Out On Our Own

So..... Jenny dropped us off this morning near the new marina with a cell phone set up to be able to reach both her and Michael, written directions and a hand drawn map to give to the Petite Taxi or Blue Taxi driver (this is the taxi that takes no more than three people at a time as opposed to the one that takes multiple fares) and a pocket full of dirhams.
And you know what happened? Not only did we survive the day, but we made it home safely. We toured the new marina, crossed the Boureigreig River in a rowboat, and were given a personal tour through the kasbah and the Medina. We were exposed to more history of Morocco than I could possibly remember. We took a million pictures, but I will just show you a few.

The new marina looking out toward the bridge and  then to the river.

It is hard to see in the picture, but all of these boats were displaying the Moroccan flag. Turns out - all of these boats belong to the King!

 Philip is walking down the sidewalk bordering the river just past the marina. This is just one of the rows of the new buildings going in along the marina and along a great deal of the river on the Salle side of the river. These will be shops and apartments/condos. Investors are from many different countries - Saudia Arabia, UAE, etc.

Salle is the town on the opposite side of the river from Rabat.

So, we needed to get from Salle to Rabat which meant crossing the river. And so we did...

This was the little boat that picked us up and our captain rowed us across. The whole ride took us about 5 minutes and cost two dirhams each.

There were many, many colorful little boats tied up in this area.

Once we made it across, as we walked toward the buildings on the Rabat side, we accidently met up with a gentleman who was to become our personal guide and history teacher. So for the next few hours we walked through the kasbah, the walled area of the city where 300 family dewllings are. At the top of the walled area you can see the fortifications that existed, the cemetaries, the lighthouse and the beach (and of course, a great view of the river and Salle).

Here, we left the casbah area, walked across the street and entered the Medina. Many people have shops in the lower level of the property and live in the uppper levels. Some, simply have homes here and no shops. We were cautioned not to take pictures directly of people out of respect. It was hard to take pictures without getting people in them, so we don't have as many shots here.

This was just the beginning. The main part of the Medina was crowded. However, we were there on a Monday which is a lazy day. Apparently the later in the week, the more crowded.

So, then our guide helped us hail a little blue taxi. We gave the driver our written directions and I did use some of my resurrected college French and we made it home okay!