Chellah

Day 46
We managed to find a cute café close to our hotel where I could finally get some mint tea and yummy pastries.

The main reason we had picked Rabat and not Casablanca was to visit Chellah. This was where humans first lived in Rabat. There are the ruins of a mosque as well as some Roman ruins. The entrance gate was quite impressive. Right when we were arriving a tour bus was also pulling up. A guy who had been resting came out in traditional Moroccan clothing and started banging on a drum. When the package tourist walked by he held out his hat for money.

The gardens were wild, but they were beautiful. I´ve started to enjoy taking pictures of flowers and had a field day here. On the way down to the ruined mosque thousands of birds sat in the trees. Some of them seemed to be fighting.

Al and I climbed around the mosque and took loads of pictures. Our guidebook had told us that there would be a pond full of eels. We found the pond, but it had been drained the bottom was filled with mud. I wonder what happened to the eels.

The Roman ruins weren’t much, but we could make out what had been houses and walls and bits of street. It looked a little like Jeresh in Jordan, but in a much more advanced state of decay.

As we wandered the mile or so back to Rabat we passed the Royal Palace. It was funny to think that we had just seen the king two days before.

After lunch and some questionable oj, we decided to head back to the souk. Al wanted to try and get a patch from Morocco. Unfortunately we didn’t have any luck.

After some time on the internet and booking some hostels in Spain we decided to try again for a movie in English. The guy at reception suggested that we go one town over, to a place called Sale. We asked if there would be shops and something like a mall. He said yes.

The place he had recommended was not a mall, it was a resort hotel. We found out quickly that the cinema had closed. There was a dance club on site and Al thought from the neon girls dancing on the front that it must be a strip club. He asked the security guy by asking “girls dance” and pretending to pull up his shirt. The guy laughed and blushed saying no.

We ended up having some decent pizza at one of the hotels restaurants and playing a few rounds of poop before heading back to Rabat.