Do not lose your knowledge that our proper estate is an upright posture, an intransigent mind and a step that travels unlimited roads
Another early start to the day and more driving. Made all the better because of a stop to take ATVs up to Ait-Ben-Haddou which you may remember from… every movie ever. After that it was a very long haul all the way back to Rabat to crash after limited sleep, long car rides and dehydration that I’m still recovering from.
Very nearly slept through the sunrise this morning. After snapping awake and hoofing it up the dunes I managed to make it just in time. We had a light breakfast and tried our hand at sand boarding which was challenging considering the straps on the board I chose were broken. The Sahara doesn’t mess around, though, and it got hot very quickly. We shipped out shortly after for the long trek over to the Dades Gorge and our next stop at Auberge Chez Piere which was a great hotel at the top of the gorge where we had an excellent dinner and then sat around the pool for the rest of the evening.
Departed Rabat promptly at 6am to begin the long drive out to Merzouga and the jumping off point to the open Sahara. We headed south through the Rif Mountains and stopped at a little gas station for a surprisingly good breakfast before we actually hit the mountains. I knew they existed but I was surprised to see monkeys in the mountains and we stopped to get some pictures of them. They are surprisingly unafraid of humans and some walked right up to us. More driving and we stopped at an Oasis that I can’t recall the name of for an excellent lunch. More driving and then we finally hit the desert. From here we had to switch to a 4×4 and we headed out over the bedrock that ultimately leads to the dunes. Once we hit the dunes we switched to camels to cross the sand to our camp. Along the way we stopped to watch the sunset. Our camp was gorgeous, our tents basically had full bedrooms and we even had running water. They made a great dinner for us and lit up a bunch of torches on the side of a sand dune in the shape of a heart. It was too dark to get pictures but the coolest part was easily sitting out away from camp in the silence and starlight.
Today was pretty uneventful. I just went over to 7AY and crammed as much work in as possible because tomorrow was an early departure for a very long trek around Morocco. I didn’t leave the office until let and then had to gather my things for our departure the next day.
Sadly our little reprieve in Tangier was coming to an end today so it was off to the train station to return to Rabat. We were early for our train soooo… there ended up being another trip to the Hilton breakfast buffet before we left. After that it was just the long train ride back to Rabat and then home to get set up for the next adventure.
Today had to be a productive day as well so we went back to avail ourselves of the Hilton’s internet and this time we even made it in time for breakfast. Having not had a decent breakfast since Lisbon this turned into the greatest feast of all time. After that it was just work for most of the day before fulfilling another one of our major shortcomings from over the weekend which was actually having dinner at El Morocco Club. I emailed them about getting a reservation that evening so we could actually do it right and was promptly turned down… Luckily they said we could sit in the lounge and still order off of the dinner menu which was more interesting to me anyway so we went with that.
With the weekend over I had to get back into a productive routine but that didn’t mean that the quest for a good American style breakfast was over. Despite more efforts at searching for a place to make this happen we didn’t turn up anything better so we ended up at the Hilton in a desperate attempt to eat their breakfast. …sadly we just missed it. However, they were good enough to let us sit in their bar and steal their internet all day. Despite the overall awesome nature of our place in the Kasbah the internet was a little wanting so serious work required getting out. I hate to admit it but I’ve gotten a little behind on the old blog here so my recollection of the remainder of this day is a little fuzzy. I believe the original intent was to go to dinner but as I recall we ended up going to Burger King in the mall next door and then sitting on the roof of our place and consuming most of our wine reserves.
Having now seen how awesome the sunrise view is from our place I woke up early and headed up to the roof and attempted to get a time lapse of the sunrise to go with our sunset time lapse from the evening before but this one didn’t come out as good. The focus again turned to where we could track down some breakfast, in this case more of an American style breakfast. The options for that were basically non-existent in Tangier but we did discover Cafe de Paris which had mediocre reviews and was featured in the Bourne Ultimatum so obviously we had to head right over. It actually wasn’t bad, but not great either. Afterwards we tried to walk past the King’s Tangier palace which Karim had pointed out to us the day before as we were driving. We were ultimately unsuccessful in tracking that down so we headed home to get ready to travel to Asilah to catch another sunset.
Asilah is a small town on the coast south of Tangier which we had been led to believe was a gorgeous beach town. We walked all the way to the Tangier train station from our place in order to see more of the town and then we took the train 40 minutes down to Asilah.
