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.
Category: Rabat
Day 143 | October 16
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.
Day 142 | October 15
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.
Day 141 | October 14
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.
Day 140 | October 13
Pretty standard Rabat day. Headed into 7AY to do some work. During the course of the day an impromptu side trip to Tangier popped up so I got a little distracted working on planning that for a departure the following day. Which meant heading over to the train station and having a labored multi-language conversation to try and buy train tickets in advance. Afterwards I popped into what I thought was a by the slice pizza place for dinner, Pizza n’ Pasta. Not exactly a quick bite but it was surprisingly good for just being a little store front.
Day 139 | October 12
A typically low key Rabat day. Just headed over to 7AY to work but was driven off my haunt on the roof by the rain. Got distracted with some side projects so I wasn’t even that productive with my real work either. But we did cap off the day with some birthday celebrating here at 7AY in the evening.
Day 138 | October 11
Pretty unproductive day today as well. Went over to 7AY and worked there all day. In the evening I went over to Le Bistro du Pietri which is the restaurant/bar in the Pietri Hotel here. This turned out to be a rather cool place with live music, good food, reasonable prices and at one point an improv show… I think. It was in french obviously so I just had to pretend like I was following what was happening.
Day 137 | October 10
Pretty simple update today; I did nothing. Went to 7AY attempted to work but mostly just succeeded in procrastinating all day.
Day 136 | October 9
Casablanca is just a short train ride down the coast from Rabat so I thought I’d head down there for the day and check things out. I turned up without much of a plan but it didn’t take long to discover that there is an actual Rick’s Cafe in Casablanca.
Turns out a former American diplomat set the place up and designed it after the one in the movie Casablanca. So important to note, the Cafe is based on the movie not the other way around. Judging by the busloads of tourists unloading outside I have to say that this could be one of the best business decisions anyone has ever made. Set that aside, though, and Rick’s has actually become a real version of the thing that it started out imitating.
When thinking about traveling I always have this stereotypical image in my mind of these bars where all the ex-pats hang out and reminisce about home. Generally speaking, I’ve not encountered that anywhere but being such a tourist draw has made Rick’s that kind of place. It was fun sitting at the bar talking to the folks around me who had come from just about every point on the globe.
Moving on from there I just strolled around the rest of the town, down over to the Parc de La Ligue Arabe and on. I tried to go have dinner at the Four Seasons but turns out I was too early so I had to settle for just having some drinks out on their great patio.
As a backup I went up the road to Le Cabestan for dinner. This place has an incredible view of the ocean as well as good food. It’s expensive, even by American standards. It is nicely decorated but it also has exactly the feel that you’d expect from a place that still describes itself as a “social club” un-ironically.
Day 135 | October 8
I set out in the morning to try and get another one of the excellent brunches that I had at TyPotes the first day I was in Rabat. For some reason I literally cannot figure out what this place’s hours are, though! Naturally, they were closed when I arrived so I missed out on that. I walked to nearby Pietri Palace which is one of several cafes in kind of a sunken down amphitheater like area that’s rather nice. Not nearly as good as TyPotes but it was decent food and the setting is good. I headed over to 7AY to finish some actual work as well as do some side trip planning for both Morocco and Spain. In the evening I had dinner at Sa Caleta which is a tapas place. It was good but not nearly as good as the online reviews suggested so I was a little disappointed.