Urban hiking in Rabat

This past week, with gorgeous fall weather (some rain yesterday and today, but the first in a month), we got out walking most days.

This map shows our travels, with each day a different color.  The GPS was not recording all the time, and the isolated points show the problems in the urban canyons where the GPS signal sometimes takes a circuitous path with reflects that lengthen the distance and confuse the positions.  At some point I will write a filter to automatically remove those points.  On some of the trips we went one way on the tram, but mostly we walked.  Destinations included a nearly park adjacent to a luxury hotel (the brown route), the art museum with an exhibit from the collections of the Spanish national bank (the orange route), and the annual Fulbright scholars Thanksgiving dinner (the red route).

Dinner in Meknes

Last week we visited two undergraduates we know, in Morocco for a semester abroad.  We rode the train, visited several museums we did not see when we were there in September, and then met the students at the Bab Mansour. 

We have now been to each of the four imperial cities of Morocco, its historical capital cities of Fes, Marrakesh, Meknes and Rabat.  Each has a very different vibe.

 Bab Mansour, from the large square across the street, which is full of shops, cafes, and people.

View of the square.  We had juice, and then dinner, on the terrace in the upper right of the image.

Tourists congregate at the gate.

View of the square from the cafe.  Crowds gather around various forms of entertainment.  We have not seen similar congregations in Rabats.

As darkness fell, the creatures of the night appeared to beg around out feet (to be fair, they also appear at lunch, and maybe even breakfast if we were to eat outside that early in the day).

Thanksgiving Dinner

Yesterday we had a small Thanksgiving dinner (there will be a bigger one next, combined with mandatory security and safety training).  Finding turkey, as it turns out, is not too hard, although we did not see full birds.  Morocco uses turkey for everything--sausages, ham, grilled skewers.  I was tempted by the osso bucco (google it if you doubt it's real), which looked just like the veal version sitting in the meat counter at Marjane.

To go with the turkey breast we finally settled on, we have roasted onions, sauteed squash with garlic, and garden salad.  Plus beverages in our tea shot glasses.

And all of the tablecloth that came with the apartment, a kid friendly checkerboard of candy.

Down by the river

Saturday we rode the tram to the medina, for some serious shopping.  Winter is coming, and we need blankets with some character and not the cheap imports from the chain store.  We got a wool and a cotton blanket (winter and summer when we get them home), and combined they were perfect last night.

Then we dropped down, by the kasbah, to the banks of the river Bou Regreg.  When they finish all the construction, the pedestrian walkaways are supposed to stretch for miles, for they are already very impressive.  The late afternoon, late fall sun angles led to some very nice images.

View west to the kasbah on the left, with Sale on the right.

A cat.  Cats are everywhere in Morocco.

Cat was right in front of the restaurant boat.

We finished under Tour Hassan.

Botanical Gardens

Botanical gardens, and a nice fall or spring day, make a great combination.  It was also a chance to test the camera settings on the new GIS data collection device I got before my trip to South Africa in June.  While there I visited the botanical gardens in Stellenboch, which at 33.5S is almost as far from the equator as we are here in Rabat, at 34N.  The time of year almost matches as well, approaching the start of winter.

The botanical gardens here are about a half hour's walk from our apartment.

Entry sign and map.

Blowup of the entry sign, with the map to let you pick out the locations you want to see.  The NW portion is closed; we have seen a number of very pretty, well maintained gardens that are closed.

Were I a forester, or botanist, or dedicated gardener, there would be captions of these photos.  Since there are no maps, or rocks, just enjoy the flowers.  Rabat has flowers everywhere.

On the way home, we had lunch at a Syrian restaurant.  The spit of roasting chicken parts for shawarma was truly impressive, twice the size of anything I'd ever seen before, and all white chicken instead of the darker beef or lamb I've seen.

Riads, Moroccan Hotels

A riad is a traditional Moroccan house or palace with an interior garden or courtyard.


Many riads in the medinas have been converted into small hotels, and can be economical and extremely exotic.  Finding your riad can be a challenge; they often tell you to call, and they will meet at the closes bab (gate) and escort you.  We have stayed at one riad when the mapping program (which one shall remain nameless) had it about two streets over, and even if it's in the right place, the GPS often shows you a street over, because the narrow streets and covered portions of street do not make for good satellite reception.

When you arrive, you enter the large central garden.  This might be open the sky, or have a cover for really inclement weather.  This is in Fes.

Tea is served.  The mint tea is served from great heights, but they do start close to the class and then elegantly raise the teapot as high as they can.  This is in Fes.

There will also be a plate of cookies, and the security form, so you bring out your passport, enter the number, and the equally important entry number that was stamped when you entered the country.  I have learned a valuable lesson, since my number is half illegible, so next time we enter the country, I will check its legibility, because every hotel has noted that the number is incomplete.  Only after the tea and forms do you get your key.  This was from a more modern hotel in Ourzazate, but they copy the traditional greeting room, tea, and cookies.

