Morocco page 17

We've been on the road for a couple of hours now, closing in on Rabat, hope it's not going to take too 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.
What there is to look at along this road are huge amounts of absolutely nothing.
It's so fucking boring.....


Well, we finally made it to Rabat the country's capital. The city is really big and busy, busier than any of the other cities we've been to.

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 you can barely get around.
"God I hate these fucking! mopeds"; and the people that drive them are absolutely crazy; they're either out to kill, or they have their own death wish.
So no matter what, if you're a pedestrian in downtown Rabat, beware of everything around you that's moving.

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 almost out 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 on the wind back to where the others were standing.
We didn't hang out for too long, we decided it was a bit too dangerous.

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 Village, right on the beach. It had trailer and tent camping sites as well as small bungalows available 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, a few tables and chairs and couple of pool tables, and a kitchen..
The upper floor was the dining area. It had large bay windows that looked out over the ocean.
This was a really cool building.

Because the night time climate in the north wasn't really all that suitable for tent camping, we rented 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 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 cottages.

When we got back Mel tried to get the burner fired up, but it wouldn't light. He kept pumping more and more air into the tank, then all of a sudden it exploded in his face from too much air pressure.
He went flying, his glasses went flying, the fuel had got into his eyes, they were stinging so bad that he was unable to open them; not even a little.

We tried flushing his eyes out with 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 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.
We piled into the car and headed back to the campground.

While we were gone Eve had been looking around for Mel's glasses; but she was couldn't find them.
When we got back we were all looking for them.
We searched the grounds within at least a 100 foot radius, even on the roofs of the bungalows, no glasses, don't know what ever happened to them.

By this time Mel's eyes were starting to feel a little better, but he still couldn't see very well, he didn't have any glasses, and he really needed them.
We'll fix that up tomorrow.

With no burner to cook on, we decided to go to the on site dining hall for dinner. They only serve one main dish per day, and today it was chicken tagine.
Most people got their meal and went back to their bungalows or trailers to eat.
We're going to eat on the upper level so we can see the ocean and watch the sunset through the large bay windows.

The room is large with lots of sofas, benches and stuffed cushions. It has a nice comfortable feel 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 guy working at the dining hall 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, and then a very 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 eating 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.  Wow, and what a spectacular sunset it was.

The guy then brought in a large basket of dates, figs and mixed nuts for dessert.
This is unbelievable; what a fantastic evening this turned out to be.
If you could bottle up this kind of atmosphere you could make a 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.
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 went into one of the downtown cores.

Rabat city is quite large and divided into several smaller boroughs, and as with most large cities each one has it's own Medina 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 became noticeable in the large 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.

One reason is that Morocco is only 20% the size of Ontario, and roughly 70% of the country is mostly deserts and 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 sleep, maybe in a doorway, a stairwell, a park, wherever they can find a spot.

When they wake up they walk again, put in some time doing a little pan handling, get something to eat, walk again until they're tired, then sleep again.
Variations of this process are repeated daily by thousands of people throughout the country's largest inner cities.

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

We decided to take a bit of a walk around the neighborhood. With so many people out and about it was more like getting pushed along the street, not so much a walk.
On the push around we came across this little old lady with a dog on a leash. This was the biggest dog I have ever seen.
It looked some kind of a mutant Great Dane breed.
At it's shoulder it was almost as tall as the lady.

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 were so huge. He must have been the envy of all his doggy friends.
Everyone was laughing about it.
To bad I didn't have the camera with me.

We went to the Medina and got another burner and a can of naphtha; or as locals call it, "comping 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 some pool.
The girls took the car and went into town to shop for food and drinks for dinner.
It's very rare in Morocco, or almost any Muslim country for that matter, to see a woman driving a car; which in some Muslim countries is a criminal offense that will get you jail time or a public flogging.

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 to camp 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, sounded like a good dinner to me.

About an hour after dinner we went to the dining hall for some drinks. Hung out for a while, smoked some joints and listened to some tunes, then down to the shoreline again for another stroll.
The day was coming to an end, we're tired, we're full and Mel's eyes are reasonably okay; by tomorrow he'll be as good as new again.

Eve and I went back to the bungalow for the night. I went in for a shower, it started out really good, but I only got half way showered when the water went ice cold; that really sucked.
It was actually too painful trying to stand in the cold water stream. I was still half covered in soap and I couldn't get rinsed off.
I just wiped off with a towel and said fuck'it and went to bed.

Page #17

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