Rabat

Oh Rabat. Some of us liked it, some of us hated it. Personally I liked it. But we did perhaps spend a little too much time there trying to get visas. On the bright side, we all got visas for Mali and Burkina Faso, though unfortunately the Americans in our group couldn’t get a visa for Mauritania. Apparently the process has changed and it now takes about 3-4 weeks to issue. They will have to make alternative plans for the crossing through Mauritania L

While Kristy was applying for visas, the rest of us took our turns in truck guarding and exploring the city. We visited the Kasbah des Oudaias

and a surfer walked through the gates as we went in. As we walked through to the Plateforme du Semaphore (Signal Platform), we could then see the waves and beautiful views over the ocean.

A man was playing traditional music and spinning around the tassel on the top of his hat – FYI this is pretty tricky as you need to keep moving your head in a particular way otherwise the tassel will get wound up.

Many in our group were the victims of what we’re now calling “henna rape”. A few women in the Kasbah grabbed some of our group’s arms and started squeezing this horrible orangey coloured henna on their forearm against their will. Sonny’s design was the worst as it looks like a scorpion shitting a love heart! Shaun washed his off immediately while Sonny had to wait until his next hammam scrubbing to get most of it off.

We wandered through the old medina, and found our way to Le Tour Hassan and the Mausoleum of Mohammed V. I visited it on two days as there really wasn’t a lot more to do in 5 days! It was also really picturesque and I enjoyed taking photos inside the mosque and mausoleum,

of the guards,

and of the broken pillars from the mosque that was destroyed in an earthquake in 1755.

Le Tour Hassan is only 44 metres but would’ve been 60 metres tall had Sultan Yacoub al-Mansour not died before it was finished.

A little further out of the centre was the Chellah, a necropolis and ancient Roman city. Storks had made their nests on top of the minaret, and it reminded me of Alsace. It was a calm, relaxing place to walk around with plenty of shade and cats that would follow you in the hope of some attention or better yet some food.

The whole time we were in Rabat, we were staying in a bush camp with no toilets and no showers. Going to the toilet was fine if it was a number 1, but if it was a number 2, it was hard to be subtle. In the past, I’ve known “Doug” to be a tiny shovel that you take to dig your own hole. Here, we have one massive spade that is attached to the front of the truck. Most people get to know if you’re regular or irregular. Luckily all of us still seem to be pretty regular!

Not having a shower for 5 days wasn’t that good. Some people’s feet were getting pretty manky – and the dirt was so entrenched you could see dirt-based thong (or flip-flop for the British) marks on people’s feet.

But on the last day in Rabat, we asked a local to point us to the nearest hammam. The lady was lovely and showed us a hammam in the back streets near the Kasbah, and even offered us tea and a shower at her place if we wanted! We opted for the hammam instead and pouring water over ourselves and getting scrubbed never felt better. I’m really enjoying the hammam experience now. I think we should get them in Oz if we don’t already have one somewhere.

The bush camp itself was fine and every morning as we were packing up, sheep, cows, donkeys and their shepherds would wander through our campsite.

At night we were paid a visit by the Gendarmes who wanted to stay by our camp until morning to protect us from the “hommes sauvages” or “wild men” that could be around. Funnily enough, all the “wild men” are probably already on our tour!

So all in all, I think all of us were pretty happy to leave Rabat after 5 days.