FES

 Our GAdventures group consists of 1+2) a couple from Cork area of Ireland; he a dairy farmer; she a retired nurse.

3+4) a youngish couple from the US; he a pilot for United Airlines and she a nurse

5) a 73 year old retired doctor from Canmore, Morocco is her 100th country. Today was her birthday

6) Ahmed, middle aged Yemini living in the US (Muslim)

7) a youngish senior lady from the US

8) a youngish senior lady from Ottawa-Hull area

9) a young lady from Switzerland

Our guide is a Moroccan named Mohammed. He is also Muslim so he and Ahmed excuse themselves to pray 

Today we met the remainder of our group and headed out

We went up the highway towards Rabat before turning inland.

The countryside is beautiful and we were informed that during the spring and summer it is very green

Our first stop was the well preserved Roman city of Volubilis. At it’s height it was on the border of the southern most area of the Roman empire and was there for protecting the Roman interests.

It was 33 degrees today and we had an hour long tour of the city.Certainly fascinating and I really enjoyed it.  An interesting thing to learn was that in the movie Patton this site was used to represent ancient Carthage. Our tour guide showed me the clips from the movie, and “yup” it was filmed there!

Our next stop was a very delayed lunch at a GAdventures supported charity (same as the Balkans trip).We had a very tasty meal followed by a tea ceremony (of sorts) and a Q+A about the culture in Morocco regarding women and their roles.

Afterwards we headed into the city of Fes at which point the decision was made by the group to Not go to the optional supper/show. This activity will probably be available tomorrow night. In the mean time as we were checking in to our hotel they offered a Moroccan massage exfoliation scrub called a Hammam. Quite a few of the group (including Caro) signed up for it. Cash only! And as I had just paid our mandatory tips bill (cash) to Mohammed I took the opportunity to go to a cash machine with a few others. The lady from Canmore was unable to get cash from her debit or visa credit card however I was able to get another $150 bucks for future use with my EQ card.

We decided as a group to take it easy tonight which is a real bonus as the internet is slow and it took ‘forever” to load the photos to the blog

Rabat

 After another terrible night of sleep we dragged ourselves out of bed about 6:30 to start our day.

After breakfast we headed out to an ATM to get money from my EQ Mastercard, only to be informed I had reached a daily amount limit already and couldn’t get anything (must be on a revolving 24 hour cycle- not a calendar day). While at the ATM I tried both the ATB credit card and ATB debit card-but got nothing! (At least this time my ATB debit card on-line showed  a reversal of the withdrawal, unlike yesterday)

At 9 AM Rashid showed up for our trip to Rabat, at which point he informed us that the fellow in the car was not his father (like he told us yesterday it would be) but a friend of his father’s, and not only that, he, Rashid was not coming with us like he stated he would be. That threw me off a lot (feeling VERY uncomfortable about the situation) and we had to make a quick decision if it was safe to go or not. We decided to go for it!

The hour long drive went smoothly and we got to Morocco’s capital city Rabat shortly after 10 AM. Abdul took us first to an archeological site within the city called Sala. It was extremely beautiful!

We spent a bit of time in there before heading back out to Abdul and his car. 

He took us through the city, which is amazing; so green and clean. Of course the king lives there and it is the capital so it is well kept up.

As I look back at the photos on my cell I realize that I never took that many. We stopped at a couple of spots including one overlooking the river joining the sea. There were lots of people on the beaches, lots of boats on the river and it really was nice.

As I write this it is 5 PM and I can hear the “call to prayer” from the nearby mosque. It happens five times a day however it doesn’t bother me, in fact Caro wants to see a mosque and people arriving for prayer at some point on the trip. Interestingly as we were driving earlier in the day Abdul’s phone (which “chirped”every time there was a speed camera or a police stop and otherwise was silent), suddenly started blaring out a call to prayer. I saw Abdul make a few motions with his hands as he drove us. Interesting!

One other observation we have made is seeing the large number of cats on the streets and virtually no dogs. Very different from other places we have been.

