Now that I have a working (albeit oddly) working phone data connection, I find I can’t get a decent WiFi connection in my hotel in Rabat. Ah well.

We had an early start yesterday morning in order to be able to get to our hotel in Rabat, Morocco’s capitol, at a reasonable time. We got to Casablanca, Morocco’s center of commerce and industry after a few hours in our bus, stopping briefly at Mohammed the 5th Square. King Mohammed the 5th was the father of King Hassan the 2nd, who in turn is the father of Morocco’s present King Mohammed the 6th.

One of the things that really struck us in Casablanca was how many satellite dishes were all over the place on residential buildings. It seems that the satellite dish is the national flower of Morocco.

Another stop in Casablanca was the world’s largest mosque, named in honor of King Hassan the 2nd. The mosque’s minaret, at 200 meters high, has an elevator inside, and 20,000 can worship inside and another 100,000 outside. Due to religious privacy laws we were not permitted inside, however.

After a reasonable but late lunch at the La Mer restaurant, we drove up to Rabat and visited the Oudeya Casbah, with its great ocean view and narrow alleys, painted white and blue. Very reminiscent of Santorini and Mykonos in Greece.

We ended our tour of Rabat at the Mausoleum of Mohammed the 5th, which features the sarcophagus of the named monarch, as well as sarcophogi of King Hassan the 2nd and his brother, Prince Abdullah.

Arriving at our hotel in Rabat was welcome indeed, especially as it was past 6pm. At our 8pm dinner it was announced that while our ship had finally come out of dry dock, it was now doing sea trials, and there was no conclusion yet as to when we might be able to board.

We had an even earlier start this morning as the bus ride to Fes (same as Fez, but apparently Fes with an ’s’ is the correct spelling) takes about three hours. We arrived in Fes at just before 11am, starting with a visit to a tile factory where tiles are still made by hand. Quite an amazing process (although by American terms it might be deemed a sweat shop), which produces some beautiful pieces of work.

Next up was the main reason for our visit - the medina of Old Fes, which is celebrating its 1200 year anniversary this year. Old Fes, with it’s 300,000 inhabitants and tens of thousands satellite dishes which bloom on the roofs like some sort of wildly spreading fungus, is a warren of narrow paths filled with shops of all sorts.

We went through the butcher’s section, where we saw sheep, goat, and camel parts, including udders, brains, and heads. We also visited various artisnal sections, like that of the leather workers, the bronze makers, herbalists, weavers, and more. Endlessly fascinating. We where also in the photographers group, in which we were joined by Massimo, an Italian photographer working for National Geographic, as our photography mentor.

Lunch (late) was a Morrocan-style meal (unfortunately serving lamb as the only meat - only Linda ate that) at the Palais Mnebhi featuring a belly dancer. We had a good time, especially as it was cooler than outside and we could sit for a while (photo above is from there). Even more welcome was the announcement made during lunch that our ship was finally en route and we would be boarding her in Casablanca tomorrow evening and having dinner on board. We had been semi-seriously joking about this becoming a bus tour instead of a cruise the way things were going.

After a bit more touring of the souks we now find ourselves on the way back to Rabat for dinner at a private home at 8pm tonight.

Tomorrow we are off to visit Meknes, known as the Moroccan Versailles, and the old Roman fortification known as Volubilis. And on Monday we should be in Portugal, finally, just one day later than originally planned. It’s a shame we won’t be able to go to Sark in the Channel Islands en route to England, but nice that we get to see Meknes and Volubilis, as we had read about both in various books recommended by Lindblad prior to our trip.

It was pointed out to me via e-mail that folks might not have been able to see the images which were embedded in my previous blog post. I think I have fixed that problem now. Please let me know if you still have problems.

I’m sure I’ve already lost some of you with the geeky title of this Blog post, but I wanted to let you all know that due to software reasons beyond my control, there is presently no good way to have those of you who get automatic e-mail notifications of new posts here in The Traveling Richters blog to be notified of new posts that I make from my cell phone or e-mail.

I mention this because I sincerely hope to make at least one small post a day during our upcoming trip using my cell phone or e-mail software, and unless you are actively checking the blog web site, you will not see those posts, since you will not be notified by e-mail that they have happened.

Hope that’s clear! We’re almost all packed (the three shorter Richters are all set, but I’ve yet to start due to some work commitments I have finally taken care of just a few minutes ago).

The next post will be on Friday, I think.

I am still trying to get all aspects of the post-by-email to work, so here’s another message delivered that way after I did some tweaking, hopefully enabling e-mail notification of this post.

At right is a photo I took of when Bas and I went on the Journey to Atlantis flume ride at Sea World in San Diego at the beginning of March when the family came out to visit me while I was working on a case.

The previous post about the U.S. Immigration computers ended on a high note, but it was a false alarm. The nationwide system did not come back on-line. Instead, Immigration officers brought out notebook computers and processed us using those, so at least the line started moving.

But while in line to get processed, I received a text message from American Airlines that my 2:30pm flight to Boston was canceled. I am now booked for a later flight, and protected on an alternate route via JFK & LaGuardia which will still get me to Boston in time for my orthodontist appointment tomorrow morning. For the uninitiated, being “protected” is something offered to higher level frequent flyers in that the airline will block seats on an alternate routing in case the first routing fails to work out. Nice service - but I don’t know if I will retain that next year as I will not requalify for American’s Executive Platinum status - I only just made regular Platinum (and the rest of the family are all Gold-level fliers with American).

Then there will be a question of whether (or perhaps “weather”) or not my orthodontist will even be open tomorrow due to the results of the inclement weather in Boston.

In any event, keep your fingers crossed…

UPDATE: I actually made it to Boston, just a few hours late.

We made it back to Bonaire last night, safe and sound, although Linda and Krystyana have managed to bring a cold back with them.

It’s been an interesting almost eight weeks, and I plan on attempting to add more stories and photos here in the coming weeks, as work permits.

As a teaser, some of the other highlights of our trip include a pod of dolphins, real flowing lava, learning Polynesian traditions culture first-hand, and checking out volcanoes of various sorts.

I head off on Sunday to Boston for a couple of intimate days with my orthodontist, getting some dental work taken care of. I am not looking forward to freezing my butt off.