So where were we? I believe we had not quite left Rabat. I know this because I haven't posted the 39934587 pictures that I have of the gardens yet. What gardens, you ask? Some royal gardens, to begin with, and some roman ruins to end with! The first section of the garden is your typical stone-path, honey-bee, don't-step-on-the-grass type place:
And after that it gets interesting. This is one of the only parts of Rabat where they preserve ruins from their roman era. The roman empire was just so freakin' big that it reached into Africa and they set up colonies in this area. It's obviously been several hundred years since then, so the ruins are...pretty ruinous, but they're still beautiful and much older than anything in the US:
This is what you see first, coming out of the lovely garden paths
Yes, that's a tree...or it was
This is the inside of the ruins of the mosque. Even though the territory was roman, the inhabitants were still muslim and the empire didn't have enough resources to change that, so naturally they had a mosque in the city.
The tower of said mosque
I wish someone had told me these were graves before I stepped on the little one...
They don't like you to climb the rocks but...
The old city wall. This picture was taken from the ground, right where the last one was, because I'm too lazy to hike up there and get a closer one
...or am I?
Yes, i know it looks like the first one but i liked them both, ok?
In the Islamic tradition, storks are a sign of good luck/prosperity. This must be literally the luckiest site in the world because the storks were all over it. The trees and the tower of the old mosque were full of nests:
creepy
As usual, I have saved the best for last. In these particular gardens there is a tradition that revolves around an eel of fertility. No, there were no typos there: eel of fertility. Bear with me, because I literally couldn't make this up if I tried. Said eel lives in a little, tiny pond in the back corner of the gardens. The pond is surrounded by cats and guarded by an old man who only speaks arabic. What you must do is buy a hard-boiled egg from this man (don't worry, they're already peeled). You must then break it open and feed the yolk to your favorite cats. Then, you go to the pond and wait for the eel to come out. When it does, you throw your egg in to see if he will eat it. If your egg is eaten, you're going to get pregnant. Now, to prove that I'm not lying, I have pictoral evidence:
The pond, complete with eel
The old man (also our guide Colleen, Kathy, and Elsa)
Kitty!
obviously my favorite kitty. He got most of my yolk :)
I'm sorry to drag you away from the fascinating fertility eel, but we really must get moving. We have to see the most beautiful building in the world before it gets dark. The most beautiful building in the world happens to be a mausoleum, specifically the Mausoleum of King Mohammed V. Every inch of the walls, floor, and ceiling is covered in decoration, all hand-carved in gold or cut from tile. There's not much that I can say that pictures can't say better, so here you go!
Each door (there are 4) is guarded by a guard. You can tell they're nice people, they just aren't allowed to show it.
This is it from a distance
There's a balcony running around the top, which is the only part tourists are allowed on, so this is looking down from there.
The middle of the ceiling
Again, because it's beautiful
The entire perimeter of the lower room is lined with Moroccan flags
One of the doors, from the inside
Margaret and me in front of the door
So that rounded out day 2 and we stayed with the families for one more night, hitting the road at about 7am the nest morning. We drove about 2 hours up a mountain and then stopped for breakfast, which comes with the most delicious tea I've ever had (pictured below). It includes a whole mint plant with a little bit of lemon and loooots of sugar.
So after that little up of heaven, we continued an hour to a remote village in the middle of nowhere. "Village" is definitely not the right word for it, it was more like half of a hamlet, or a hermitage site. A grand total of about 35 people (which means maybe 6 houses) lived within about 2 miles of each other on one little dirt road. Each family had a farm-like thing where they grew fruit and vegetables and kept cows, chickens, and donkeys. We met a family who lived in a mud-brick house (which is a surprisingly nice building material). There was a father figure and a relatively young wife (maybe 30). They had 6 children (from 2 to 8) and two older girls (18 and 22) living with them. They spoke absolutely no english, so we used an interpreter to talk to them about rural life, running a farm, when they were married, education, etc. They cooked us couscous for lunch and then they all took us on a hike to a peak overlooking hundreds of little farms and wild countryside. The kids were ADORABLE. They wanted to climb everything and throw rocks off the top of the cliff. Once they figured out that it was nice to bring people flowers they picked every living thing off the ground and gave it to one of us. Anyway, enough talking; pictures!
This is from the bus on the way up. Those houses are made of wood and scrap sheets of tin.
From the mountaintop
That is indeed a sea of cacti, Lion King style
again from the bus, apparently these didn't load in any order
from the top of the mountain. It's just farmland, but it's one of my favorite pics
bus-side
Again, I think I am about to overload the server with the amount of picture I've posted. There will have to be one more chapter of Morocco before we move on to more recent trips. I promise to be more punctual this time! Hasta luego,
Sara
Honey and Grampa and I enjoyed your photos and commentary immensely - thanks for posting. Two questions: Did the eel eat anybody's egg?!?!? And is that kitty a relative of Callie because they have the same half-white nose and large ears. Looking forward to more of your adventures!
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