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Morocco
27 November, 2006, Essaouira, Morocco
As it has been a very long time since any journal entries have been posted on this site, we'll begin with a brief summary: After crossing the border at Ceuta, and the trauma and drama of that, we arrived in Chaoen, which unbeknownst to us is a sort of base for the bleary-eyed backpackers and hippies in North Africa. Chaoen is a very laid-back place, though some of the vendors can be quite aggressive in their sales tactics. They'll follow you around or stop you on the street until you buy something/give them money, unless you completely ignore them. This is somewhat stressful and sad for us, but if you try to politely decline their offers, the badgering is far worse. The only way to avoid unwanted attention, it seems, is to pretend you neither hear nor see the person.
On a sort of whim, we joined Evelyn and Rafael one morning in Chaoen. They're traveling by car and had two empty seats, so we accepted their very generous offer to join them. They're in quite a long-distance relationship, as he lives in Barcelona and she lives in Mexico City! After deciding to change plans and go with them, we left almost immediately and drove directly to the Roman ruins of Volubilis. Wow! This was a huge city when the Romans were in North Africa, and the ruins are well enough preserved to really be able to see how the Romans lived. A guide named Mohamed Hamid, who offered his services for something like fifty cents, was really excellent. His jokes and explanations really helped to imagine life in the long-abandoned city of Volubilis.
That night we drove to Rabat, passing through Meknes. In Rabat, we asked the help of a man and his young son in finding a place to park the car near the hotel we had selected from the guidebook. Through Evelyn's French interpretation skills, this exceedingly kind man explained where to park the car and then how to arrive at the hotel. Then, he decided to walk us to the door of the hotel, about a fifteen-minute walk out of his way.
Despite the initial hope that this gentleman's unexpected assistance created, none of us were so thrilled with what Rabat had to offer. The city itself is... well, let's just say there are more beautiful cities out there! Parts of the medina were used as markets, but we didn't see anything that we wanted to buy. The hotel and the food were quite reasonbly priced, and good enough, but besides that Rabat left a lot to be desired. The mosques and palaces may be beautiful, but they were off limits to non-Muslims like us.
Sunday morning we walked around a bit, looking for some cloth that Evelyn and Rafael wanted to buy, but as they couldn't find what they were looking for, we came directly to Essaouira, which so far is amazing. We're staying at a hotel/campground with a view of the Atlantic and candlelight (some would say rustic, others would just say no electricity) that, while pretty expensive for our budget (500 dirham, or US$50), is absolutely incredible. It really seems to be one of the nicest places we've been to yet. Now, instead of sitting around here and writing about it, we're going to enjoy it!
-- Andy and Liza