Rabat Day Two...a day of contrasts

I've been sitting on the train from Rabat to Fes, knitting and contemplating yesterday's experiences. I started the day with an emotional low, discovering that the Day One post  I had laboured over the night before had not published. I was able to resurrect the words from the original "notes" app, but was only able to publish once I had deleted and then reinstalled the Blogger app. I then thought that maybe the problem was the number of files in the app...so I started deleting old posts, only to discover that I was in fact deleting them from the blog itself! Oh nuts, or some such expletive...! A quick Google search has led me to believe that these posts can be restored, but it's easier done on a PC. All is not lost because I have since discovered that one of my faithful readers has kept all of my posts, and will be presenting me with a jump drive full of my writing upon our return home in early March. Thanks Donna!

On to the rest of the day... We walked to the Musée Archéologique, and enjoyed a look around. The collection is not extensive, or at least what's on display is not a lot, however there were a few objects that caught our eyes, and we kept returning to them. One was a bronze "puisoir"..."pour puiser le vin dans les cratires et le verser dans les coupes..." From the last quarter of the 8th century BCE. (Just checked google translate and this means ladle or scoop...whew! We were a little concerned it might have been a urinal for after too much wine!) It had a delicately carved duck head on the end. My sketch!

The other delightful object was a Roman bone and ivory carving, about 5 inches tall and less than an inch diameter, with delicately carved intertwined figures. It was exquisite. (No photos allowed)

When we left the museum and were standing on the pavement, we watched a woman driver in a very large BMW SUV carefully navigate the narrow street with parked cars on either side. She had a small dog on her lap. Just after Lloyd had muttered to me "rat on a lap" and I had been thinking "What's an enormous and expensive car like that doing here?", she stopped, rolled down her window and greeted us in French, asking us if we had enjoyed the museum. We replied yes, in our hesitant French, and she then switched to impeccable English, saying that we should now go to their new museum, just down the street, gesturing at a bright white building with lots of colour in its arcade, under carved arches. So, we had probably been talking to one of the wealthy Moroccans, a big contrast to the scarved and veiled beggars we have been seeing on the streets. We did in fact visit this other museum, the newly opened Musée Mohammed VI d'art Moderne & Contemporain.http://www.museemohammed6.ma/ It is a magnificent building, and houses Moroccan art from the beginning of the 20th century. It was not an easy collection to look at, especially the collection for the past 20 years. We had no context, and the info panels were all in French. However some pieces from 50 years ago resonated. Much of the work appears to have been loaned by a few families and banks...who knows, maybe the woman who directed us was one of these benefactors? The most interesting encounter was with one of the staff, a man who spoke good English, and who has a cousin working as a doctor in Montreal. (Many Moroccans have friends or relatives in Montreal). He was most excited to tell us about an upcoming exhibition of Arabic art from the Louvre. He let us look into the salon to watch the preparatory staff (from Italy) at work. Interesting that an Italian crew was brought in to do this work--maybe this was a condition to receive the exhibition.

We the went to the liquor store since it was close by...here's the view of the shop. Note no signs or any identifying marks! The shop on the right is a little convenience store.

We picked up some bread from a cart on the street...

...and then picnicked on the waterfront, just below the Kasbah Oudaïa, which is more correctly a Ksaur or fortified village on the promontory at the mouth of the river.

We entered at the pedestrian gate, and within a few minutes several young men told us that the viewpoint was closed "come this way instead!" Yeah, right, we've heard that line a hundred times since arriving in this country. 

This village is very picturesque...

And sure enough, the promenade was very much open and we enjoyed the view from the wall, along with many other folks enjoying the sunshine. 

Tucked into a corner I notice a sign for a carpet cooperative...so in we went for a look and were faced with about 10 women all knotting/weaving carpets. We were welcomed heartily, "Bienvenue, Madame! Asseyez-vous!" And so I did, right down on the cushion beside her and enjoyed a happy few minutes watching and listening to the rhythm. She inserted a couple rows of weft yarn after a row or two of knots, and the beating was very much like a drum. The down side is that when I got up to leave (after about 5 minutes), I left a 10 dirham coin on the bench. She then remonstrated quite severely "c'est rien! Deux Euros, svp! (10dm is about 10% of the average daily wage, and is what has been recommended as a tip for a short taxi ride, or for taking someone's photo--and we took no photos either.) Lloyd was quite adamant this was enough and so we left, my previously elevated mood of being in female company punctured. And so of course I had to work out my feelings about this on the walk back through the souk to the Riad.  I was able to pose the question of whether or not this was a reasonable gesture to our friends at Naturally Morocco (they booked the tour that we were on last week) and was reassured that this was appropriate, and that I may just need to laugh this off... Writing this a day later, I am recovered!

