Kat & Ben's World Adventure

From where we left Fez, we went from the bus station that catered for the CTM style buses which means new and air-conditioned and a bit more expensive than the beat up local buses. It only took us three hours to get to Rabat's Gare Routier (bus station), where we arrived not knowing where we were and with no money on us. This was becoming a recurring trend for us, which we really had to avoid for the next time we traveled as it was difficult to explain to a taxi driver where we wanted to go (an Auberge De Jeune recommended to us) via a bank and not get ripped off in the process. We got around his original quote of 50dirhams by demanding that he put the meter on, which is something they conveniently turn off and say is broken. It only turned out to be 18dirhams and we were happy to have found the place that was just outside the medina wall and down the road from the city centre.

The hostel was the same price as Fez but there were no private rooms, just male and female dorms (Kat had discover bed bugs in one of the beds she slept in so wasn’t too taken with the place at first). We ended up staying in Rabat for about a week in total and did so much in the time we were there, including having a little haircut session one day that consisted of Kat going crazy with the scissors and not only cutting all of her hair off

, took the blades to Ben’s bushy beard

We met Oli at the hostel and instantly became friends on the first day; there he took us to an English bookshop that he found where we brought a Rough Guide book for Africa for 135Dirhams. On the way back from the bookshop some little boy struck Kat’s arm with his fist for no reason whatsoever, in shock she just turned round and stared at the little shit whom was walking with his parents who knew what he’d done yet didn’t do anything in response except look at Kat’s gawping stare.

At the hostel we also met a man called Fabien. The crazy Frenchman took a little longer as at first we thought he was constantly drunk and the language was a barrier, but that didn't last long as we discovered he just looked squiffy in the mornings and the reason for lying down a lot was because of his bad back.

The touristy site-seeing we did in Rabat was visit the Royal Palace which was a mission to get to and although was free to enter, we had to go through a police check-point where they photocopied our passports. The palace was built in 1864 and has a glazed green tiled roof; we have found that most of the royal buildings have the green roofs, which we discovered in Fez is the colour of royalty. We sat down in the grounds for a while taking it all in and snapping away at the grand entrance of the palace.

On one of our walks around the riverside of the medina we were both attacked by henna ladies, Kat having her name and flowers doodels all over her left hand and up her arm and Ben having a manly scorpion (not by his choice), his name and for some reason a love heart on his arm. Despite our protests and saying we really didn't have much money on us, the two women having finished their speedily doodling asked or rather, demanded 100dirhams.

Even though they had said previously 'any price you like' and the fact that Ben didn't want a henna we gave them 20d as it was all that we had. They then wanted 20each or Euros to the value at which point Ben was getting agitated and said sternly no and pulled Kat away and started to walk off with them shouting in the background. The second set of henna ladies we came across in Rabat were a few days later and again we firmly said we didn't want one and had no money, but for some reason Kat's arm was tugged from her socket and saying it was a gift from them as they hennaed her name in Arabic up her arm. Ben again was offered the scorpion but almost ran away in protest. Afterwards yet again they demanded money and we said we thought it was free as it was a gift and we walked away.

Being at the hostel for a week we got to know the staff pretty well. We frequently shared our food with them and they loved the fresh melons we kept buying, one of their friends shared his red wine with us one evening which was a real treat. The wine gave us an idea for a wine and cheese night, which ended up to be just Brie in Flat breads and olives from the market for lunch one day; it was so really scrummy and the Brie was quite expensive but worth every penny. As we got to know the staff we thought we could trust them all until the moody breakfast lady asked to borrow our sun cream. We thought this was a little odd, but being English and naive we lent it to her. Rather than putting some on her face there and then, she took the bottle away with her and we heard in the distance of what sounded like the women transferring our sun cream into another bottle. Kat went of into the female toilets to investigate, but didn’t see anything as the moody cow went from the toilets to the reception. Ben got frustrated and went to the reception to ask for the sun cream back and catching her in the act with sun cream all over her hands and clothes, the woman got angry and held the sun cream to her chest in which Ben just snatched it back from her saying NO! loudly.

After the sun cream instant Ben stopped saying thank you to her for breakfast and her moody attitude didn’t alter, so we weren’t expecting an apology from her. We all thought her attitude was quite humorous in the end, especially when Kat, Oli and Fabien got their own back and helped themselves to extra coffee one morning which they had to deny like naughty children when she questioned them about entering her kitchen. She really wasn’t happy as it meant she had to make more coffee for some of the other guests who arrived later.

