heyya!

Its your boy Unlettered with the flow like like kendrick.... dont mind me, just carried away, thought i could start with a cool entrance. But remembered its a faceless forum.

Anywho, i had one of the almost smooth experiences in this trip to Rabat. I'm sure some will be like where in the world is that, but Dont stress yourself your youngin, Dj unlettered *i'm sorry, was carried away again. *, Rabat is the Capital City of the north african state of Al-Magrib AKA Morocco. I'm sure the popular places that people are familiar with is Marrakhesh & Casablanca. Cool places too but my business trip is to Rabat. Which not really a small town but a decent weather and nice people kinda city. With so many cool locations and local/traditional resturants. These people are really proud of their heritage and culture i must admit. And also so many ashraf-Hakimi like people (my football guys will understand)


VISA APPLICATION
Visa visa visa, sometimes you have it smoothly with some embassies, other times its shit, excuse my moroccan french. But the first i do when travelling is to check up online to see if its possible to process the visa online, becacuse the hassle to go and physically appear is not funny and i'm not a fan of such. So after realising that my African brothers dont even value my country to have a space for iVisa, i was disappointed to say the least and wonder what are all those aviation bilateral discussions for.

Got the form online from a simple google search, initially i got the pretoria form. So i'll advice we nigeria to the country you are applying from before completing it. The requirements are started clear on the site too for anyone that will check. I did my insurance about 38k and visa fee for about 50k.

Now stop right there. Why was the fee increased on the day i was submitting my form to the embassy? A lady actually submitted hers and already made initial payment of 30k before being recalled to conplete. Funny how you have to pay in cash ONLY & no receipt is given after. Thats some shady dealing going on there and its something that need to be addressed.

I got my visa in about 7-10days which is ok.



PREPARATION
I made a little prep early this time by making the bookings of my hotel and got my ticket which cost about N1.8m or there about. Now stop here again. As at 2019, people travel to countries within africa and dubai for about N100k RETURN. Yet again not funny. Or maybe its a peak period, not sure.

So i always travel light, dont need much to pack as always. Though i did check the weather i only took one leather jacket, sweat pants for the cold. And since i intended to get somethings there i didnt bother pack much clothes. Hotel always gives the necessary things needed except if you are going to stay in an Airbnb. Even at that they provide certain things like tissue.

So i got a hotel Belere Hotel Rabat which just a few mins walk to the city centre. The event location was changed at last min, Lucky for me at the time i didnt book any accommodation. So the hotel for 5 nights cost about €340. Which is fair price. I closed to work late as i had a flight to lagos and a late departure to maroc using Royal Air Maroc that also departs at the late hour of about 5am i guess. Its the only direct flight to Casablanca.


RABAT
Royal air maroc takes of in lagos to Casablanca, which is a 4hr+ flight. Ethiopia and other airlines will take you our of the continent extending your time of arrival in maroc to about 13-23hrs. Not worth it at all. i was disappointed with the flight, because i never brough that into consideration to check the aircraft make we were using for the trip. A B737 . Funny story, on the queue to enter the plane, one man came with a security guy being tagged as business class or whatever his class was. Baba no see any difference. Plane be like boarding airpeace to abuja or enugu. We dey see each other with no movie screen at our front. Only difference would have been when they served food.... Flash news, Airpeace type snack pack was given to us at the end of the flight (when exiting) .

The hotel is not particularly fancy but it had the cool vibes and upto date facilities. And just 3mins walk to the event location. With lots of cool shops and resturant around. First thing i did was to try the talked-about al Magrebi mint tea. Couldnt resist that, its sweet and minty with a touch of cultural swag of how pour into the cup.

MEDINA RABAT
Indeed this is a a great historic site that you cant skip the ancient vibes it gives. In some instances for those who have been to northern states in Nigeria, alot of them have these ancient walls that was built as far back as the 18th century to protect and create a boundary back in the days. Same is applicable to the Medina. It has a cool brown tall walls which surround the site. They have alot of cultural and modern artefacts. I'm glad for that because for every trip i get to do, i buy a sourvenir plate of the city of State i visit. Its a kind of ritual for me now . It also has some nice moroccan, spanish and french cuisine like Tapas - tapas poulpe à lagallega, Tajine and alot of freshly baked croissants. I did a bit of Jallabiya (Caftan) shopping too with some as high as 800Dh and others not as expensive.

MALL AIT BAHA

i wasnt really looking for much malls to visit because i believe in my research Rabat is not a town for mall types. But overall, its a decent building that house a number of shops with market spaces for those who lodged in Riads or Airbnb. You have your goods bought here as it is in the city centre.

La MENORA RESTURANT
At the end of our event, we held a nice cozy dinner at this wonderful and peaceful Moroccan resturant. Most of my acquintances are french and moroccans. So it was easy to get the best out of the resturant. I had a nice spanish Tapas - Poulpé la Gallega which remains my favourite with good salted black and green olives (i really love olives). Washed everything with a fresh squeezed juice and maroc tea. One thing i can give the Moroccans is their love for sucre things. Which is mostly against the nigerian nature as our existence revolves around "Mekwe".

I didnt do much as our meeting takes chunk of the time and most places close by 5:30pm. Rabat has a wonderful weather of about 15C. Which is quiet good and some raining moments too. But overall, Morocco is a location i'll recommend for anyone with a big or small budget.

I've seen alot of immigrants, a good number of people begging on the streets too.


THE END

Nice place.

I hope you toured Centreville.

You could have also found your way down to Tarkadoum, Yousofia, and Elnada all suburbs within Rabat. You'd have met loads of Nigerians stranded and waiting to crossover into Spain.

I used to sneak into Centreville to buy Spanish pesetas in those days to exchange to people crossing over as an aboki fx. I also had a barbershop from where I carried out all my transactions...lol

More images

Will definately try to improve on visiting better places and snapping cool images. Visited the Old Medina Souk market but unfortunately i forgot to snap some images there. I'm the Live-in-Moment kinda guy. Sorry