A&E Abroad: Casablanca to Rabat and Moulay Idriss via Meknes. May 30

So today is technically day two of the tour but it feels like day one because we only met our group at 6pm last night for the first time. We all met in the lobby of our hotel at 8.00am to be transported to the train station and then catch the train to Rabat, the capital of Morocco. It took about 45 minutes by train and the train was pretty good, relatively the same to all the intercity ones we'd caught in the UK. In Rabat we put our luggage in storage at a restaurant then Khaled (our guide) took us for a walk through the main part of the town past the post office and some pretty cool buildings. He lead us to the Kasbah des Oudaïas, a beautiful fortress built between 1121-1269, overlooking the mouth of the Bou Regreg river and the Atlantic ocean and perching over the city. It is now a lush garden that we all found incredible. Above the Kasbah are these amazing white and blue residential streets, painted by the Muslim refugees from Spain. We were left then in Kasbah to spend the next three hours alone, exploring Rabat in our own time. We, along with 3 other members of our group, took in the the Kasbah and streets surrounding and had pastries and mint tea (the best tea ever, recipe to come) overlooking the ocean.

Parliament building

Lurving Rabat

Casually amazing details

Lurving#2

Entering the medina with Khaled in the lead

Kasbah des Oudaïas

Gardens inside the Kasbah

Many shocked faces (you'll see them Lauren)

SO MANY CATS ALWAYS

Hiya Atlantic

We then wandered down to the Rabat's oldest Mosque, the 12th century Hassan Tower and saw the remains of the mosque after an earth quake destroyed it. The minaret was incomplete after its creator, the Sultan, Yacub al Mansour died in 1199 and it could never reach its intended height and become the largest minaret in the world. This being said, it was still amazing and the remains of the mosque, being just the columns you can see in the pictures, were pretty cool. Also official guards stand outside the entrance, on horses, dressed very impressively, which we thought looked way cooler than the Queen's guard in England.

At the same site in the Mausoleum of Mohammed V, a Moroccan king whose tomb is there, along with the tombs of his two sons. The current king's father, Hassan II is buried there, one of Mohammed V's sons. The building was finished being built in 1971 and there is generally always someone present reading the Koran, which was very nice, hearing passages being read. The building itself was beautiful and incredibly decorative, with carvings in plaster, porcelain and wood and also a lot of tiling. Inside there were more guards, dressed equally as impressively, clearly having the better job than those who have to sit on the horses for hours on end.

Hassan Tower (can't actually see it through repair time)

Winking at Mausoleums

Finishing up at the Hassan Tower esplanade, we walked back to our meeting point at the restaurant, along the tram line. Yes there is a tram line. Much like in Casablanca, Rabat also has trams, turns out Melbourne isn't that unique after all. They looked pretty good too.

TRAM

Meeting up with the group we had a quick lunch then went back to the station and got the train from Rabat to Meknes, about 2 hours 45 mins away and then immediately got into these, like pimped out old Mercedes taxis to be transported up to the small, sacred pilgrimage village of Moulay Idriss. It's here that Moulay Idriss I brought Islam to Morocco in 789, so it is a very important place for Moroccans and not many tour groups get to come here.

Once we arrived we all piled out of the taxis and contemplated taking our bags up the stairs/hill to our Riad. Then appeared the donkeys. I think we were all in shock as one suitcase at a time the donkeys were piled up with our stuff. We had been in struggle town a month earlier hauling our cases up the millions of stairs in the London Underground and here was one donkey with four cases on its back. It was insane! They then marched up the stairs with us in tow. At our Riad, they unloaded the cases and we all went inside a very average doorway into what you would think was a small building. But like all Riads in Morocco, the outside is always incredibly deceiving.

Riads are basically buildings, now often used as hotels, that have a central open terrace, that forms a void all the way up in the middle of the building, with an open roof in this area. This common zone is often used for dining or as a garden and is surrounded by the living zones and rooms. In this particular Riad, the lower floor was where the family who owned it lived, with the central open area having a table for us to eat dinner and breakfast at, as well as our welcome mint tea and shortbread. One level up were three bedrooms, one of which was ours, and a little lounge. Then up another level were more rooms opening onto the roof terrace. Also a tortoise lived on the roof terrace! We were yet to locate it though. After overcoming the initial shock of this crazy amazing place we got to stay in for a night, we met up with the group for a tour of the town. Also the view from the roof was amazzzzzzzzinnnngggg. We can't even explain how incredible, overlooking the whole town and the valley surrounding (insert shocked cat emoji).