The other site-seeing thing we did in Rabat was walk to Tour Hassan that is a huge Kasbah where next to it lays the ruin of the second largest mosque in the Islamic world. The mosque was originally commissioned by the founder of Rabat, Abou Youssef Yaacoub el-Mansour, at the end of the 12th Century and had died 4 years after the building had begun and when the work was stopped it gradually fell into ruin, which was accelerated by a major earthquake in 1755.

Next to the ruined Mosque stands the Mausoleum of Mohammed V. where we wondered round trying to escape out of the sun whilst taking lots of the pictures of the Tour building.

Oli had heard that Morocco were playing Togo in a football match at the Rabat stadium which wasn't far away and tickets were bound to be cheap so we went along for the outing with him and Fabien. On arrival at the grounds there seemed to be a lot of army and police personnel who all mentioned to us to be extra careful with our bags and there were a lot of pickpockets. Due to Oli’s good, but broken French, he had managed to get the times mixed up and we had arrived 4 hours early. The tickets cost 30Dirhams (3Pounds), we started to get a bit peckish and Oli, along with Hamed (a Moroccan man from Casablanca who we met outside the stadiums grounds, and thought Ben looked like Brad Pitt which gave us all a laugh), went to a shop nearby to get supplies.

Hamed was a kind man and helped us a lot as it appeared he is a regular at the big football matches and he showed us the best and safest places to sit (up high and in the shade wherever possible). At this point just before the match started Emma had called us and Ben got to speak with Heather who told us that she had been in the local newspaper; Ben couldn’t hear very well because the boys were all cheering and shouting in the background in excitement and wanting to sound like the hooligans they are.

The match and atmosphere reminded Kat of the time when her and her sister (Georgina) took their dad to see a match one Father’s Day years ago to see Tottenham Hotspur play a friendly with Reading… Hamed sat with us and he was very passionate about his team, which was funny to watch when there was a near goal because he jumped up out of his seat screaming as if he'd sat on hot coals.

Fabien was cheering for the underdogs, Togo, and we stuck with Morocco (for they were the better players and we had to be loyal to the country we resided in).

After the football which ended in 0-0, Oli and Fabien went to an African music concert that same night which was on for 3days over the weekend, whilst we were pretty tired after the long day and shared a taxi back to the centre of Rabat with Hamed.

There were two music concerts on that weekend and we managed to get to both of them. The first was on the coast and was a French festival to celebrate the first day of summer and had a selection of local big bands, our favourite being a hip hop group called Fez City Clan

where one of the main rappers was a 13 year old boy - amazing. Whilst they were playing a group of guys next to us started to body pop and break dance to the music, which was really good and reminded of us of some of the nights out in Bristol. We have a few videos but have no idea if we can post them on here, we might try and put them on Facebook in the meantime.

The second concert was a variety of African music that ranged from acoustic guitars to loud yelping. We ate toasted corn on the cobs and homemade crisps that were sooo salty. Unfortunately we didn't stay that long at this one as we both had delicate stomachs and

we didn't enjoy some of the music as much as we had on the other night, however it was very different and on one of the performances, the dancing was crazy.

The women were going nuts on stage, scantily clad and thrusting parts of their body all over the shop. It gave us the impression that the women in Africa are much more sexually liberated then the ones we saw in Morocco, which was quite refreshing really,

From the moment we became friends with Fabien, he quickly became a legend in the boy's eyes as the 42yr old man seemed to have a girl in every port so to speak. He was visiting one of his girlfriends, Sana who lives in Sale, whilst he was in Morocco. She's from a traditional Muslim family so her relationship with him was a secret. It was lovely to get to know her in the little time we spent with her as she seemed so friendly and loved Fabien to pieces. One night the 4 of us went out for a very rare beer and stumbled through a broken French and English conversation which was good fun. It is illegal to drink in public outside an establishment here so we were sat amongst the prostitutes, dodgy police officers and other punters. It was because of this, photos inside the place were strictly a no no. We drank 2 types of beer, we can't remember the first it was that good but the second was called 'special' which was 5.5%, cost 15d a bottle and what everyone in the bar was drinking. We were a little merry after the 2 rounds and had to go back to the hostel that night and cook for 8 people. Oli’s friend Matt arrived that day for the festival in Essouara along with 2 new guys who they got speaking to, Kory the Canadian and Eddie the American who had grown up in Kenya. Both were traveling through to Senegal and like ourselves needed to get the Mauritania visa from Rabat.

