Morocco, Pg 17

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Rabat and Sale’

We’ve been on the road for a couple of hours now closing in on Rabat; hope it’s not going to take much longer.
This is a really boring drive, man. Nothing spectacular to see here, no mountains, no huge valleys, no deserts.
I don’t think we even saw a camel.
The only thing to look at along this road are huge amounts of absolutely nothing.
It’s so fucking boring…

time marches on; twidlethumb twidlethumb twidlethumb…


Well, we finally made it to Rabat, the country’s capital. The city is really big and busy, busier than any other cities we’ve been too.
In the more developed business areas the streets are quite wide, but packed with so many cars, people, and what seems like a zillion mopeds, so many that it was difficult getting around.

Rabat, the capital city. This is the Parliamentary district

“God I hate these Mopeds”; and the people that drive them are absolutely insane; they’re either out to kill you, or they have their own personal death wish of sorts.
So, if you’re a pedestrian in downtown Rabat, take notice of all the traffic around you, and avoid as much of it as you can.
Once you see just how reckless and insane their driving habits are, and failing to adjust accordingly, that could greatly interfere with your chances of seeing any more tomorrows.
So if you’re there, be aware.

We found our way to the waterfront area in hopes of finding a campground; didn’t find one, but we hung out long enough to check out the area.
The main port had a huge break wall built with gigantic boulders.
You could climb out to the end of it if you were real careful and feeling a bit brave.
Al and I decided to give it a try.
With a bit of risk involved we carefully climbed out almost to the end.
The waves were hitting the boulders so hard that at times the water would shoot up at least 20 or 30 feet, maybe more, and the spray would carry back on the breeze to where the others were standing.
When the waves hit the break wall they hit so hard that we thought we could feel a slight vibration from within the rocks.
Al and I looked at each other and decided we didn’t like the feeling we were experiencing.
We didn’t hang out on the wall very long, we decided it was a bit too dangerous. We got the hell out of there pretty quick.

Someone had told us if we wanted to camp we would have to go across the Bou Regreg river to Sale’, which was a really no more then an extension of Rabat.
So across the river we go.

We found a place called Sundown Motel and Camping, it was right on the beach. It had trailer and tent camping sites as well as small bungalows available for rent by the day, week or month. It was a great spot.
Although it didn’t have an on site store, there was one just a block away.

There was however a large two story dining hall.
The main floor had a small bar, some tables and chairs, a couple of pool tables, and a kitchen. The upper floor was the dining room; it had large bay windows that looked out over the ocean.
This was a very cool building.

Because the night time climate in the north wasn’t really all that suitable for tent camping we decided to rent two bungalows for a few nights. Three more nights would bring Eve and I to the end of our month long adventure in Morocco.
The bungalows have a bed sitting room, a small table and a couple of chairs,
a bathroom with sink and hot shower and a sit down toilet, this of course pleased all of us.
Us guys went to the store to get some food supplies while Eve and Aileen stayed at the camp to organize things in the bungalows.

When we got back Mel tried to get the byrner fired up, but it wouldn’t light. He continued pumping more air into the tank, when all of a sudden it split at the seam and exploded in his face from too much air pressure.
He went flying, his glasses went flying, the byrner went flying. The fuel had got into his eyes, they were stinging so bad he was unable to open them; not even a little bit.
At this point Mel was pretty much non-sighted as any blind person.

We tried flushing his eyes out with tap water, but that didn’t seem to be helping. Al, Aileen and I are going to take him to the hospital.

We remembered passing one in Rabat somewhere near the bridge, so off we go. Mel is really hurting, the rest of us are in panic mode looking of the hospital.
Within a couple of minutes of driving around we found it.
All they did was flush his eyes with sterile water. The Doctor said that’s all he could do, and Mel would be all right in a day or two.
That being said, we were relieved that he was going to be okay. They either gave us, or we had to buy a couple of bottles of sterile water for Mel’s eyes.
We piled back into the car and headed back to the campground.

While we were gone Eve had been looking around for Mel’s glasses. She never did find them.
We all began looking for them. We searched the grounds within at least a 50 foot radius, even on the roof of a couple of bungalows, no glasses, don’t know what ever happened to them.

By this time, Mel’s eyes were starting to feel a little better. Most of the stinging had stopped and he was now able to open his eyes a bit, but he still couldn’t see very well, he didn’t have any glasses, and he really needed them. We’ll see about fixing that up tomorrow.

With no byrner to cook on, we decided to go to the on site dining hall for dinner.
They only serve one main dish per day, today it was chicken tagine.
Most people got their meal and went back to their bungalows or trailers to eat. I never understood why so many people didn’t have their meal in the dinning room, it’s absolutely beautiful up here.

We’re going to eat on the upper level with about a dozen other people.
We all wanted to watch the sunset through the large bay windows while having dinner.

This dining hall was absolutely great. It faced due west, and watching the sunset through these huge windows was spectacular.

The room is large with several tables and chairs, sofas, benches, and stuffed cushions everywhere.
The room has a very warm and comfortable vibe to it.
They brought in dinner that was served with bread, and wine from Meknes. The chicken tagine is great, and there’s lots of it.

