Cruisin' In Casablanca

  Casablanca, Morocco
Sunday, October 19, 2008

We took our time leaving today, sitting down for a delicious croissant and mint tea at an elegant cafe before touring the medina of Rabat one last time. Always wanting to go one shop further, Gabrielle finally found a jewelry shop that caught her eye and Dan was thrust into bargaining with the young owner. We walked out with several items for only slightly more than we had originally wanted to pay for them, but the quality of the items were better than anticipated so we figure it evened out.

We made it back to the hotel, gathered our things and hit the train station for a one hour trip to our next destination: Casablanca.

Casablanca is Morocco's largest city by far, containing over three million people compared to the second biggest city, Marrakech, which has around 850,000. Casablanca is considered Morocco's commercial capital, and a major fishing port which became very apparent upon our arrival.
Intending to only stay one night we hopped off the train and headed for the HI youth hostel that was nearby. We were immediately welcomed by a multitude of odours, the most prominent being of fish and garbage, followed closely by something close to latrines. The fish smell was probably due to the large port sitting beside the train station and the various fish parts that littered the streets, and the garbage was probably due to the large amount of garbage that decorated the sidewalks. We couldn't figure out where the latrine smell came from, but we figured it out later when we spotted some public urination by gentlemen in business suits so we figured it was the done thing.
Not to be put off by this we found our way to our hostel, which seemed clean enough but contained some highly unhelpful staff who, unlike the majority of Moroccan's we'd met at this point, didn't seem to speak French and didn't like to respond to our Arabic, or generally respond at all. We eventually did manage to get a room and he took our money promising to bring us back change... which of course never happened.

The hostel was pretty soulless, but we had our own room right across from one that the hostel staff later broke in to, forcibly bashing down the door (apparently there was problems with the lock). When we poked our heads out to see what was the matter we were received with stares didn't seem to comprehend why we would think there would be some sort of problem. Figuring that things should be looking up soon we headed out for the one reason we came to Casablanca: The Hassan II mosque.

Unfortunately, Casablanca previously had no major monuments or sites of importance, so when Morocco decided to build the third largest mosque in the world they chose Casablanca. Now, some may think "but the movie, Casablanca, it was so charming and pretty", however we're not sure Humphrey Bogart has ever actually been to Morocco because Casablanca the movie was not shot in Morocco. The movie did, however, receive some fantastic free press in 1942 due to a major allied landing at Casablanca which coincided with the movies release (coincidence or hollywood plan... or military plan?!?). Anyway, back to the mosque.

Gabrielle at Hassan II Mosque

The Hassan II mosque was built 1987 and 1993, involving thousands of craftsman and builders who worked around the clock in shifts, seven days a week. The 750 million $US (one $US is about seven Moroccan Dirham) was 'voluntarily donated' by the people of Morocco for the construction of the mosque, and the majority of the materials used in the construction are from within Morocco, the exceptions being the Venetian glass chandeliers from Italy and the giant Russian titanium doors.

Gabrielle and the Glass

The size of the mosque is quite sizable. As stated before, it is the third largest mosque in the world, but apparently contains enough room inside of it to fit the largest cathedral in the world, St. Peter's Basilica of Rome. The mosque also contains some nifty features, being a very modern day mosque, which include a basement Hamam (Turkish bath) that has never been used, a Royal area that has a glass floor that looks down to the ocean below (the mosque was built over the ocean due to a passage in the Koran that says that God's throne is on the water) and a giant sliding roof, because on those sunny days you sure do wanna put the top down and feel the breeze in your hair. The sliding roof is also handy for those major ceremonies where the mosque can fill up with 25,000 people, especially since someone forgot the air conditioning in the construction plans. The mosque's minaret (tower) also has a laser that points to Mecca!

Inside Hassan II Mosque

The Hassan II mosque is one of the few mosques in Morocco that non-muslims can enter. We made it in time for the last tour of the day and were astounded, not only at the sheer scale of everything, but at the ornate detail with which everything was constructed. From the inlaid marble floors to the intricate wooden screens, and elaborately carved and painted ceilings, no detail was overlooked, and obviously no expense spared.

Teaching in the Mosque (For Perspective)

After the mosque we wandered back through the streets, past the slums and shanty buildings which backed on to new high rise apartments, and made it to our hostel in an old medina square. Dropping our unnecessary things we went wandering in the medina looking for food, watching our backs the entire time because we had heard that the Casablanca medina was a good place to buy back your stolen goods. Judging from the wide variety of luggage tags at one of the stalls this may have in fact been true, although for the most part it seemed fairly harmless. We finally decided on a small grill stall ran by three young boys, the oldest probably about fifteen years old. They were very smiley and patient with our terrible French and indecision, helping us decipher what each item on the menu was with some enthusiastic sign language and mixed French and Arabic. We went for the most expensive thing on the menu, and after leaving him a large tip the cost of our dinner hadn't quite reached four Canadian dollars.

Walking away with our Schwarma style seasoned chicken wraps served with french fries in a twist of paper (the French not only left their language in Morocco, they also left the fries, with everything! always with the fries!) and wandered for awhile longer enjoying the spiced chicken on our tongues and the noise and colour of the medina on our eyes and ears.

Tomorrow we are off to Marrakesh, wish us luck.

All our best from Morocco

Dan and Gabes