Getting our first visas was like taking an exam that you hadn’t revised for. We didn’t complete the form fully because it was all in French and our French is pretty bad; Oli helped us a little but we didn’t want to lean on him too much as we saw he was struggling as well. We paid 680d for the two and had to wait till the following day to find out the result, worried that we would be rejected and wondered if that was the case would we get our money back… Luckily we passed first time and got the 30day transit visa for Mauritania.

Whilst in Rabat we also went to get a Nigerian visa, but after walking an hour there the receptionist said they only issue visas for Moroccan residents. On the way back we stopped at an authentic Italian restaurant which to Ben’s surprise sold Calzone that he regretted a little later after he wolfed it all down. We had olives and bread to start which meant the main was a little struggle even though Ben ate all of his and some of Kat’s; we took 3 slices with us and being all pizzed out gave them some homeless men sat in the shade near the Medina.

On the last day in Rabat we went to a huge beach near Sale in the early morning that Fabien had found earlier in the week; it was about 45mins away on the bus so Oli, Fabien, Kory, Matt and ourselves boarded the bus and headed to the coast where Sana would meet us. On the bus we got chatting to a Moroccan who was a Nuclear scientist at the Rabat research facility and was so passionate about his work, he got brochures out and started explaining to us about the machinery he works with and the intricate details of his profession. He offered to show us around his work but we had to decline as we wouldn’t be in the area much longer. We imagine it would have been interesting, but it was way over our heads.

We had to walk a fair way to the beach which was busy and full of people asking us if we wanted to buy things, we were asked 8 times to see if we wanted parasols in the 100yards walk from the start of the beach to the sea! Fabien had mentioned it was a swimming beach, but the sea had a really strong undercurrent and had waves you could easily surf on (if we could surf). We did little sun bathing as it was hot and took it in turns to look after the bags whilst we swam.

It was there where we said our goodbyes to Fabien and Sana before returning to the Mauritanian embassy to collect our visas and then said goodbye to Oli, Kory and Matt once we had exchanged contact addresses etc. The two of us returned to the hostel to collect bags and with a little help from the woman in charge, we got on the right bus towards the gare routerier for our onward travel to Marrakech.

We arrived here after a 5 and a half hour bus ride through the atlas mountain region on such windy roads Kat was feeling really sick.

It didn't help that someone was sick inside the bus or when an old man got on the bus and started perving on Kat. So much so that even after her telling him off and putting a wrap over her she still had to move to other seat. God help him if he followed or she'd have definitely lost it like she did when we eventually got off the bus in the sleepy town and the pervert tried approaching her to which she just shouted 'Balack!' at him in Arabic to move out the way. Things didn't cheer up when we realised we had no money and no idea where we were. We headed for a western union shop that changes money to get directions to a bank and the centre.
Before we'd set foot in the door we were approached by a tall man who was trying to get us to stay in his 'hotel' and he'd take us in his 4x4. We're sure he was telling the truth but it was too risky and the guy was way too pushy so we got his hotel details and managed to luckily get rid of him. The kind Moroccan in the shop was really helpful and gave us the directions.

The bank didn't turn out to be that far away and a hotel was right next door. Kat had been saying how much she'd love to stay somewhere with a pool. This place turned out to be amazing. It’s called la gazelle hotel and was ironically in our ancient guide book so it’s been in business for a while.

We splashed out. The standard room with double and single bed with bathroom is 159dh and for the added luxury of air con was 200dh, we paid the extra 4euro's. Not only was there hot water, they had a pool and restaurant on the premises. We didn't eat there but made full use of the pool and hot water in the 3 days we were there.

After dumping our bags and had a splash around in the pool, Ben scaring the kids in his Speedos, we got ready to have a walk around the small town and find a place to eat. One place we looked in a guy stopped us and said he'd seen us at Marrakesh bus station that morning. He had come in a car and I asked why he didn't give us a lift. He seemed friendly though and told us of the places we should visit whilst in town.

