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Published: December 16th 2017
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The sun breaks through and it's a fabulous day in Rabat.
Yesterday we did have a quick look at the souk. Gus, who has been setting the fashion agenda this trip, decided he needed a new pair of trackies. He has discovered that all you need are tracky pants. You can wear them out to the best restaurants, wear them for sightseeing and sleep in them. Like a carefully planned police operation we sent in our Chief Negotiator, Becs. Starting price was DHM150 final price was 40 plus a cigarette, the Moroccons are always a sucker for throwing in a cigarette. For some reason it works best on the kids.
Rabat is a lot more orderly than Marrakesh. The markets are a lot of fun and have a much more local feel to them. There are very few tourists. So we hit up the Kasbah across the road from our hotel which has terrific views across the breakwater to the Atlantic. We walk along the waterfront towards the main Mosque and the never finished Royal Palace. If you've been to Istanbul you'll know it's full of dogs well Morocco is teeming with cats (I don't mind cats, Naval Museums,
Torture Museums etc.). The Moroccans seem to like their cats and we have seen the locals feeding them. Outside the palace thingy there are a couple of guys on horses and given the guide book warning about photographing military things I ask before I take a photo.
We then head up to one of the ritzy areas of town for lunch and a walk. We have lunch in a fairly non-descript café. Becs is very particular about her coffee and generally the Moroccans aren't. To add to the complication, Becs who is usually pretty proficient at French has come up with this mixture of Spanish, French and Italian. The order is something like a double shot with milk on the side. This morning she got the milk in a coffee cup and the coffee in a jug.
After lunch we head to Agdal for another coffee and then back to the hotel. On the way I thought I'd found Google's Moroccan headquarters, but actually it was just a pizzeria. Google are in a lot of trouble when this guy sees that they've ripped him off! The taxi driver completely confused me. I started haggling with him and thought
I'd got it down to DHM20, 2 cigarettes and a small block of hash. Instead he said why don't we just use the meter. Rabat is quite different to Marrakech, firstly the taxi drivers use meters (which actually just showed us how much the taxi drivers were ripping us off in Marrakesh) and secondly I don't think Gus has been offered drugs for a full hour.
Dinner tonight was at a small French restaurant called L'entrecot. It was a nice change. Becs was able to work on her French, we had nice steaks and a couple of bottles of decent red. The Moroccan wine is
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