Climbed out of the abyss that is the Fes medina at eightish before any of the shops opened and people flocked in. Nice time of the day to walk through the medina – very quiet and peaceful. Hard to tell its the same frenetic place you see in the afternoon. After another breakfast of coffee and pastries, it was into a local taxi bound for to the railway station – Gare Fes.
Off to the capital, Rabat, after an early scare when, double checking I had our tickets downloaded onto our phones as we prepared to board, I realised that I had downloaded Mandy’s ticket twice. Oh dear, and no internet at the station to download mine properly. Had to run out of the station and up the street stopping outside every cafe until I found one with free wifi, and then attempt to download a pdf file from an Australian mail server onto my phone. Not my first rodeo, but a little bit nerve wracking nevertheless.
The train duly arrived at the platform, and left right on time. Coffee cart served us morning tea somewhere down the line as we thundered on. Arrived on time in Rabat, and did what any self respecting international tourist does when they arrive in a new city – go straight to McDonalds. There the drama of check-in began.
Even though we had told the host several times that we wouldn’t have any ability to communicate once we were on our way until we arrived at the apartment, when fortuitously we connected to McDonalds free wifi, we found that he had sent us several messages wanting to know what time we would be arriving (which we had told him last night) so he could organise the night guard to let us in?!!. So we told him again.
Then when we arrived at the street, we found that he hadn’t given us the number in the street so we didn’t know which building he was in. However, he had given us the building name, but that name wasn’t on any building (and we both looked). Spent half an hour scouring the street, and asked a number of nonplussed shop owners. One shop owner very kindly let us use their phone to ring the host, who said he didn’t know the number, but would find out and ring us back. 10 minutes later the shop keeper rang to find out what the problem was (in French of course) to find that he’d messaged the street number to our home phone back in Australia. Finally the host rang a friend who came and found us standing forlornly on the footpath, walked us down the street to an unnamed building, and up three flights of stairs to our apartment.
What staggers me is that every guest must get equally lost, although I suppose most of them are local and speak French, and ring him to work it out.
By now we were late for our walking tour, so we dumped our bags and walked straight back down the stairs, and back to the station where we scoured the crowd for our tour guide. We didn’t pick him as he’d bought a student tour guide with him, but eventually we connected and off we walked. Only the two of us, and the two of them, so he wasn’t going to get rich on tips, but we did the whole two and a half hours around the historical part of town.
You may remember that Rabat took over from Fes as the capital of Morocco in 1912 when the French came a calling, and forced the king to move it or lose it. Rabat is situated on the Atlantic Ocean (and is really much better a location than Fes for a capital). After its heyday in the 12th century, Rabat fell into decline, and by the 17th century was a haven for Barbary pirates till the French decided they could do piracy in a much more stylish way. Now its undergoing extensive renovation at the government’s (well, the king’s) request. In a couple of years it will be a tourist place worth visiting, with its ancient fortifications, market places and jewish quarter all given a facelift. The tallest commercial building in Africa is nearing completion. It looks very like the London gherkin – very modern but completely out of place.
Has quite a different feel to an ancient market town like Fes. Rabat is a government and commercial city, with busy people conducting business.
