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Ok here we are on day 3 in Fes Morocco. yesterday we met our tour guide Abdou a Berber from the southern sahara. Funny guy and very patient with our wanderings and sidetracks through the souks (markets). We went around casablanca which doesn't have THAT much to offer compared with the rest of morocco we have seen - big industrial city with just about everyone living in apartment blocks. Didnt matter how poor the block was though- every roof and wall bristled with satellite dishes! Saw the third biggest mosque in the world at Casablanca - 5 years and 6000 artisans to build it. Coffee at the Corniche (casablanca beachfront and yes we saw Rick's Cafe), where Mick was shortchanged by the smiling waiter, challenged it and got more but still shortchanged!
Drove from casablanca up to Rabat and visited the Kasbah Chellah, variously occupied by the Romans from ad 40 to 250, and then successive Arab and berber conquerors. Met at the gates by a manic drummer who ends his drumming solo and sticks his cap out (not unexpected). After paying at the gate we were pursued by a snaggle toothed Arab with large facial scars and a very strong French accent but b***** all English who we eventually took on as a guide for a third of his original proposed "interpretative" fee. Very interesting site and entertaining dialogue from the guide but bloody hard to work out what he was saying especially when he kept weaving in his obsession with tectonic plate movement of the Earth. Thought I'd misheard the first time he rabbited on about it, but unfortunately not! On to Rabat very nice hotel. Jeannie and I went for a walk while others were refreshing and she was very chuffed when a handsome young man gave her two lovely roses at the flower market. After we all wandered down to the souk. Everyone was out in the street and the market alleys became very thronged with people. Smells and scents of all varieties, every colour imagineable, sheeps heads, cows feet, heaped spices and oyramids of dates and other fruit. Very funny scene later on when the poorer hawkers spread their wares in tarps in the middle of the alleys (as if it wasn't already crowded) and a car drove over the shoes one hawker was selling. Much Arabic cursing and gesticulating in the crowd. I was waiting for a shoe fight to erupt.
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