and I headed here by taxi after trying to find the camera arcade that we were given in Rabat. This is a story of its own - a travel lesson. The cabbie dropped us off on a crowded round-about. No arcade. No shops. Just lots of traffic. After asking several shop keepers where these fabled camera stores were located (with no result) we ended up at a petrol station where a smartly dressed black African walked past and overheard us asking. He claimed he was a photography student and knew where these stores were - we had nothing to lose and followed him. And followed. And followed. After 15min we realised that this guy was not the real deal when we passed a camera store and our dodgy guide did not stop - I had to pull him back! The store had no Sony cameras and very few Canons.
Just Nikons. They gave us the name of another store and we decided to part ways with Mr Dodgy. He would not leave until we gave him money so we gave him the equivalent of 7.5AUD and climbed into a taxi to go into the centre. We had learnt an important lesson. Ask for directions but NEVER allow anyone to guide you or be with you. Back to Casablanca centre. From “Place Mohammed V” it was a short walk to the Central Markets. This place also has great examples of Casa’s unique architecture. The market itself specialises in seafood since Casa is on the Atlantic coast - tons of fresh fish and very cheap ranging from 5-10AUD/kg. From here we caught a cab to the fabled “Rick’s Cafe”. Not the movie one since it was only shot in Hollywood. Apparently there are five “Rick’s Cafes” in the city - we went to the only one listed in Lonely Planet at 248 Boulevard Sour Jdid. It was very upmarket but they let us in.
We had lunch at lightening speed since it was 1pm and our train back to Rabat left at 2:20pm. I ate the specialty of the house: “The Obama Family Chilli Con Carne” - I am not kidding - this exact wording was on the menu. It was delicious and only 15AUD - not bad for this upmarket place complete with piano and bar - “play it again Sam”!!! In the 1942 movie starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman there was a Sam but the line was “Play it once, Sam, for old time's sake”! We had exactly 30min to visit the best site in Casa - the “Hannan II Mosque”. And it was the best site. It is massive - the fifth largest in the world. It fits 25,000 worshippers inside and another 80,000 in its surrounding courtyard. It is located right next to the Atlantic with terrific views of the city up and down the big surf coast. As our train pulled out of Casablanca I thought - it is not the city I expected but I would have liked some more time to see the Medina. I was on cooking duty tonight and thanks to Dan (USA living in Egypt) we cooked up a massively hot “Texas Chilli” using minced beef, broad beans, red beans, capsicum, tomato, onion, garlic and plenty of red and green chillies. Everyone loved it - especially in the morning - the number two’s came sloppy and fast!
DAY 14, Thu 26NOV15, 156km, Rabat to El Mansouria via Casablanca MOROCCO. Woke up extra early since our cook group was doing brekkie but it was easy. We converted the leftover Texas Chilli into a giant omelette. It was a hit but I hate to think where 21 people will poo in the centre of Rabat. But there was no Rabat. Change of plan. Last night the local police turned up at our camp and asked us to move on in the morning. This was great news because the alternate plan is to drive to Casablanca and stay at a camping ground outside the city that has SHOWERS and TOILETS! Yippee! No more shovels and wipes! I got my wish. More time in Casablanca. We would be here for the next one or two nights and drive back to Rabat during the day to get our passports. We all take turns minding the truck in two’s while we are parked in busy cities. Keith (England) and I were on truck minding duty from 1:30 until our departure for camp at 3pm so we raced off after arriving in Casablanca to continue finding our cameras (Keith’s camera also stopped working).
Today was my day. I found it but had to go through living hell to get it. My idea was to go to a bank and ask the teller to look up camera places in the city then call them to see if they had our model. You might think this is pushy but people here are willing to help. The two young girls behind the counter were glad to help. They found a shop, called it and they said they had it. A short cab ride later and we were there. The only hitch was they did not have my model but the one before, it was at another shop 40min away and it was very expensive at 7,500Dh ($1,100AUD) and I paid $900AUD for mine. I also know that I can claim for damage up to $900AUD on my travel insurance so I went for it. $200AUD difference for a second good camera on a 9th trip is a no-brainer so I went back to the bank to get the cash. It was 60min later when the camera arrived and we made it back to the truck right on 1:30pm for truck minding duty! Unreal.
Did not get to see the medina but I have a second good camera to show for it. We arrived at our Atlantic seaside “L’Ocean Blue” camping ground at 4:15pm, 40km north of Casablanca and just outside the town of “Mohammedia” but closest to “El Mansouria”. Enjoyed a great sunset run against the beach. That evening we enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner with turkey burgers and beer. After dinner each person had to say what they were thankful for, in accordance with American Tradition. Much to my surprise 2 of our group said “I am thankful that John Golfin is here to entertain us”! Wow, I made it into the “Thanksgiving book”. With that and my new camera I would sleep well that night...
DAY 15, Fri 27NOV15, 120km, El Mansouria MOROCCO (Truck went to Rabat to pick up passports without us). Today was washing and rest day. All of us washed our clothes and hung them up on our own lines and pegs to dry - Nick Drinias would have been proud (he brought a 3kg box of Omo and 100 pegs when we traveled through Europe in 1993!). There was even a washing machine on site which I used for 7AUD. Enjoyed another seaside run and even a dip into “Plage Mimosa” in the Atlantic - water was a cool 19C but full of garbage so only a short swim. A bunch of us then walked to a local cafe where we had a late lunch and posted this blog. I decided to watch another downloaded movie this evening and hit the sack early before our drive to Marrakesh tomorrow. It was amazing to look out at all the tents and see people crowded around the power poles desperately trying to keep in touch with the rest of the world...
PS: INTERESTING FACT ON AFRICA:
“The Queen of Sheba” lived in Northern Ethiopia reigning over the “Aksum” people who were the first indigenous African ethnics from 100AD to 940AD. Legend has it that she kept the “Ark of the Covenant”.
PPS: CAMERA PLACE: If any future travellers suffer camera damage in Morocco then here is the place to go for a repair or new camera: Shop Name is LATCO. Shop Address is 183-187-191 Boulevarde Ziraoul Casablanca. Shop Phone is +212 (522) 20 62 45. Shop website is www.latco.ma
Play it once, Sam, for old time's sake
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