Visa land - Rabat & Casablanca


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Africa » Morocco » Rabat-Salé-Zemmour-Zaer » Rabat
October 2nd 2007
Published: October 8th 2007
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Me: "No, not 'la plage'; I said 'Camping à la plage'! Taxi Driver: "You can't camp à la plage!"
The primary purposes of our next two big cities were to obtain our visas for Mali and Mauritania. We also had lots of time in Rabat to take in some of the sites and catch up on laundry, internet and groceries.

While we were in Rabat, we were staying at the Camping a la Plage, in Sale, which is across the water way from the main city. We were told that we could take a petit taxi from central Rabat back to our campsite. After doing a few errands in the city we decided to try. The driver was very kind and was quick to point out to the other drivers on the road why we almost got into 2 accidents along the way. They're all so friendly the way they hang out the window and shout at each other. Eventually he pulled the taxi over at what looked like the main beach (La Plage). We tried to communicate that we were referring to a campsite, but even with our knowledge of French it was a lost cause. Actually it was a good thing that we were dropped off where we were; otherwise we would have missed the beach and the huge surf that was crashing against the pier. We ended up walking back to camp afterwards.

The next day we set off for Casablanca to obtain our Mauritanian visas. It turned into a bit of a wasted day full of issues that would lead us back to Rabat once again. First, our drivers had a difficult time finding the campsite because it had apparently moved from its original location. When they were confident that they knew where the campsite was they decided to head straight to the embassy to get a head start on the visas. When we got there, however, we were informed that as of last week the bureaucrats had decided to move the visa issuing authority back to Rabat... Ok, back to the campsite so that we could set up and have most of the day in Casablanca to explore before heading back to Rabat the following morning...wrong again...the campsite had actually been moved way out of town which made it pretty much a no go for doing much of anything in Casablanca. So that the day was not a complete waste we did stop at the Mosque of Tour Hassan II (2nd or 3rd largest Mosque in the World). Alas, the tour hours had changed due to Ramadan and we had already missed the only tour for that day. Pictures of the outside were cool though, even in spite of the rain...


Additional photos below
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Rabat 4

The surf was huge!
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Casablanca

The only site that we saw in Casablanca. The Mosque Tour Hassan II.


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