I arrived in the capital of Morocco this afternoon and checked into a hotel practically spitting distance from the train station in order to minimise the number of harrowing taxi rides I will take in this country.
So far I have had two, both in petits taxis, the more notable trip the one from Marrakech Menara Airport with three guys from Paris squashed into the backseat, who also couldn’t believe the driver overtook vehicles from the INSIDE LANE, even with oncoming traffic in the OTHER inside lane (they don’t even do this in Paris!). I would’ve taken a video except I was too busy clutching the door with one hand and holding my backpack in front of me with the other because there is no way these petits taxis have air bags!
In case anyone reading this is heading to Marrakech, I can definitely recommend Hotel Essouira, just a few twists and turns away from The Big Square. It’s easy to get lost finding it (I felt like a mouse in a maze, dead ends and all), so maybe I’ll create a map and put it online. The staff are very friendly and helpful as well. Hotel Essouira is set up in the traditional Arabic way, the rooms opening inward towards a water fountain in a central courtyard which is open to the sky. Each room has shutters and iron grillwork for safety and privacy, sink and mirrors, and the place is very clean. There are shared bathrooms on each floor.
I read that there are five trains to Rabat each day, and asked the fellow at the front desk if he happened to know the times. He rattled off the train times to me, so I was all set to make the 11:00 train. After my second harrowing taxi ride through major traffic (the horse-driven calèches take any lane they want, which slows EVERYONE down), I arrived at 10:42 and was a little concerned I wouldn’t make the train since I still had to buy a ticket. No worries — within three minutes of arrival I had a second-class ticket and walked straight out and got a seat in a compartment. Parfait! Second class seats up to eight in a compartment, but we were six until a couple disembarked at a station or two before Casablanca, then a family squeezed in. It’s only an hour between Casablanca and Rabat.
I stood for most of the five-hour journey, taking photos at either end of the train car, leaving my seat for an old lady to lie down. I watched as the landscape gradually left the Atlas mountains behind for gently rolling but mostly flat rocky desert. There was the very occasional river and pockets of green, fertile land, but most of the region was sparsely settled and punctuated by a tower that might mark a place of worship or maybe for telecom? Maybe both? I’ll have to review the pictures and Google around.
Once I reached Rabat shortly after 4:00, I got a place to stay close to the train station so I could have longer to explore the city. Practically the first photo op I came across was a protest. What would a capital city be without a demonstration, right? I asked around and someone said it was to demand more jobs. It wasn’t until after I shot a bit of video that I realised that the protesters were either completely or mostly blind… and they intended to walk out into the big intersection to stop traffic.
Thankfully, I can report that the protest ended peacefully without anyone getting run over.
Then I encountered — but I’m not quite sure — some sort of upcoming celebrity appearance on a balcony near the medina. Traffic was diverted and the crowd built up to such a size that I thought I’d better make room for people who actually know who this is! There were women crying, which is a pretty sure sign to me that it’s no-one I would be interested in.
Moving on through the medina, which didn’t seem as crazy as in Marrakech, where I sampled a… meat of some kind, like beef, but not lamb… no, I don’t think it was pigeon. (Pigeon pie is a delicacy here, as are sheep’s brains and all sorts of things I’ve taken photos of but am not very enthused about sampling.) It was spooned into the middle of that flatbread the Morroccans serve before every meal, with some hot sauce. I really like the local hot sauce, but I have a vivid memory of a case of Montezuma’s Revenge down in Mexico, where I ate TOO MUCH street vendor hot sauce. Time’s too precious to be spending it in Moroccan bathrooms, however beautiful the tiles are.
To balance out the meat and bread, I bought a banana and apple from a grandfatherly produce seller (who BEAMED when he completed the transaction in English, even though it consisted of the words “three” and “fifty” — he was adorable) and munched on those while heading to the kasbah. I knew I was pretty close to the beach — I could smell it! — but there was a high wall I couldn’t see over.
I tried to explore the kasbah without a guide, but they are not easy to shake, especially when the kasbah is all twists and turns with dead ends and they know them all. I would say that is pretty much the most annoying thing I’ve encountered in Morocco, the guides who pester tourists, but this happens in a lot of countries and I know travelling alone makes it harder to get rid of them. They keep following and saying things like “that way is closed” and you never know when to believe them, because if they’re right they just sit and wait by the turn so you have to pass by them on the way out. If they’re wrong you just get lost a bit longer, and they have a way of reappearing out of nowhere.
Yes, it’s annoying, and yesterday a little girl who tried to get me into a Marrakech hammam (bath house) followed me behind a man who was attempting to lead me into another maze to reach the tanneries.
“No, Madame,” she said in a tiny, ominous voice. The way she said it made me stop. I had the little girl on one side and the man at the other end of the lane, and I chose to listen to her and took off into another direction. The man followed me and asked for money, but I wouldn’t give him any. Everyone claims to be a guide here, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to say no and no and no again. Even a simple ‘no’ doesn’t do the trick, you have to be creative with your answers so it doesn’t lead to more questions, or the easiest thing is just to pretend not to speak ANYTHING, not even English.
I’ve turned into a selective deaf mute while in the medina, even after hearing “konnichiwa” a hundred times. I got this in northern Australia all the time, every single day, and after six months of this I got so riled up I would shout at people even before they could open their mouths to say it. Here, I’ve managed to bite my tongue and just keep walking.
I shot some longer exposure photos at the top of the kasbah overlooking the ocean, the town of Sale across the river, and the roads that follow the river. I took the very new-looking walkway along the river and headed back up towards the Hassan Tower, the most well-known of Rabat’s monuments. I took more photos in the Place de 16 Novembre and of the tower itself before deciding to call it a day.
Rabat is a capital, a much less traditional place because of all the students and foreigners, and the Moroccans are dressed in a more Western style. My last few days will be spent in Meknes and Fes, which are more traditional cities, so I think I’ll buy a scarf or something and cover my head and see if I get less attention. I sure hope so.
