Leaving Morocco - a place we will miss...
Trip Start
Sep 03, 2008
1
51
52
Trip End
Nov 13, 2008
Casablanca,
Morocco
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Casablanca is the commercial capital of Morocco, Rabat is the political capital. As a result, Casablanca has all the symptoms of a large commercial hub; people scurrying around focused on their jobs, the streets full of vehicles, a reasonable amount of garbage scattered alongside the street gutters and any area the breeze can push it to; gardens are more green spaces (lawns) rather than maintained areas full of plants. A certain ``hard edge'' which typifies commercial hubs, which if you have lived in one (Sydney in my case) you can understand it.Another aspect of commercial hubs is the beggar population is larger; Shellie and I were approached almost every couple of streets by a person with their hand out for the spare change from the ``rich western'' tourists walking around. I think on day one I was approached about 5 times in one hour; and while in the first case I did give 5dh (it is never enough, they ask for more of course), if you were to provide for every request you would go broke quickly. All of them (bar the youngest) had a rudamentary grasp of multiple languages other than arabic including english, spanish, french, german; enough for them to have a basic conversation with you. Most of the time they would start with ``where are you from'' followed by ``welcome to Morocco'', tips on good places to visit; then ``you can help my my friend''. This would happen as you try to walk along and move on your way. If people are walking in groups they target an individual based on the group dynamics. At one point (not far from the hotel) Shellie was approached by a young man (who hand not grasped any alternative languages yet) who gestured for money and pointed at his lack of shoes. Walking through this and saying no made me feel a little hollow; I do not like being rude, or being targeted because quite obviously I am better off than they are. It was the quantity, frequency and insistent manner of the beggars in Casablanca which set it apart from the other cities we had visited. In Marrakech and Essouria the beggars mostly sat on the side of the path, hand out.As part of our wandering on the first day we had originally thought we would set out to find the famous Ricks bar of Casablanca fame. Did you know that the bar didn't exist until 2004! Yep, it was only a construction of a movie set until an American entrepreneur named Kathy saw a demand in people visiting Casablanca to see the bar (only to find it didn't exist) and created it! Of course, this ``finding the bar'' was based on an assumption it would be easy to find. As it turned out, we didn't have access to a reasonable map; the one we had at the hotel was ``free of charge'' and comprised of a single photo-copied sheet of paper, without a scale. The Lonely Planet map didn't even have the train-station where we arrived, so it was a little light on detail (although to be honest, we had a Lonely Planet for the whole of Europe, so each area was a little light on detail). So we set out for the tourism office, somewhere up Mohammed V (as you may tell from other blog entries, Mohammed V is a popular name for main streets here in Morocco). So off we went, walking in the general direction of where we understood the tourism office to be. This is where, as a map reader, you really appreciate having a scale on the map. At several points I was convinced we were either on the wrong street (as in a similar to fashion, finding street signs became a learned skill), or we had simply missed the building. Fortunately we found the tourism office only to find the ``free map'' was a guide they had published in Feb 2008 and contained a map without a scale and no reference to any tourist points; oh well - it appeared Casablanca's tourism support infrastructure in terms of information was a little lacking.We ended up using both maps for our travels. After the tourism office we visited the central market which was a relatively small city block containing fresh food on the inside and either prepared food or clothing/trinkets on the outside. Again we witnessed fantastic flower arrangements, something which seems to be a Moroccan talent; I also saw a few more ``fresh meat'' stalls including horse!Surprisingly when we returned to the market around 16:00 the stalls were closed! This was not something we had expected given Marrakech and Essouria, although we did remember the ``Central market'' in Marrakech (not the Souks or Djemaa el-Fna) were closing at dusk!We spent quite a bit of time walking on our first full day in Casablanca, navigating through the residential districts, viewing quite a few high-rise apartments in a range of states of repair. As we walked we saw very few tourists where we travelled we figured we were a little off the tourist map! This of course resulted in quite a few eye's following us as we walked around, and our spider senses being armed to alert us to any streets we shouldn't walk down. By the end of the first day we had exhausted our exploration of the ``new'' Casablanca, saving our exploration of the Medina and Mosque to the next day.Day two of our Casablanca adventure started in a similar fashion to day one, except this time we had maps (sort of), and had orientated ourselves which as a result meant we required maps less! We also had Medina experience thanks to Marrakech and Essouria so we were well prepared.Our walk through the Medina started with us heading for where we thought Rick's bar would be located; somewhere on the Northern wall of the Medina with a view of the harbour. The road on the way was quite wide and accommodated quite a few cars, which surprised us given our previous experience. We found later this was limited to the outside streets of the Medina, the internal ones were the normal ``narro and tight'' we were used to!Rick's bar is a converted house; with a guard posted at the front door! We saw several people arrive in quite nice taxis and, based on our research of the bar and location, concluded the cost of the food and service within the bar may be a little out of our price range; so we decided not to go in!We then continued to walk through the Medina and found the market! It was Saturday and the market area was massive, spreading from the Medina to the streets surrounding it on the Southern side for several blocks. We encountered market after market; it seemed like there were many smaller markets which, due to location, were all connected together. For example, you could explore a few streets find the fresh food, clothing, other goods, then within a few meters, find another fresh food, then clothing etc. We did have a talent in finding the location of the fresh meat areas (by fresh, I mean seeing cattle heads sitting on the benches and at one point we followed a man who had two goat-heads hanging off this bicycle handle bars!) Shellie did very well in dealing with all of this I must say!However, aside from the ``fresh meat'', we also found ample fresh vegetable and fruit markets. We were happy as we had found markets the locals use; there was barely a tourist in sight! Much of the bartering and ordering was taking place in Arabic; which certainly demonstrated this was a local market!This was a refreshing change as, unlike the tourist markets in Marrakech, as the stall holders were busy selling to locals; and we were ``obviously'' just looking around, they ignored us! Also unlike the central market we had discovered the day before these markets were in operation well after the sun went down.We spent several hours exploring the markets before exploring other parts of the new town, before aiming for the mosque at sunset.All in all, Casablanca was a worthwhile experience; but having been here I don't feel a desire to return, unlike for Essouria (for the calm and the beach) and Marrakech (for Djemaa el-Fna and the Souks). If we return to Morocco we would like to explore Agadir, Rabat and Fez, potentially slipping down to Essouria should the opportunity present itself!As a footnote, on the flight between Casablanca and Paris, there was a heated argument between two male passengers two seats behind us once the ``fasten seatbelt'' sign was turned off. It was all in Arabic, and was settled when another man offered to change seats; but it was interesting! They also fumigated the flight with a flight attendant wandering down the centre of the plane holding two bottles of spray towards the ceiling. Something I haven't seen before; Shellie mentioned they do this for flights back from Fiji as well!