The next day we headed out to do just that and started walking to the Kasbah. The map the hotel gave us was dated and not to scale so it seemed a lot further, especially as we kept being stopped by people along the way. One guy showed us in his shop and we were just sat talking to him as he showed us the shop items he gets from the desert to sell, we were interrupted as Kat’s mum called. We apologised and left. It was a great catch up and it made Kat sad to hear her mum say she missed her. After being cut off by sim 4 travel that change tariffs without informing their customers thus us being charged for the call and running out of credit, we continued walking only to be stopped again about 20yards up the road. The man's name was Abdul and besides running a shop and 4x4 and camel excursions to the desert, he told us that his family appeared in the BBC Michael Palin documentary about around the world in 80 days. Finally saying goodbye and getting his business card we headed further down the road, this time getting not much further when we were stopped for a third time! This time however the man asked if Kat would write a letter for him. We went into his tiny shop and he dictated whilst she wrote. His name was Mohammed and as a thank you he made us nana tea which is a sugary tea with mint leaves in, the tea is poured from a great height 3 times before serving to give it lots of air adding to the taste. We got talking and he invited us to one of his sister's weddings that were taking place in 2weeks in the desert. We had to decline due to getting to Mauritania before our transit visa expired, but were touched by the offer. It was when we were talking about life in the desert did we find out that the sister getting hitched was only 12years old! Kat's still in shock now just thinking about it.

After about an hour there we finally made it to the famous Kasbah, we think was an old historic fortress over looking the sea. We have to say think because we never made it in. Walking around the huge walls we were approached by a little girl who kept asking for money but then started making kissing noises and gesturing to Ben. Goodness knows what she meant but it made us speed up our walking until she got tired of following us.

Around the corner from the weird kissing girl we stumbled across 'le musee du cinema' Ben managed to persuade the ticket attendant that we were English students and that we left our student ID cards back home so we got in half price.

It's a really interesting walk around seeing all the old sets that had been used in religious films shot here and the many blockbusters filmed in the surrounding desert such as Gladiator, Sahara, The Hills Have Eyes, Lawrence of Arabia plus many more.

About halfway round the museum a security guard unlocked a room for us to look around. On entering the huge room we were amazed to see all the old film equipment from cameras to different lenses from all ages, set and sound equipment and reels of film hanging out of really strange and dated articles, we took a lot of pictures in the Aladdin’s cave.

After walking around for hours and feeling exhausted we stopped at the local cafe over the road for some Fanta lemon and a bite to eat before heading back into town on the bus.

Recovering from our long afternoon in the sun with a slash in the pool a quick shower and little snooze we headed back out to the first shop we had entered because our time was cut short from the phone call and that Kat had seen an amazing golden compass made from brass for reading the stars to navigate through the Sahara desert, we had a price in mind and said we wouldn't go over it. Unfortunately we had extremely underestimated how much the compass was worth but we drank green tea infused in elk and talked for ages it seemed about life and foods. Hassan invited us to eat lunch with him and his family the following day, to see how a tagine is prepared to which we accepted.

The next day after packing our sacks up with all the clean clothes we had managed to wash and dry in the hotel room during our stay we left our bags at reception as our bus was due to leave a 9pm we heading to Hassan’s shop for lunch with his family, while the tagine was slow cooking Hassan showed us around the shop and all the pretty things his family bring from a town in the desert called m'hamid. M'hamid is where the river has been Dammed and is the last town south with a river, it's apparently a very important and religious town. Getting back to the sparkleys, Kat had seen a bangle that was beautiful and also a pendant Ben could see this tagine costing more than the bread and biscuits we had brought as a thank you for him. Having not nearly enough for the compass 200 euro's, Kat fell in love with the bangle, it was a real shame that although it was really beautiful Ben had pointed out some major flaws in the practicality of it. It was rather thin and would have just bent out of shape really easy in our luggage and Hassan had accidentally broken it when sizing it to Kat’s wrists.

If ever we go back to Ouarzazate we will get one and maybe the compass. The pendant however Ben could find no faults and although Hassan wanted to sell both as a pair we settled for a price for the pendant alone, slightly higher than we wanted or should have paid but Ben felt a little guilty about the bracelet and said it would be part birthday present….

