As an islander, I am used to the constant presence of the ocean. It’s always there, creating a breeze, making white noise, just being a force that I’m used to. I’ve never lived very far away from a large body of water, so being in a landlocked town has been mildly wearing for the past two weeks. Therefore, this past weekend I made the decision to go on a quest to find the ocean.
Friday afternoons are normally the time when all the international students start scheming for where they will go for the weekend. Most of the time groups will congrigate outside of the cafeteria based on city of destination. You can either latch onto one of these groups or start your own, the latter of which I chose to do. Most of the kids were going to Tetouan, but I wanted to head out to Rabat (a city i’ve already visited, three years ago on my last international adventure). I recruited three guys to go with me, two were the same as last weekend, and one new guy (a hilarious Italian fellow). It’s generally a good idea, if you want to travel in a group, to only be with 2-3 people. Otherwise getting taxis are a pain (petite taxis can only take 3 people at a time), and god knows getting liberal arts students to go in the same direction in an organized fashion is like herding cats.
So we headed out at about 4pm to wander down to Ifrane and grab a grand taxi to Meknes, a medium-sized city nearby that’s on the train route to Rabat. The grand taxi cost about 50D’s (dirhams) each, the equivalent of about 6$ CND; This was for a close to hour-long drive. Then in Meknes, the train tickets were about 60D’s; needless to say, travel in Morocco is rather affordable. In the station we bumped into a fellow Akhawayn student, who has an apartment in Rabat. He offered to find something fun to do later in the city, but we couldn’t sit with him on the train because we bought second-class tickets and he had first-class.
We arrived in Rabat around 9pm, and walked down to the old medina. It was so strange finally revisiting a city that I had been in when I was backpacking at 18, it’s like having flashbacks. But, it was handy as I kind of knew my way around already. Anyway, in the medina we found ourselves a roach motel to stay in (50D’s each) and went out for some Tagine. Right now it’s Ramadan, so it can be very difficult to find food as a traveller except in the most touristic of places.
After food, we met up again with Bima (the student) to go over to his place. We stayed up late and ended up crashing on his couch (didn’t even need a hotel!), and had breakfast at a nearby McD’s (the most expensive and nasty meal I’ve had yet in Morocco). They have these things called McArabia, a burger patty wrapped in a piece of flatbread… very strange.
So, the point of this trip: to find the Ocean! We caught a grand taxi to Temara Plage, a gorgeous beach south of the city, and vegged out for the rest of the day. There were quite a few surfers and bodyboarder there, two hobbies I would really like to pick up whilst in this country. I realize that I really do miss the geography of BC, the ever-present mountains and ocean, two forces of nature that are just a comforting presence in my life. Not being able to go to the beach on a weekend (without alot of planning) is really rather annoying.
After the beach we met up with a friend of Michele (the Italian) and went to her families house for F’Tor, the Islamic breaking of the Ramadan fast which takes place around 7pm each day. It was amazing, there are several courses of sweet and salty foods, and I was stuffed by the end of it. They were so nice and welcoming, her father didn’t speak very much English, but we tried to get by with the little french and Arabic that we all knew. Then afterwards, they took us on a driven tour of the city to see the mausoleum and Hassan tower! A thoroughly lovely experience.
Next day was also spent on the beach, not much to say about that. This time it was at Mohammedia, a beachy resort town that was pretty much closed up for Ramadan. I have a feeling it will be alot more fun after Ramadan is over.
My suggestions for future students: Make lots of Moroccan friends, it’s way better to see a city from the eyes of a local.
