Casablanca, Morocco

OK, this is our first stop in Africa. Have you ever been to Africa? What do you think it is like? Yeah, me too. The only thing I know about Casablanca is from the movie. I was expecting sand, white buildings, everyone wearing a red fez and a long white dress.

Our first clue as to what Casablanca is like was when the ship pulled into the harbor. Casablanca has the largest port in Africa—it’s huge. There were all kinds of ships here—big ones, little ones, new ones and old ones. Beyond the harbor we could see tall buildings—office buildings. We could also see the towers of mosques. This is going to be interesting!

We signed up for a tour that started at 9:30. We were supposed to meet in the auditorium. When we arrived there were big groups of people and long lines. It seemed that everyone on the ship was taking a tour. There were only seats in the auditorium for about half of the people. The tours were delayed and everyone was getting grumpy. So we were about one hour late getting started, but finally we’re off!

Our tour guide is a little Moroccan guy dressed in a little white cap and a white robe (dress?) and white shoes, but he speaks English pretty good! He takes us through town to the great mosque called Hassan II (named after one their great leaders). It is the largest mosque in Morocco. It is about the size of one of our indoor stadiums—huge. There is room for 20,000 people to pray inside and plaza outside is large enough for 100,000. The mosaics were very intricate and beautiful. Only worshipers are allowed inside.

We then drove along the coast and saw the slums as well as the wealthy homes. It is kind of funny how any country we visit feels the need to point out the McDonalds restaurants. This guy called them the “American Embassy”. They arranged to stop at one hotel on the ocean and have a drink. No Diet Cokes here, but we did have a regular one and sat under some shade on the patio.

We visited another building that we were allowed inside. When construction was started, it was going to be a mosque, then they changed their minds and were going to use it as a palace. But it finally ended up being the mayor’s offices. Inside, the walls were all intricately carved wood and plaster and mosaics.

Next we visited the King’s palace. The most amazing thing about it was the doors. There was a beautiful main entrance for the King and a beautiful side entrance door for his family. One lady in our group started taking pictures of the Royal Guard and they came running over saying, “No pictures”.

We haven’t mentioned the traffic and cars. The place is crazy. There are cars going every which way, people with babies in their arms crossing mid-street against traffic, motorcycles passing on the wrong side of the street, etc. Crazy, crazy!

We were headed to the token carpet store where they have us sit through a carpet demonstration when our tour bus and a car got into an accident. We sideswiped each other and all heck broke loose. Our tour guide started yelling, the bus driver started yelling, the driver of the other car started yelling, the police started yelling and we just sat in the bus for at least half an hour waiting to see what would happen next. Finally both the tour guide and bus driver got back on the bus and said the bus driver had to pay the car driver $100 for the flat tire he caused and now we can go on our way?!

Fortunately for us we had to skip the carpet demonstration and they took us to a store with souvenirs. The bus ride back to the ship was as crazy as ever but at least we made it home alive. Print this post