It helped that we had a bottle of wine waiting for us back at the Riad.  Here is the view of our street...

And a cat enjoying the warm seat!

I spent the end of the afternoon knitting in the sun on the rooftop terrace. We then had a pleasant dinner out around the corner with fellow guests from the UK, and it was fun to exchange experiences!

We are now in Fes for a week staying at the Riad Dar Skalli http://www.riaddarskalli.com/#!/ in the old city. We have walked around a bit to scout out a place for supper, and will be heading out shortly. We have received all the usual warnings from the Riad manager about fake guides, touts, conniving taxi drivers and pickpockets... As tourists we really are marked, and there's no doubt about it, we are rich and privileged to be here. There are just so many people desperate to make a living. However, we have been in worse places...India for example...

Apologies!!

I have been having MEGA problems with the Blogger app, and have just been informed that e-mail subscribers received the latest post about Rabat along with more than a dozen historical posts that have no relation to the current experience! Sorry about that.  This is just one more complication for me, and is on top of my having inadvertently deleted about 25 or 30 posts. Oh dear. Such is technology, and our reliance on it.

I will be posting about our second day in Rabat within the next 12 hours or so!

Thanks for your patience, friends!

Rabat day one...

I have been trying to get this post published for the last twelve hours...I've had to delete and reload the Blogger app and hope this works!

Sunday, February 1

The day dawned bright and sunny...a nice change from yesterday's drizzle! We walked about 2 km through town to the Palais Royal, one of the Moroccan King's residences. This is a huge complex housing about 2,000 people as well as many ministry offices. Tourists are only allowed in through one entrance, and we had to leave our passports with the police at the gate. We were told to walk to the mosque, turn left, and walk directly to the main door of the palace, take a picture, and then return for our passports. There could very well have been CCTV all along the route to make sure we didn't deviate! The guards at the main door were quite cheerful and happy to have their photos taken!

From there, we walked a short distance to the Chellah Necropolis built in 1339 on the remains of the Roman town of Sala Colonia. 

This site is the burial place for many holy men, and includes the ruin of a mosque (only the minaret remains).  It was largely destroyed by the earthquake of 1755 and is now the winter home of at least 75 storks. If we understood the info panel correctly (in French and Arabic) this population is increasing by about 7% each year.

The calls of the storks reminded me of a poorly tuned Diesel engine!

The remaining tile work on the minaret is exquisite. Each one of these tiles would have been cut to fit. We are still seeing tile work with similar designs, but the tiles are stamped, stencilled or painted...the work is not inlayed. 

The roman town was built into the side of the hill, and was largely excavated in the 1950s.

This was a pleasant spot with many families enjoying a day out together; children have been out of school for the last week for a winter holiday.

Next stop was the Hassan Tower, an unfinished minaret dating from about 1200. This was supposed to be the largest mosque ever constructed, but was never finished and everything (except the tower) collapsed in the earthquake.  (Interesting that there are two towers in this city that remained standing after the earthquake).

King Mohammed V proclaimed independence from France from this tower in 1955, and his mausoleum is nearby...

And then we walked back towards the Riad, but not quite in a straight line...we were looking for a wine shop and finally found one (after asking in a hotel and the a gas station) near the train station in the Terminus Hotel. It was a small space, about 10 x 10', counter service, and floor to ceiling shelves of liquor...the top shelves are reached with a ladder. Our one bottle of Moroccan wine was wrapped in newspaper, a chit was handed over, and then Lloyd had to give the chit and cash (46 dirham, about $5.50) to the cashier.

So then I finished off the day by knitting in the sun on the rooftop terrace.  We drank the wine, and then went out for a pizza (not quite like in Italy, not quite like at home, but hey, we're in Morocco!) at a food stall around the corner.

