Casablanca - Here's Looking at You

It was a fairly long haul to Casablanca - including the two hour stopover in Doha it was 25h30m in all by the time we landed at our final destination. I'd have to give Qatar Airlines the thumbs up for better than average in-flight catering. Just a pity that they don't have a separate section for those who feel compelled to subject a two month old baby to a long haul flight. (Or if they do have such a section, that we were amongst the poor sods sharing it!)

The immigration queue was a bit longer than we would have liked, but at least by the time we made it through our luggage was already on the carousel. It didn't take us too long to get some Moroccan cash and then buy a local SIM card for my iPhone to set me up with enough mobile data to help us navigate our way around.

We figured we'd be in plenty of time to make what we anticipated would be the 3:00pm train into the city, but it turned out that the hourly trains left on the half hour, not on the hour as we'd been led to expect. We bought a snack from the little station cafe (much cheaper than the ones upstairs in the airport) to tide us over and help pass the time. The train trip was pretty crowded, and quite hot with no aircon, but at least we saw some different parts of Casablanca on the way in - though not all were flattering.

From the main Port Casa train station we opted to walk to our hotel since by then we'd spent most of the previous 28 hours or so sitting down. It only took about 25 minutes and allowed us our first street level explore of Casablanca. Nonetheless we were feeling pretty warm by the time we arrived at our hotel. I must say that our room was quite palatial - the space occupied by our bed/sitting room, the entry way, bathroom and separate toilet would probably have been enough for 2-3 motel rooms in most places.

Spices for sale in the street market

We could see the tower of the famous Hussan II mosque from our window, so after a short rest and a change into cooler clothes we headed off to have a look at it. It didn't take long to find ourselves at the start of the local street markets so of course we plunged in to explore them. They were very busy with a very wide range of food, goods and produce available. This included birds in cages, live chickens that would be killed, plucked and gutted on demand, unusual pastries, kids toys and sweets with bees swarming all over them. We couldn't resist buying some peaches which were quite large and very delicious.

Daredevils taking the plunge

We eventually wound our way out the other side of the market area by which time we were only a block or so from the mosque. The Hussan II mosque is famous for being the third largest in the world and it certainly looks magnificent. It was obviously also a very popular area for locals to hang out.

At one point on an adjoining sea wall young guys were taking turns to leap ten metres into the sea below. There were also swimmers, rock fishermen and at least one surfer out catching waves. All these were males of course. There were lots of couples, families and children promenading and playing.

Families and kites in the surrounds of the mosque

Up on the concourse of the mosque itself there were lots of people flying kites amidst what was clearly a popular places for families to congregate - overall there was a very strong sense of community.

After taking in the sights, and with the sun close to setting, we set off to retrace our way through the labyrinthine market streets, which we managed pretty well. We even found a little street cafe where we were able to buy some nice take-away food which we ate while sitting on the steps of someone's house (we know this because we were interrupted by them coming home!). We also checked out a local BIM supermarket to buy a few supplies.

An alcove outside the mosque catches the setting sun.

Although we had only been in Morocco a few hours it seemed like the end of a very long day after such a long and tiring flight so once back in our comfy motel room there were no plans by either of us to stay up late.