So in Morocco (maybe other places too), there are very strict tour guide laws. For example, we and our new friends Sam and Phoebe, spent the first maybe three days very confused by how our guide Khaled was dressing. Everyday in the ridiculous heat and sun, he wore a collared shirt, black dress pants and shoes and a black hat. We were like, who is this guy and why is he so fancy. We all also had to dress appropriately, ie long pants or skirt and no shoulders, which for us was tough because it was so hot and we actually don't have much appropriate clothes, oops. But he was a guy and seemed to be choosing these clothes? Crazy. But actually if he didn't wear these clothes he would have been arrested and jailed for 2 days. Yep tour guides, when in the big, main cities, have a dress code. No runners or sporting clothes or anything too casual. There are also tourist police everywhere checking this. Which brings me to the main point, tour guides who take you between cities, can't be your city guide. So Khaled couldn't take us on tours within each city. Also worthy of arrest. So in Moulay Idriss we had another city guide give us a tour and history of this sacred town.

We went to the Mausoleum of Moulay Idriss I but we couldn't enter because this is only open to Muslims, many Moroccan Muslims also make pilgrimage to this site each year and it is considered to be important in the lead up to a pilgrimage to Mecca. We then went through the many tiny winding streets and visited the local baker, who the women visit everyday, bringing their homemade bread to cook in the oven. They also mark their bread because the ladies who make the better bread defiantly don't want to end up with someone else's bread instead. And we ate some fresh bread. It should be mentioned here that one very important thing about this whole Moroccan trip is the bread. It is in abundance, breakfast is breads and jams and olives and eggs. Before every meal you get bread and olives and maybe some chutneys. And then just more bread. Basically bread bread bread. But it's okay because who doesn't love carbs and also the bread is amaze. Aside from the bread the food is okay I guess/the best ever. We also had a gluten free lady on our tour, so shame for her we suppose.

Back to the tour. We went to a lookout over the whollllllleeeeee town. Again, amazing. This amazing will continue for ever btw. From the lookout we descended down into the main square. It was pretty small in terms of Moroccan main squares but like, still full of stalls and the like. This was the first day Khaled got dates and shared them all with us. They were delightful. But actual dates here are the best. Back to our Riad and we had a cous cous cooking class. Yes family, prepare for cous cous EVERYDAY. We joke because it's actually more difficult than just buying the packet stuff but who has time for that. So first you have to get your semolina, rub it with cold water, then add it to steamer on the stove for like 5 mins, take it off, rub again with a bit more cold, then some oil, then add it back to the stove, and basically keep going forever until it's amazing and fluffy and never gluggy. We then returned to the dining room where we got course number one. Ps this is a many course meal, we'll break it down for you.

Course one: bread and olives as usual, but we had two types of olives!
Course two: Moroccan salad- finely diced cucumber, tomato, and onion.
Course three: Moroccan soup- tomato base, with chickpeas, noodles, basically any veg that is kind of left over.
Course four: Kefta tagine (now known as the best tagine ever)- like kofta, beef mince balls in a tomato sauce AMAZING with an egg cracked over it so it essentially fries on top and chicken cous cous.
Course five: Oranges. But not any oranges, the sweetest ever, covered in cinnamon. Ash and Sam and Phoebe ate all the oranges and Elise had only a couple because she was too deep in convo with Maree.

After this huge meal we had to sleep, food coma much. Luckily for us the night didn't end there. We were treated to a thrilling history lesson, detailing the life and times of Morocco, since it began. Normally we'd be all for some education, learning's fun ya know, but after the food we just ate plus long travel day we all basically were asleep with our eyes open. Except for those that were actually asleep. Yes some poor folks fell asleep, I don't think Khaled noticed because the lesson kept on going.

Finally we made it to bed. But just as we were getting tucked into our cute beds in our cute rooms, this very loud and very amazing music began. Like indescribable. It was initially singing, then as it got louder instruments joined in, and for maybe 15 minutes we sat in room listening to what we thought was coming from the street outside. It was after 11pm mind you at this point. We had no idea what it was and couldn't go out to look because we were in pjs and they were definitely not appropriate for street wear. So the first tour day was amazing and we aren't sure how it can get better from here!