For reasons passing understanding the Asilah train station is about 20 minutes outside of Asilah. Continuing our trend of walking everywhere we started walking down the small road that led back around to the beach so that we could follow the beach into town. Walking down the beach was rather disappointing. While it could have been a nice beach, like most African beaches it was totally strewn with trash. …and populated with random camels for the amusement of tourists. I had limited cell reception but I was able to send a quick message at this point that would really pay off in the long run. We made it into town and tried to have lunch at the first restaurant that we came to that looked rather nice. Naturally, we were kicked out because they were closing. Luckily the place next door, Seven Seas, was open and reasonably nice.
While we were eating I got a reply to my earlier message. My friend had been good enough to look up the best beach in the area for us but it was a further 20 minutes south of town and there was no real road to get there. We decided to make the attempt anyway. We started walking down the main road in the direction of the beach with the hopes that we would see a taxi. As we were walking a random guy who lived in the town pulled up alongside me and asked if we needed directions to the medina, no doubt inferring that we were tourists from my confusedly looking around for taxis. I asked him if he knew the beach we were trying to get to and if he’d take us down there. After some price negotiations we were in business and on our way to Paradise Beach.
Driving across the countryside, unpaved roads and down a cliff in the guys little VW Golf or whatever he had was an adventure in itself although the views here were pretty great as well. At the end of this adventure he deposited on a massive beach where there wasn’t another person in sight. …almost. Naturally some random old man who was eating a sucker and had no shirt had to come over to invite us to his village. After getting rid of him we finally had the place to ourselves and were able to get some great sunset shots as well as attempt to recreate the Remote Year logo in the sand like we had seen everyone else do… our success was limited.
Afterwards our new friend took us all the way back to the train station… or rather he let us out on the side of the road and pointed us to a gap in the fence that we could climb through to get to the station. Despite some free loaders being in our seats on the train (later we would realize we were on the wrong train entirely) we found some free spots and made the trip back to Tangier in good time.
After all the travel is was strait to sleep when we got home.
Since the only thing I really want out of life is to sit quietly in the morning and read the Wall Street Journal whilst having my coffee I was pretty excited about our rooftop set up. I woke up early and made some of the tea that I’d bought the evening before and headed up to the roof. I was totally blown away by our view of the sunrise. Sitting on our roof watching the sun come up after a night in a soft bed with fresh sheets was a transformative experience. We are in our fifth month of travel now and Morocco (Rabat more specifically) has really been taking a toll on everyone. Suddenly, though, I was feeling much better about everything. Apparently Stacey felt the same way because when she joined me a while later it took us about two minutes to decide that we would be extending our weekend getaway to Tangier through the next week.
Now the most important thing was finding breakfast. On our walk the day prior we had spotted a really cool looking rooftop patio belonging to Salon Bleu so we walked over there hoping to get breakfast. Despite the information we had indicating that this should have been possible they weren’t open. …a frequent problem in Morocco, and in the rest of the world actually I’ve discovered. For want of better options nearby we made our way back to the Morocco Club and discovered they had a nice outdoor cafe that they do lunch out of so we had a simple breakfast there.
Now that we had so much more time to see things around Tangier we weren’t feeling rushed at all so we decided to go back home to rest for a bit. This led to an obligatory viewing of Casablanca, being as we’re in Morocco and all. Our new buddy Karim had put together an excursion for us in the evening out to the coast.
The first stop was Cap Spartel which is the lighthouse that marks where the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea meet. This is where having Karim really paid off as he knew the lighthouse keeper so was able to get him to unlock the gates and let us actually go into area where the lighthouse was while everyone else had to stay back several hundred yards.
After this we drove further down the coast to the Hercules Caves which are famous coastal caves that are actually in the shape of Africa when you look out from them. We had some snacks at a nearby cafe while waiting for sunset so we could get some photos. In the moment we had the brilliant idea to shoot a time lapse of the sunset which made for a stressful 20 minutes making sure the camera didn’t get disrupted by all the tourists hustling around but it came out great.
On the way home Karim and our driver were good enough to point out what is one of the only liqour stores in Tangier and we stopped in there to stock up on wine. The place was hilariously bustling and just getting in and out intact was a major achievement in my book. Then it was back home to have our wine on top of our awesome rooftop.
Early start to head out to Tangier today. The Uber equivalent in Casablanca and Rabat is a service called Careem. They set up in Rabat just for our sake so they’re just starting out but I really like them. They have a handy feature where you can schedule rides for in the future. Knowing I’d be getting an early start today I had scheduled a pick up the night before.