We decided not to get a tour of the Royal Palace and with that we were finished with the city sites. Because we had plenty of time to get back, Abdul drove us via the coastal highway which has a 60 km/hr speed limit but allowed us to see many kilometres of the wild coast line (with occasional beaches). There were beautiful house on the way, especially on the Rabat side (rich politicians I guess). Closer to  Casablanca there were many apartment buildings and honestly the construction going on in the area was significant.

Incidentally even though Rashid had told us that Abdul spoke English we reverted to using Google Translate into Arabic so we could communicate efficiently. We have certainly found this app to be important as we travel around to various countries.

Upon return to “home” we headed down the street to a money exchange hole in the wall where we exchanged all our Canadian dollars for Dirham ($135 Canadian).

Tonight we met up with our group for orientation and information.There are 11 of us in total and 7 were at the meeting. Afterward we walked quite a bit a ways to a nice restaurant and started talking to our fellow travellers.,

After the meal I was able to get some money off my EQ credit card  YES!!!!

Casablanca tour day

 Last night we couldn’t keep our eyes open after 6:30. It would have helped if there was something to do outside on the street but there was nothing happening so we were in the room.

I crashed immediately and was lights out! I woke up feeling very refreshed thinking it was about 6 AM but nope, 9:15 PM the same night LOL Both of us slept in small time segments the remainder of the night, getting up about 6:30 AM. Other than a short nap today we are doing fine.

I checked my ATB account and saw that two of the multiple withdrawals we attempted to do yesterday had not refunded money from the failed attempts. I think it was the second bank. Anyway, if there is no resolution to this we will be out over $500. I have e-mailed ATB but have not heard anything yet. Fingers crossed.

We went back out to a different ATM and this time I used my EQ bank preloaded credit card and easily withdrew $300. Big sense of relief for me!

I wanted to try Uber on my phone as I am not familiar with it but Caro is, so she showed me the ropes. We put in our request for a ride and were informed automatically that one was five minutes away. Twenty five minutes later we cancelled our supposed ride and as it turned out there was a taxi driver nearby so we got a ride with him towards the Hassan 2 Mosque (the number one “Must see” in Casablanca).

Anyway the driver talked us in to him giving us a tour of the city, stopping off at various locations for us to get out and look around. It was worth it.

The main thing to see of course was the third biggest mosque in the world with the world’s tallest minaret.

We just barely made it to the noon tour but we did and it was really worth it. The mosque is relatively new (about 40 years I think) and inside it is spectacular, full of craftmen’s handiwork. The photos below do not do it justice.

Next photo is an outdoor selfie at the mosque

Afterwards we stopped at a few more places seeing the best the city had to offer and honestly I am glad we did as there are some pretty areas that we would have missed if not for “our guy” Rashid!

Before saying good-bye we made a deal with Rashid to pick us up tomorrow morning and drive us about an hour north of Casablanca to the capital city called Rabat which is supposed to be beautiful.Rashid and his father are picking us up at 9 AM and will have us back by 3 PM. We could have taken the high speed train but honestly the door to door pickup and personalized tour of Rabat will be worth the extra cost.

Supper tonight was a very busy sandwich type outdoor/indoor place. Caro had a delicious bunwich with veal, tomato’s, onions,olives and a side of fries. Mine was a Moroccan pizza. It was yummy too. This food was so much more flavourful as compared to yesterday’s.

All in all, a much better day than yesterday.

Casablanca

 We were dropped off at our hotel by about 9 AM and (very) fortunately for us it was relatively cheap to buy a half day at the hotel which we did without too much thought. Our original check-in time was 3PM and I am pretty sure we would have really suffered if we hadn’t purchased the half day upon arrival. We have also booked two extra nights before our tour starts here on Thursday night (so a total of 3 nights in the hotel)

After staying in our room a bit we headed out to get money from a bank (using my debit card). Two different banks machines and multiple attempts later we were locked out by ATB (I assume) and will try again tomorrow. We have some cash in Canadian dollars, US dollars and Euro’s so we won’t be in trouble yet if my card refuses to work here. We ran back to the room, picked up $100 Canadian in bills and went to a currency exchange location nearby to get Moroccan dirhams. Mission accomplished.

