Hay Riyad

Rabat. Arrived as planned about 6:00 AM found a good hotel brackets days Voyager closed brackets on the edge of the Medina with a nice rooftop room. Rabat is the most westernised place yet really quite civil, apart from a few hassler's. However more trials and tribulations, this time in an attempt to leave the country as soon as possible. In the last three days we've been to the GB embassy twice, the Mauritanian embassy twice, the Senegalese embassy four times and the Ivory Coast once, plus numerous travel agents etc. The trick is to find a flight going to somewhere we were allowed to go. Abidjan was expensive to fly to, Mauritania cheap, but we needed visas, and to obtain these we needed letter of recommendation from the UK embassy. We only found this out on our second visit to the Mauritanian embassy. Senegal was okay but no flights for a week in Jan needs a visa which may or may not come through in time. It hasn't at the time of writing. Despite various visits to the Senegalese ‘Chancelier’, added to this unavailability of flights and incompetence of travel agents, none of whom would give me a discount flight, and one or two refused jan and Seb too although we are all entitled. Hurrah, after strenuous efforts today, we are booked on the 00.50 Tuesday night flight to Dakar. Though still had trouble getting a ticket and then changing money to pay for it.
In the mean time we've had a ride in almost every pretty taxi in Rbaat, failed to see the mausoleum, failed to find the Art Museum, view the archaeology museum in half an hour, failed to find the zoo, eat lots of horrible food, had a few beers, foe David twice, flopped a bit and siesta debit, and achieve very little.
Much relieved at having our ticket though. The probable highlight so far is the Turkish bath, hamam,. Went alone yesterday but couldn't work out what the hell was going on. Three hot rooms, progressively hotter each with a cold water tap at one end and with a very hot tap at the other. The floors and walls are very hot, and everyone wonders around with a bucket of hot, cold and in between water. Was invited by one matey but didn't really follow, ended up with a bucket full of hot and one of cold, lying on the floor and tipping water over my self. Went back the next day with Seb and I had a good scrub each but still don't think we cracked it properly. Still for three dirhams I felt clean and relaxed afterwardsRead more