We woke up this morning, after pressing the snooze button as long as we possibly could, then went down for breakfast. We met Brooke and Casey, the girls from Melbourne, and two guys that had arrived later last night, Lindsay and Keith. We had some breakfast of rolls with cheese and croissants, then went outside to where they had some local taxis waiting for us. That ride was an experience in itself, Moroccan traffic is mental. Who gives way most of the time is determined by a game of chicken, and they have no seatbelts... Very interesting. We got taken to the Mosque of Hassan II, which is the biggest mosque in Morocco and the third biggest in the world (I think!). We walked around the outside of it taking photos and having a chat with the new guys, then we met out the front of the doors where we met a local guide who was going to take us on a tour through the mosque. We went into the entrance hall where we took our shoes off and went into the massive hall. It was absolutely huge and every inch of it was intricately carved. I have no words to describe it really, have a look at the photos! (Not that they'll do it justice!) We got taken around and told about the prayer rituals and ceremonies and learnt about how it was built and the materials used. They used a lot of materials that were resistant to the sea, as half the mosque was built on the ocean, because of the saying in the Koran; 'the throne of god is on the sea'. We walked around with the guide then she took us downstairs underneath the mosque to the ablution room, where we were told about the cleaning ritual that you have to do before every prayer time. It was a room full if these kind of flower shaped fountains, but they weren't running because it wasn't prayer time (which happens five times a day). After the ablution room we went through to the Turkish baths which are under the mosque as well, but they haven't been used for years. Every year they say 'next year'. After the tour finished we met back up with Abdul and went to wait for the taxis again. We stopped by a fruit shop to grab some fruit for the train. It really stank! They had tables full of all kinds of fruit, then up the back they had cages full of chickens! So random! After that we went back to the hotel, had a quick shower and packed up our bags and met the crew again before walking down to the tram stop. We bought our tram tickets then got the tram down to the train station, where we were given out tickets and went out to wait on the platform. The departure time came and went and we ended up waiting for an extra 40 minutes! Eventually the train came and we got on and went to find our seats, which we had to kick a couple of people out of, then sat down. We had a lady with her daughter both holding two small boys sit across from us, and although none of them spoke English, we communicated with them a bit, telling them how cute the little boys were, and we gave the littlest guy a bit of a peach we were eating, which he thought was great after taking his dummy out. They were so cute! But then a conductor came through the train and kicked them out and made them stand in the hallway, because they didn't have first class tickets. We felt pretty bad then, as we watched a lot of people getting kicked out of our carriage and made to stand in the corridor even though there were so many empty seats. I almost wanted to pay for them to sit with us, but then I'd still feel bad for all the others out there too! For the rest of the trip we spent our time sleeping, listening to music and all that kind of thing before we arrived in Meknes. We got off the train and made our way along the street to our hotel (passing a man holding about 6 live turkeys upside down by the feet...). We checked in, then Darren and I went down to the bar for a quick beer while we waited for the rest of the group, and got given some olives and cheese with it as well. After our beer we met a man in the lobby who was going to be our guide for the afternoon and take us around Meknes. We all got into taxis and got taken into the medina (medina means the oldest part of the city, and is where the markets and souks and that are) then got taken up to the mausoleum for a look. We went into the ablution room for a look then went through to the main part of the mosque, where there was another fountain with a lot of cute kids playing in it, and men and women sitting around talking and praying. There was a fenced off section that you could see through to, where there were some old grandfather clocks from the 14th century which were still working! Amazing. The building itself was amazing too, and we were told the story of the prophet Mohammed and how he hid in a cave, from people who didn't believe he was the prophet, and asked God to hide him, and the cave got covered in spiderwebs, so the people searching for him didn't see him, and a lot of the tiled artwork throughout the building was inspired by this story. After the mausoleum we went across the road where we went underground to see the old dungeons. It was pretty much just a network of underground tunnels and corridors, and it apparently goes for about 200 kilometers, but it hasn't all been excavated yet. They had little windows in the roof for ventilation, which from the top almost looked like little stools. It was very cool down there! After that we headed back up and went into the medina to check out the souks. We walked through all these tiny little alleyways that were absolutely packed with people, past all kinds of markets selling all kinds of things. We saw a shop that made and sold traditional kaftans for ceremonies and were told all about how they were made and the materials they used. After that we went to the closed souks where all the food was sold, and there were stalls full of sweets and there were bees everywhere!! It was crazy! Bees all over all the food, crawling on the sweets and everything! Apparently the more bees are on your sweets the better they are, so no merchant in their right mind would shoo away bees from their stall!! So we walked through swarms of bees then made our way out to a little restaurant where we had some orange juice and mint tea, which is big in morocco. It was a glass of boiling water with fresh mint and sugar. It was quite sweet but very refreshing. Abdul even bought us some sweets from one of the stalls for us all to share which was pretty nice. We walked back through the open square in the middle of the souks past a snake charmer! He had his fancy flute and pulled a little black snake out of his box and put it on the rug. The snake didn't do much, really, just raised his head and sat watching the man play. After the song, the man just left the snake on the rug and went around collecting tips! The snake didn't even move the whole time he was doing it, which made me think maybe it had been drugged or something... After that we continued walking through the souks and stopped at a metal engraving place, where they used a thin silver wire and actually hammered it into the metal to make the patterns. That was pretty cool. From there we got lead back through the little alleys and out of the souks where we said goodbye to our guide. He gave everyone hugs, then went back for seconds to all the girls! (And thirds and fourths and fifths for one of them, which made us all laugh!) From there we went with Abdul again and walked up and around the streets for about 20 minutes to a little restaurant. We were ridiculously hot by the time we got there and the menus came in very handy as fans! They had a 3 course meal deal that was pretty cheap so everyone got that. We had a good chat with the brother and sister team on the tour (David and I-don't-know-her-name...), and at one stage there was a kitten under the table! It was the tiniest thing I've ever seen, and because it was so skinny it's head looked too big for it! There seem to be a lot of kittens around the place, especially in the souks, and they all seem to be starving. It's pretty sad. After dinner we headed back to our hotel, and Darren went to get some cash out to pay Abdul back for dinner (we had no cash!), then we had a shower and went to bed.