Rabat, Morocco & Cairo, Egypt

After our trek we went to Rabat to relax for a bit. Even though it is the capital of Morocco, it is much more laid back than Marrakech. We arrived on the 21st and had 2 Heinikens overlooking the main road of Rabat then walked through the medina to find some food stalls for dinner. Even the medina is slightly more relaxed without as many pushy souq owners. The next day was the beginning of Ramadan and we learned that most stores do not open unill around 11:00 am, if they open at all. There were not many people walking around town so we decided to walk through some Roman and Islamic ruins, the Chellah. It was cool and they had a some interesting flowers throughout the gardens. Since everything was shut down, we walked on the beach for a bit (the only thing we could think of that is free). It was hot so there were a lot of people swimming - the women swim with all their clothes on. On the 23rd more people seemed to be out and about and we headed to the old Kasbah to look around. It is right on the ocean looking over to it's sister city Sale. All the buildings were whitewashed and look very different than the homes inside the city. There were many fisherman on the piers and Ben was not impressed with their skills - we did not see any of them catch a fish and according to Ben they were fishing in the wrong spot.

Then it was off to Cairo, but first we needed to mail off a tea set that we bought in Marrakech. What a disaster - their Postal service makes ours look great!! After standing around for an hour and a half just to buy a box and bubble wrap, we had to leave to catch our train to the airport - not even succeeding in mailing our package. But we made it to the airport on time to catch our flight and landed in Cairo at about 1 am (of course one of our glasses broke since we had to check the tea set). We went to see the Great Pyramids of Giza (the guy that took the picture below just threw those on our heads and grabbed our camera claiming it was free - naturally he wanted some money afterwards and when he did not get any he got mad and ripped them from our heads), the Egyptian Museum, and got lost walking around Islamic Cairo for about an hour. We planned on staying in Cairo for 4 nights, but realized that the train to Aswan (our next destination) was 14 hours so we had to leave a day early and catch an overnight train.

You can see all of our pictures on our Flikr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/99157019@N00/

Don't forget if you want to e-mail us it is: benandkristingo@yahoo.com