Caro had noticed a Moroccan sidewalk restaurant right by the hotel so we went there for a meal

We  ordered a mixed meat plate to get an idea of local cuisine. It was too much for us to eat and much of it was wasted.

We went on several walks around the neighbourhood, stopped back in at the hotel for a rest (nap!), had a couple of pops at the hotel lounge and generally just tried to keep moving to keep us a awake. Unfortunately there is not much of interest to see and I as I write this it is only 5:15 PM and we are just hanging on, waiting enough time so that when we go to sleep we get a  good long stretch of shut eye before tomorrow (even if we do wake up at 3)

It was 31 degrees today. On the upcoming weekend we are in the city of Fes where it was 37 today! Yikes

One great thing about our room is that the air conditioning works!

This is a Muslim country and there is a mosque nearby so we have heard “the call to prays” a number of times today.

Going to Africa!

 On our way to Casablanca

Lisa took us to the airport (Thanks Lisa)

As it was Labour Day Monday the airport was pretty empty and we were through security in no time. 

Our flight to Montreal was on a new Airbus 220. It was quite small for overhead bins but awesome for the entertainment centre. I watched a movie called Pressure while Caro watched a Tom Hanks western movie 

Montreal airport was pretty crazy with (I believe) all the long weekend travellers heading home. 

We went to the lounge.  We had lots of trouble getting our free lounge pass to activate however eventually we were in. I am happy we didn’t have to pay anything because the lounge was really not good. It had a very limited food selection. It was nice to have a rum and coke though!

Our over-night flight left about 20 minutes late and was an old Airbus330-300. The entertainment system was actually terrible and I didn’t see too many people using it. 

Even though I was not hungry I decided to get the Air Canada in flight meal ( Caro did not). This was a mistake on my part as I ended up wasting the vast majority of the meal as I just didn’t like it. ( wasn’t hungry enough to want to eat it)

We arrived in Casablanca on time and really had no problems with immigration (as we had previously told to expect).We were out the door in about 30ish minutes and quickly found our pre-paid pick up driver who drove the one hour trip through rush hour traffic to our hotel/

Home again on the 13th

We left Valemount before 8 after a breakfast at A+W. 

The drive home was routine. We drove through Jasper townsite to see how the rebuild is going and were impressed with what we saw. 

Caro drove from Hinton home. We stopped in Edson and had lunch with Glen at BP. 

All in all, a great trip 

Left Vancouver

We had a room in Surrey last night which we got into about 9 PM

The room was good enough and we were out the door about 7:30 AM for a breakfast at a nearby McDonald’s. 

By about 8 AM we started making our way through the city taking a southern route to avoid the construction on Highway 1 in the Langley area. 

We had lunch at a Popeye’s in Kamloops ( great chicken burgers). The smoke from the forest fires wasn’t bad and we were not delayed at any point.  

Heading north from Kamloops we hit stop and go constructions zones quite a few times. At Barriere I saw a slow speed car crash when I glanced up in my mirror. It was a fender bender and was the result of a frustrated driver getting tired of going 2 mph for “ages” ( it was a “very” backed up road at this point) and trying to turn back the way we came. He/She didn’t realize a truck had moved into the spot he/she had just vacated when he turned into the unfortunate one who had been right behind him in line. Oops!!!!!

We debated back and forth for quite a while about going home tonight but in the end decided it was still too far and we had been driving/ eating etc for eight hours already. 

We got to Valemount and lucked out getting the last room at the Days Inn ( which only available because of a cancellation-lucky break for us!)

The hotel has a pool so Caro will be enjoying the hot tub tonight ( I didn’t bring swimming trunks this trip)