I have to get up early today for the 0812 train to Meknes. It’s barely breaking dawn and the only thing worse than the tiredness is the realisation that I forgot to packed away as much as possible from the night before. Since Rabat Ville station is only 10 minutes walk form my hotel, I can grab a expresso on the way from one of the many Cafes that line the streets all the way to the station. Even at this hour, the cafes are full of men. Some possibly from the night before, not having gone home. That’s one of the great things about Rabat. The cafes are always full and seem to be open all hours. Note to self, next backpacking holiday, see if it’s possible to camp out on the cafe floor.
Unlike when I travelled from Marrakech to Rabat in 1st class. I’m going to travel to Meknes in 2nd class as there's no point paying 50% more if I'm going to get a seat anyway. The main difference being the compartment is arranged with 2 rows of worn looking seats facing each other and complete lack of ventilation. Unless you count the little breeze as passengers walk past the compartments. None of this is problem seeing as it’s only 2 hours to Meknes.
For those who do not know, Meknes is third of the four imperial cities of Morocco and close to Fes. It’s also the lesser known twin of Fes that few people would have heard of. Just about the only reason to visit Meknes is the calmer atmosphere, the Medina and Volubilis. The last being the partly excavated Roman city abandoned in th 11th century. Which explains why on exiting the train station in Meknes, I’m swarmed by taxi drivers all offering rides to the Volubilus. Not surprisingly the entire group act like cartel, having agreeed among themselves what to charge any tourists who failed to check the appropriate fare for the 30km trip to Volubilis. In any case, they finally backed down to 300 dirhams when I threatened to get a shared taxi to Moulay Idriss and walk to Volubilis from there.
I tell the driver to drop me off at the hotel first. Something must have gotten lost in translation because after 10 minutes, we're still on the road, obviously heading out of the city limits. Then it dawns on me that we're heading out Volubilus first. It’s kind of difficult to talk to the taxi due to his limited English and my limited French. That didn’t stop him from talking throughout the ride. Talking and laughing at whatever he was saying. Such a happy guy. Either that or he was just insane. Whatever he was inflicted with was certainly transmissable through the air as I found myself laughing alongside with him for no reason.
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Even in the middle of winter it's hot walking around Volubils due to the complete lack of shade. A more sensible human being would have avoided going out in the hottest time of the day. This probably explained why there were only a few tourists meanig I got to explore in peace. The site isn't in a great state of preservation except for the mosaics, the Decumanus Maximus (main road throuch the city), Arc of Triumph and the Basilica. Actually, if it were not for my guide, Abdul, it would have been difficult to identify any buldings. Nor are there any signs to explain the functions of buildings. Maybe Abdul just had a bad day, but this explanations did not fill me with confidence. He did however took great pleasure in showing me the the Volubilus penis, a symbol used to indicate a brothel.
The archeaologists have done a great jobs with the mosiacs and these are well worth the effort to come out all this way
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Mosiac showing the twelve labours of Heracles:
The arc of triumph
After a couples of hours at the site, I head back to Meknes and finally check into my hotel at 2pm. With about 4 hours of the day left, this is surprisingly enough time to see everything else in the city.
Cara prison, a subterranean prison constructed by Sultan Moulay Ismeal:
The gaint gate Bab Mansour. In a possiblt aprocryphal story, when the structure was completed, Moulay Ismail inspected the gate, asking El-Mansur if he could do better. El-Mansur felt complied to answer yes, making the sultan so furious he had him executed:
Mausoleum of Moulay Ismail.
Non-muslims aren't allowed inside the tomb. Taking a looky look and photos apparently were permitted:
The inside of the mausoleum is actually quite simply decorated in typical Islamic fashion. Still pretty in an understated way:
And of course the ubiquitous geometric shapes and carvings:
And a couple of museums not worth mentioning. Then the evening I decided to head into the medina to have a look around and for dinner. Meknes isn't exactly a shopper's paradise, but it's certainly cheaper than Marrakesh. The medina is filled with shops selling traditional clothes, carpets and metalware. Nothing obviously aimed at tourists. If I had a mind to buy anything in Morocco, it would be here and I felt the urge to buy the obligatory carpet. Nothing expensive, just something to remind me of Morocco. Any random carpet shop will do as most are selling pretty much the same wares. I was only prepared to pay £10 and I knew the price they were going to initially offer would be outrageous. I wasn't prepared for just how outrageous it would be. His initial offering price was 300 dirhams for this cheapy thing:
Eventually got it down to 120.
A bit more wandering around the medina and some dinner, it's about 7pm and I'm walking back to my hotel. I get chatting to Muhammed, who happens to be walking in the same general direction. He's a mechanic and happens to have a sister working in London. We keep talking and eventually he invites me to a bar for drinks. We're alking past my hotel now and I think, sure why not. More walking, more talking and we're past a lot of bars, none of which are Mohammed's local. Then something occurs to me. Muhammed is a mechanic, his English is superb. A mechanic in Morocco can't be earning that much, certainly not enough to afford beer at £10 a glass. We've walked a fair distance away from the city centre and I start to fear this is one of those bar scams that invlves over-charging foreigners. Maybe I was just being paranoid and this is just Moroccan friendliness. In the end, I decided to trust my instincts, made my excuse and parted ways with Muhammed.