I whipped out my phone to check my drivers progress. He was heading my way still but hadn’t quite arrived. That’s forgivable, I suppose. I check a few minutes later and he still hasn’t moved. Hmm. Another few minutes later and his icon starts moving, ah he must have just not had reception. Oh wait… he’s moving the wrong way. Well I don’t always know the street layout. Maybe something is one-way or closed. Another few minutes he pops up again, even further away! …wait a second. He keeps popping up at the tram stops. He’s on the tram! He’s not even in his car! He’s just on his way out of town! I’m forced to cancel the ride and hail someone on the spot. Luckily, there’s another driver not to far away so it’s not much of a set back.
Swing by my friends place and pick her up and then make it to the train station in good time so we sit at Cafe Segafredo and have several coffees waiting for our train. After almost boarding the wrong train we befriend a Dutch guy who is also traveling around Morocco and on his way to Tangier and he graciously points out to us the correct train.
After an uneventful, but eye-opening ride across the Moroccan countryside we arrive in Tangier only about… 90 minutes late. Not too bad I suppose on Morocco time. There’s no Careem in Tangier and our AirBNB is about a 20 minute drive from the train station. As we walk out I’m mentally preparing myself to negotiate with the swarm of anxious cab drivers. The first guy asks for 100 dirham which to me is shockingly low. (I’d later learn 50 is a more appropriate rate for this drive) I’m totally thrown off and after exchanging surprised looks with my travel companion we jump in and take off.
We are staying in the Kasbah and meet the caretaker for the property outside of El Morocco Club, the local bar and jazz joint. He’s accompanied by a guy named Karim (as distinct from the car service) who appears to be some sort of small time hustler who really keeps things moving in the Kasbah and appears to make his living acting as an informal “go-to guy” for all the Western tourists. Having seen this game before I’m immediately pretty wary of this guy. But they take us over to our place and show us around and get us settled in.
The AirBNB we have is an awesome four bedroom place spread over four floors with a gorgeous rooftop, from which you could see all the way to Spain. Pieces of the Bourne Ultimatum were filmed in our alley and our immediate neighbors include(d) Steve Forbes and Matisse. Not too shabby.
After working for a short bit we decide it’s time for lunch and attempt to head over to El Morocco Club as it’s the only place we’re familiar with at this point and it’s right at the end of our little alley. We’re immediately pounced on by our buddy Karim who is full of inquiries about what we want to do. We try and demur for the moment and tell him that we’re just trying to have lunch at the Morocco Club but he tells us it’s closed for lunch. A claim I view with skepticism at first but closer inspection bears him out on this. He has recommendations (of course!) and we having no better alternatives follow them. So he summons one of his lieutenants to walk us down through the Kasbah to what is surely one of his buddies restaurants.
I’ve no club what the place was called but it wasn’t bad. They had no menu really and just proceeded to bring us a three course Moroccan meal with was pretty good but also way more food than I was banking on. Turns out the owner of the joint has a friend who works at a Moroccan restaurant in Denver. My time in Istanbul taught me that every person who wants something from you has a brother, sister, uncle or best friend who lives in Denver so I view this claim with suspicion but he seems to have the right amount of detail…
Our new guide, Mohammed, is very keen to show us around the Kasbah (for a tip no doubt) and says he’ll meet us back at the restaurant in an hour to show us around. I’m initially not super keen on walking around this maze and being hustled by these guys but we don’t have other plans at the moment so… what the hell.
He turns up at the end of lunch and we head out. Fairly quickly I’m glad that we decided to tag along with him. He walks us around to some of the major spots throughout the Kasbah, tells us about how the neighborhood is organized and points out all of the movies that were filmed right here. In addition to the Bourne Ultimatum, Spectre and Inception were also filmed right around the corner from us. As these things tend to, the end of our walking around included some visits to his buddies shops so they could try and sell us some things. I did buy some tea so I’d have something to drink in the morning as well as for the fun of negotiating with the spice merchant.
As he deposited us back at home I was glad that we had decided to walk around with him despite the sales pitch because it was really interesting.
In the evening we made attempt number three to go to El Morocco Club! This time we were actually successful. I really liked the place, the basement piano lounge was very well appointed. Slightly annoying was the fact that they had a DJ instead of piano but I think that was because it was a Friday night. We didn’t have a reservation so we got shooed out of our seats as the evening went on but after a day of travel and walking it was time for bed anyway.