From Marrakech to Rabat

Donkey having breakfast on the street...carrot peelings, greens...

Knitting while waiting in the train station Saturday...

I've started writing this while on the train from Marrakech to Rabat. We're traveling first class, with six people in a compartment. The seats are wide and comfortable...wide enough for me to have my shoulder bag beside me and my knitting on my lap. I'm in the middle  seat facing forward. On my right is a gracious French woman, an ex-pat from Paris who lives in Marrakech and works on a magazine about luxurious decor and is traveling to Casablanca. Like every European we meet, she apologized for her bad English however her English is far superior to our French! On my left is a young woman, likely Moroccan, dressed very fashionably without head covering who has not spoken since thanking Lloyd for putting her suitcase up on the rack. She has spent most of her time on her smart phone reviewing male profiles in what appears to be a multinational Muslim matrimonial site..aren't I snoopy...and on an English translation site, I think formulating responses in English to some of these profiles... Across from me and next to Lloyd is another young woman with long black hair  wearing a longer skirt who has said not a word. She stares at me while I knit but doesn't smile when I smile at her. Her male companion could be an American black man, but his English is definitely not...maybe Nigerian? And he's a man of very few words too. 

We're travelling through a fertile landscape, quite unlike the stony brown fields south of the Atlas Mountains. There are green fields of wheat or barley, bright orange flowers that might be calendula, prickly pear cactus, the occasional almond tree with its pale pink blossoms, a few cows and donkeys, some sheep and goat herds, and olive orchards. It's a misty drizzling day.  This is not a fast train so there is lots of time to enjoy the landscape. It's not easy to tell what stations we're stopping at--no signs on the platform. Hope it'll be obvious when we get to Rabat! (Addendum..yes, platform was well labelled!)

After the French woman left the train, Lloyd took this photo of me taking a break from knitting to write this post...

We spent the last two days exploring the Marrakech medina, the old city. It was a huge challenge for me the first morning. I was so irritated by the vendors...Madame, please look! No charge for looking! Madame, hello! Do you speak English or Francais?  See my lovely shawls! You need a carpet?... I felt like stamping my foot and screaming "no shopping!" Lloyd helped me adjust my attitude with annoyingly calm words, "this is their job, this is how they do business..." So we carried on, first to the Saadian Tombs...built over 500 years ago to house the tombs of the important members of the  family, the rulers of Marrakech at that time. Amazingly this site was relatively unknown for a few hundred years until about 100 years ago when it was rediscovered and restoration begun. 

On site was a craftsman creating small medallions from tiles.

A stork is nesting on top of this tower...

Our next destination was the Palais Bahia, and of course we didn't manage to navigate there directly. The narrow twisting lanes...thoroughfares, cul-de-sacs, and dead ends make this difficult, plus so many "helpful" people..."are you lost? Where do you want to go? Not that way!" So many just wanted to steer us towards businesses. Another ploy is "I remember you from the Riad!" (No, I've never seen you before.) "It's your lucky day! There's an exhibition of Berber art/ carpets/ antiquities today!" (My new calm voice..."no thank you")

On to the Palais..what a building! 

A beautiful door and a painted ceiling...

After a lunch (a pretty reasonable omelet) Lloyd escorted me back to the Riad for the afternoon where I enjoyed some quality knitting time until sunset...

...and then out to dinner with new friends from Switzerland. One aspect that we enjoyed in Marrakech was other peoples' company...we are no longer the only guests in the Riad! So, some good conversations over good food.

Friday was similar, with the exception that my attitude adjustment made it a lot easier! Plus Lloyd said to just ignore them and let him do the talking. One of the best bits of advice we got from our first Marrakech host was to ask a vendor for directions, and to ask for directions to the nearest landmark, e.g. Ben Yusef mosque, rather than accepting unsolicited help from young men who will demand payment when you finally reach your destination. So off we went to the Dar Si Saïd museum and another gorgeous building. We turned down what we thought was the right street, only to be greeted by an older woman who was closing a gate, "non Monsieur, c'est ma maison!" So Lloyd, ever with the quick rejoinder, said, "but Madame, we were coming for dinner!" At which point she laughed, and we all laughed. She redirected us back to the main street and "a gauche", and sure enough we soon found the signs for Dar Si Saïd....another delightful and beautiful complex built in the late 19th C. There were some interesting carpets, shawls, jewelry, ceramics, and carved doors, but the building itself was the star attraction.