Many of the riads have roof seating, where you can enjoy a break in the heat of the late afternoon.  This is in Meknes.

The roof is a good place to enjoy sunset, here in Meknes.

Or breakfast, in Tangiers.

Or reading the news, in Marrakech.  The Kindle Fire makes a great travelling companion; in the riad, with the free wee-fee, you can surf the internet to keep up on all the craziness in the world, and on the train, you can read the novels downloading from your local stateside public library.  And they are only $40, so you don't have to worry about anything happening to your brand new $1000 phone.

Road trip--geology, geology, geology

Morocco is a very large country.  To see a variety of sights, and experience the desert geology, we took a driving tour from Fes to Merrekech.  We drove 290 miles the first day, 260 miles the second day, and "only" 138 miles the last day over the High Atlas, where speeds were slow dure to curving roads and construction to repair rock slides and to improve the road.

Map of our route, showing the main sights.  Note the long distances between stops; I could not decide which of the 1500 pictures I  took should be included here.  Lots of rocks, and folds, and faults.

Bab Boujiloud, the Blue Gate in Fes. It's green on the other side.

Ifrane, a ski resort and university town in the Middle Atlas.

Barbary macaque in Ifrane National Park. Horse for tourists in the background.

Sunrise at Erg Chebbi, near Merzouga

Todgha Gorge follows a fault line.

Dades Gorge.  Hotel perched on the cliff.

Movie studios near Ourzazate.   "Egyptian" ruins from one studio in the foreground, several castles from another studio in the background.

Ait Benhaddou, a UNESCO World Heritage site and frequent film location.

Merrekech palace, from the end of the 19th century and early 20th century.  The Merrekech Express back to Rabat sat in the Casablanca station for two hours, during which I had a pleasant conversation with two Moroccans sharing the first class compartment.

Where to buy a dongle in Rabat

A dongle is a small piece of hardware that connects to another device to provide it with additional functionality.

Since I am teaching GIS, and hope to do some research, I have a good computer.  I thought long and hard what we needed to bring.  I have USB cables for my three GIS/GPS data collection devices, which come with three different connectors, and thus three different cables, but then at least they can all charge at the same time.  I brought ethernet cables, but it turns out both of our 4G routers came with a cable.  I brought an extra mouse (never use a laptop without one).

GIS/GPS data collection devices, according to the researcher.  According to IT, infection vectors never to touch a computer.

But I did not bring any video cables.  A recon of the first classroom I was going to teach in showed it had a full size HDMI cable to connect to the projector, which was exactly what I needed.  I was set.  Then the teaching schedule and room changed (I am in three different rooms, in three buildings, and one is a 10 minute walk from our apartment, and the others are a 25 minute walk in a different direction.  The first room had a VGA cable, but the projector was just overhead and had room for an HDMI cable.

I had already purchased an HDMI cable.  We have three TVs in the apartment, each with HDMI input, and we wanted to hook one up to the computer.  We undertook an expedition via petit taxi to Marjane, the local Walmart equivalent, but struck out.  After trips to several other stores, we found a and cable, and can now connect to two of the TVs (we have not yet tried the bedroom TV).  This is not to watch Netflix (which has surprisingly good choices in Morocco, despite what we had read on the internet; we watched Casablanca last night, in preparation for Mary and her sister making a field trip to Ric’s café while I taught this morning.  So for the second class, I took my cable.  This room has a projector mounted on the ceiling in a very high room, where the cable would not reach, and the projected did not have any HDMI connector anyway.  Like the first day, I borrowed a student laptop.  

Our dining room.  Moroccan apartments are not big on desks or studies, so I am using the dining room table.  Why there is a TV here, I don't know, but it works very well, and even small text is visible across the narrow dimension of the room.

So I asked the students in the second class (same ones I would see in the third class) where I should go to get a dongle.  They did not know the word, but said adapter would work, and I had to go to the medina, the maze of streets with small shops where you can find anything.  But I decided to go prepared, went to Amazon, and got a picture of the dongle I wanted, and saved it to the phone.  When I went to a shop, I could show them the picture, and ask if they had “un HDMI de HDMI a VGA”.  While I was confident I could that part over in French, perhaps to someone who was much more confident in Arabic, there was the additional matter of gender on the two ends of the adapter, and how to get across.  The picture says it all.

The medina of Rabat, but not the electronics section.

The dongle I wanted.

The first area in the medina where we went first was all cell phone stores, but the proprietor said to turn right and go a short distance.  Sure enough, the stores there had computer peripherals, and we found our dongle, although not quite the small version I wanted.

The dongle we got.

No problems Monday or Friday with the new dongle, but this morning no luck, either on my computer or that of one of the students in Salle 17.  So we went to another class for the first period, and then had to come back, by which time the defective VGA cable had been replaced and it worked.  The students are resourceful and cheerful, and we go back and forth about how much in English, and how much in French.