August 25th - To Casablanca

We took a morning train to Casablanca. It was the most pleasant train ride of all those we took – relatively short in duration, during the day, where we had seats together in one compartment. We shared the compartment with an older lady, two young men and two young ladies. We participated in the ritual of sharing food with your fellow travelers, as the lady shared her dried dates with us, A had English biscuits and I had some Moroccan pastries (Kaab el Ghzal or Gazelle's Horns which I had bought at a bakery in Marrakesh). And so, we reached the most well-known of Morocco’s cities.

Forget the movie, Rick’s Café Americain and all the rest – that was all Hollywood. Casablanca is the most modern of all Moroccan cities, appearing for all the world like a seaside European city. This was also the most humid climate we had encountered since our journey in – our first time on the coast since Tangier. We had been traveling inland for the last week and a bit.

After jumping through the usual hoops to leave our luggage at the bus station, we set out to kill time. Our principal destination in this city was to see the grand mosque and the tours ran only at one or two times in the afternoon. So, we embarked on LP’s architectural tour of the city. We saw a number of impressive governmental buildings set within a very modern city. Our final stop before setting out in the taxi ride (the one that got me so worked up) was the only Christian church we saw of the whole trip. There were a number of metal sculptures set about its grounds depicting various personages in Moroccan souq life – watersellers, bakers, tailors etc.

The mosque itself was amazing, built on a very grand scale of very fine materials. The lady tour guide who took us through listed a lot of statistics on the place. In the floors there were these clear things you could look through and see the ablution fountains in the lower floors. The unfortunate part was that it was nigh impossible for our cameras to take decent photos indoors, so we were not able to capture that part very well. The pictures we did get of its exterior were quite impressive however, based on the sheer scale and beauty of the building.

When we finished, we went to a restaurant back in the downtown area and ate the biggest mess of fried seafood you’ve ever seen. We ordered the 3 person portion, and left a good half behind. Then, we sat and waited at the bus station. And sat. And waited. And sat. Our bus was frustratingly late, and when we finally thought it had arrived, we boarded and watched from the window as our luggage was loaded onto the bus next to us. Uhm… problem. We disembarked and discovered that hey, we were on the wrong bus. Why didn’t the ticketperson notice this? I have no idea.

We finally arrived in Rabat towards night and took a taxi to the hotel. The taxi driver had no idea where it was but he was most helpful in helping us find it. On the way, we passed this main thoroughfare where there were all these Moroccan families out enjoying the cool of the day. We took a bit of a stroll with them, on the lookout for an internet café, but had no luck. However, the city did look very promising.

Next - Aug 26 - Rabat, the capital city