Hotel Suisse Casablanca

It's election day in Morocco, and time for Christine to move on from Marrakech with great reluctance. <br><br>Of course Morocco is a monarchy, but I gathered that it was municipal elections. There were flyers all over the streets. At least they swept them up regularly. Anyway, it was time for me to leave my comfort zone and go to Casablanca to meet my group. I had decided to do another Intrepid tour, since my last one was so amazing.<br><br>Nearly everyone I talked to had nothing good ...

We survived our first day in Casablanca! After we got settled into the Ibis, we went on a hunt for a bank to exchange some money, then we all took short naps. We met Jalal, Mohammad and Rafi at 4:30, and then took us on a city tour. Jalal is a tax consultant, Mohammad is retired for the Air Force and has spent some time in the US and Rafi is a surgeon. When he said he was a surgeon, he ...

... stayed. Afterwards we realized this too might have been a scam, but it was a very cheap scam so we were ok with it, possibly not making it a scam then...? The next morning was lots of rain, so we stayed close to the hotel, picked up breakfast, did some internet time. In the afternoon we headed to part of the New Town (Ville Nouvelle) to a neighbourhood called Corniche (besides the mosque and expensive restaurants it was one of the other ...

... NO.  (you get the idea)  8.  A visit to Rick's Cafe - it was like stepping onto a movie set! 9.  Morocco is the World's Largest Flea Market. 10.  Every street cafe in Morocco is full, but of MEN ONLY.  Where are all the women? NOTE:  the full assortment of Morocco pictures can be found here.  http://gallery.chefwin.com/main.php?g2_ itemId=4381

... Some beautiful mosaic work on the outside. Didn't go in though as already quite crowded. Plan was to hang in Casablanca for the day and go watch Morocco v Zambia play football that night. Martin looked it up on the net a few days ago and was sure it said Rabat but when he asked someone they said it was to be held in Casablanca. So here we are only to be told by a guy on the street that no it was being played in Rabat ...

... Spain and the period during which Morocco was a French Protectorate (1912-1956). The National Language is Arabic, but the vast majority of locals are also fluent in French. Many also speak one of the Berber dialects, while some of the pure Berbers only speak the Berber language. In Casablanca, we visited the Hassan II Mosque, a modern Mosque built by the father of the current King. The Mosque was quite ...

... back the latest). Interestingly, on the way back we saw them loading a phosphate ship which is apparently a large product of this area. Back on the ship we showered, dressed, dined, and went to a movie. We decided to skip the casual portrait sittings as we were not interested in them. The movie was "The Bucket List" which was good but sad and then went to our room to bed as we were really tired. We were looking forward to resting on the 2 sea days that followed.

... Oddly, Chewebacca spoke some sort of Berber German dialect. The desert offered up other secrets to us ...

... cactus silk scarves (red of marakesh of course). Saturday was our final day... and we opted to add on a trip out to the village where our tour guide was born, passing Ric************s marocan hang-out along the way. The Imlil market was an eye-opener... twisting necks of chickens to break them, people walking about with great whopping chunks of animals over their shoulder (did i really have to shake his hand?!), bizzarely a tupperware style section, and my ...

... more like a modern European city than anything else. But that&#8217;s not necessarily what you go to Africa or the Middle East for. I debate about going further south, but every mile south is a mile I have to cover going back north, so I decide to go back to Rabat after spending a full day looking around Casa. But I&#8217;ll take the train this time. Trains operate from city centers.