At this point lunch was served and we ate traditionally with just our hands and bread. It was a bull tagine and Kat shifted through and ate a little of the veg (did you know they don't eat the middle of the carrot in morocco) we spent ages and talked asked loads of questions and had been sung to with bongos by his younger cousin Mohamed, they told us how a few days ago they had met a Spanish boy with blue hair who was travelling the same way we were and they told us his story how he was in a wheelchair and travels around the world with no money. We thought they must have been mistaken when they said no money but we looked impressed and we think were starting to outstay our welcome.

One of the men said he would help us buy the tagine spices in the local market, we left the stall after saying our good byes and followed the man to the spices he was proud to show us them all and explained what most were and how the were used. We brought the head of shop spice which contains 45 different herbs and spices which are good for the heart, blood, and cancer amongst other things.

On our way back to collect our bags and to use the hotels toilet and courtyard to chill we past a westerner in a wheel chair with blue hair, Kat wasn't sure if it was the same boy Hassan had described but Ben pointed out how many blue haired wheel chair bound people could there be in Ouarzazate bearing in mind this is the only other westerner we had seen in the small town, so we approached him to say hello 'hablo anglais' and that Hassan said to pass on his regards if we saw him. After introducing ourselves, Albert explained how he has traveled the world from the age of 14 with no money and by showing card tricks to people for money to eat etc. We explained we were leaving to go to a place on the coast called tan-tan and he asked if he could join us. We think he thought we were driving, when we said the bus was 200dirhams each he said he would try to blag it some how 'buy two get one free' we arranged to meet up at 7pm which would give us 2hours to walk to the station and buy tickets.

Bad news the bus was full and we had been told the day before there was only one bus a day from Ouarzazate to Tan-Tan we found a place to sit and put our bags down. Not knowing what to do Ben went of to talk to the ticket touts, he found out there were two other busses one and 10.30 and one at 3am the bus at 10.30 had one change in Agadir and the 3am bus was direct. We didn't buy tickets because of Albert, we thought it best to ask the driver for the 3for2 deal, and we sat and waited in the depot for ages until the bus came. It was filling up quick as Kat and Albert went off to barter Albert free passage. by that time the bus was full, we decided as we couldn't miss the 3am bus to buy two tickets and try to get him on the last bus some how. After dinner Albert went to sleep under a tree and we watched his bag and played cards while we waited and waited. By 2.30 we were both really tired and the bus had started boarding Ben went to wake Albert, Kat stayed on bag duty. We spoke to the bus conductor and explained that we had only enough money for 2 tickets and that in the UK disabled people travel free of charge but this didn't work. Ben got on board to bagsie some seats while Kat and Albert tried to bend some ones arm. The bus started to leave and the conductor was now saying the bus was full and that Albert could not join us Kat came to sit in the reserved seats and the bus was half empty. We felt sorry for Albert but Ben said he had been travelling for 4 years sleeping rough and he should be ok, this made Kat feel slightly less guilty but still worried.

Our first night bus journey.... It left at 3am half empty and we sat on separate seats to sleep, but with frequent stops it filled up quickly we woke up with people trying to sit on our feet so Ben asked people to move so we were next to each other Kat against the window and Ben against some ones bottom the bus was packed and more people kept getting on. In the morning Kat let a little girl sit on her seat while Kat sat on Ben’s lap in the desert heat we think the girls mum saw Ben’s leg getting pin's and needles and told the girl to give the seat back. Kat then invited the girl’s younger sister to sit on her lap for part of the journey rather than on the cramped floor thus allowing her to sleep in between staring and laughing at Kat waving her fan. Kat noticed the girl’s hair had been tied up with bits of old string so Kat asked the girl’s mother if we could give them a hair tie each. The girls loved the present and one put hers in straight away. The journey in whole took just under 14 hours with one half hour stop but the views over the Atlas Mountains were spectacular.

Kat & Ben's World Adventure

a travel blog by Kat and Ben

Valencia, Spain

The Villa

Mazarron, Spain

Saying Goodbye And Saying Hello

Granada, Spain

Last stop in Europe

Algeciras, Spain

Welcome to Maroc

Tanger, Morocco

The Medina of all Medinas

Fes, Morocco

Rabat

Rabat, Morocco

Tourist Central

Marrakech, Morocco

Ouarzazate and the desert

Ouarzazat, Morocco

ID Check Plz

Tan-Tan, Morocco