The other folks in the dinning room, which seemed to be just couples were pretty quiet.
Our group of five were outgoing, vocal, laughing , having fun, and of course we were also really high.
I think because our group had such an outgoing manner the guy working the dinning room was more focused on us than on the other diners.
Most of the couples that finished their meal have now left, back to the boredom of their trailers and bungalows.

The guy asked if we would like some music. I asked if he had any Pink Floyd.
He got all giddy and excited and said ‘oh yes’, grinning from ear to ear.
He was gone for a minute, then a scratchy Dark Side of the Moon started to play, even though it was a scratchy recording it was fantastic, we loved it.

After we finished our meal we just sat there for awhile drinking some wine, smoking some weed, listening to Pink Floyd and Santana while we watched the sun setting into the ocean; which by the way was a spectacular sunset.

The guy then brought in a large basket of dates, figs and mixed nuts for dessert, and more wine. What a fantastic evening this turned out to be.
If you could bottle up this kind of atmosphere you could make an absolute fortune.

When we left the dinning hall we all went for a walk along the shoreline. It’s not as nice as down south but it was still good.
When we got back to the bungalow the lights weren’t working. Mel went to see about getting them fixed; which turned out to be just a breaker issue.

In the meantime we just used candles in wine bottles until the lights were back on. We smoked a little more weed and discussed our plan for tomorrow…

Tomorrow has arrived. We’re going into town to look for an optometrist. Mel needs glasses, and he needs them today.
Couldn’t find one in Sale’, so across the river to Rabat we go. We drove into a downtown core.
Rabat city is quite large and divided into a number of smaller boroughs, and as with large city boroughs each one has it’s own marketplace and downtown core.

The streets are quite wide, but not wide enough for the number of people, cars, and fucking! mopeds. It was unbelievable how many people were on the streets, it was difficult getting around.

One of the things that was noticeable in the large northern cities is that pedestrian traffic never seems to stop.
In some areas there seemed to be almost half as many people on the streets at one o’clock in the morning as there is in the middle of the day.

Morocco, being only 20% the size of Ontario and roughly 70% of the country is either desert or mountains, which makes many areas barely habitable.
So in 1975 most of the 25 million that lived there were northern city dwellers. Given the fact there is so much extreme poverty, many people just have nowhere to go.

They walk until they get tired then lay down and sleep, maybe in a doorway, a stairwell, a park, or maybe on a friends couch, wherever they can find an open spot.
When they wake up, they walk again, put in some time doing a little pan handling, get something to eat, walk again for a bit until they’re tired, then sleep again.

Variations of this process are repeated daily by many people throughout the country’s largest inner cities.

We got the car parked and headed out on foot. We found an optometry office.
Mel tried several reading type glasses until he found a pair that he could see reasonably well with.
Because we’re tourists they for sure charged far more than what the glasses were really worth, but he needed them now and price was not the main issue, the need for glasses was.
Great, now Mel has glasses again.

We decided to take a bit of a walk around the business core. But with so many people out and about it was more like getting pushed along the street, not so much a walk.

So on the push around we saw this little old lady with a dog on a leash.
This was the biggest dog I have ever seen, some kind of mutant breed created between maybe a Great Dane and a horse, perhaps.

At it’s shoulder it was almost as tall as the lady. But that wasn’t the funniest thing about this dog.
The funniest part was, this dog had the biggest ball sack I have ever seen on any dog, ever.
It looked like a shopping bag swinging from it’s groin as he walked. I couldn’t believe his balls and sack were so huge. He must have been the envy of all his doggy friends.
We were all laughing about it, everyone in the area that noticed was laughing about it; wish I could have got a picture.
where in the hell is a smart phone when you need one

We went to the Medina and got another byrner and a can of naphtha, or as the locals call it, ‘compin-goz’. Can’t cook without a stove. Now with a new one we’re back in business.

Back at the camp us guys went to the bar to shoot a few games of pool.
The girls took the car and went into town to shop for food and drinks for dinner.
It’s very rare in Morocco to see a woman driving a car; which in some Muslim countries is a criminal offence that could get them jail time or a public flogging, or both.

The girls made quite a stir among the young men and boys, they were all laughing and pointing.
For the locals, this was a kind of activity they’re very unaccustomed to, so they were making a big deal out of it.

When the girls got back we started to get things together for dinner. We’re having cream of chicken soup, fresh asparagus, bread, wine and some other stuff that I don’t remember, and some Orange Fanta; my remembrance was; it was a good dinner.

About an hour after dinner we went to the dining hall for some drinks, smoked some weed and listened to some tunes for awhile, then down to the shoreline for another stroll.
The day was coming to an end, we’re tired, we’re full, and Mel’s eyes have greatly improved; by tomorrow he’ll be as good as new again.

Kasbah Oudayas, north side view

Eve and I went back to the bungalow for the night. I went in for a shower; it started out okay but I only got half way showered when the water went ice cold. I was still half covered in soap and I couldn’t get rinsed off.
It was too painful to stand in the cold water stream; I couldn’t do it..
I thought fuck’it, wiped off with a towel and went to bed.

Page #17

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