Next we dropped into the Bert Flint Museum, another charming 19th C residence which houses a collection of folk art from the Saharan region (including Mali, Niger, and Mauritania) amassed by a Dutch academic, Bert Flint starting in the 1950s. While much of it is rather dusty, it's well displayed with good descriptions. 

We stopped for lunch nearby and then made our way back through the souks (and organized chaos...pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists, donkey carts...)

...to the dyers' souk. 

Coarse wool, single spun

With it being Friday, the holy day of the week, none of the dyers was working, however one of the vendors showed us around. Here are samples of the dyes; he said they were all minerals (not so sure about that...)

 He was desperate to sell us a scarf, shawl, or bed covering from his stall...even going so far as to wrap Lloyd's head in a Berber-style turban.

Lloyd entered into negotiations and ended up buying this apparently indigo-dyed silk/cotton scarf. I'm not so sure that it really is indigo.  The vendor also said these shawls were all naturally dyed, but I think the colours were too bright. 

My curiosity about the dyers' souk satisfied, we went back to the Riad where I enjoyed a few hours of knitting in the sunshine! 

Topped off with a bottle of Moroccan white wine that Lloyd bought from the little supermarket 10 minutes away. Alcohol is prohibited in the Islamic religion, however it's available in certain stores (very controlled, enter through a small door and exit out the back alley, but very well stocked) as well as restaurants and hotels serving a western clientele.

I'm finishing this post from the Riad Yanis  http://www.daryanis.com/ in Rabat where we will be for 3 nights. We walked here from the train station, about 500 m, without getting lost!

It's still raining...I can hear it bounce on the canopy over the central courtyard.

On the Marrakech Express...

We're back in Marrakech having successfully crossed the High Atlas from south to north on the other pass, the Tizi-n-Test. (We were on the Tizi-n-Tichka pass last week...in the snow...). No snow on this one although apparently the road was closed a few days ago due to rock falls. We had an excellent driver, Omar, who lives in a village in the pass, and is very familiar with the road. He took it nice and slow so that Lloyd could take as many pictures as he wanted. Here are a few...

 We stopped for tea at the summit (2100 m)....a welcome break. An itinerant trader showed us his wares...he was a pleasant gentleman who told us in a mixture of French and English that he is from Zagora (in the Sahara) and walks through the mountains from village to village buying up antiquities, and could he show them to to us? (Of course, no pressure, just look!!) Lloyd was quite taken with a couple pieces of silver...a hatchet type of gadget to chip big cubes of sugar, and a pendant. They started negotiations and I stayed right out of it. An observer only! We thought we would get away without buying because he refused Lloyd's final offer, and then as we started getting into the van, he came over with the pieces, and Lloyd handed over the cash. The man just couldn't let that sale disappear down the road.

We also had a stop at the Tin Mal mosque which was built in the 12th C.

It's been under restoration since 1990 and is a UNESCO heritage site. It's one of the few religious buildings open to non-Muslims, probably because no services are held here, and won't be until the roof is finished.

Here I am in my multicultural look...a Canadian of British heritage wearing Moroccan pants (handwoven cotton), Indian cotton indigo-dyed tunic, and Kashmiri shawl...and comfortable walking shoes!!

We've been here 10 days now, and I'm not feeling as shell-shocked! Now back in Marrakech for a third time...it actually feels familiar! Some observations...In the cities (Taroudant and Marrakech) women push their babies in strollers whereas in the villages, babies are strapped to their backs. In the cities, faces are mostly uncovered but not so in the villages...in the latter, being completely covered (veiled) is more common. Hair is almost always covered usually with beautiful scarves, but it's also not unusual to see younger women in Marrakech without scarves.

Remember that song about the Marrakech Express? Well, it's become quite the ear worm for me, so now I'm passing it along to you!  We're here for three nights at the Riad Alwachma http://www.riad-alwachma.com/en/galerie.html  

A final view from the pass: This reminded us of the southern interior of BC, specifically north of Cache Creek or around Keremeos.