Wednesday, November 4th, 2009
My friend made me watch the movie Casablanca before I left Canada. I had never seen it, believe it or not. And, like everyone before me, I fell half in love with Ingrid Bergman and realised that it is, in fact, a damn good movie. Sometimes it is worth re-inventing the wheel. I was also fascinated by the fact that it was a war movie that was made actually during the war. Not a retrospective. At some point I’m going to have to re-watch it so I can pay attention to things other than plot.
Casablanca the city, however, was a bit of a disappointment. It was grungy and dirty and very European. It reminded me, for some bizarre reason, of Antwerp. Only grimier.
Technically, Casa wasn’t my first city. I flew into Marrakech, arrived late, stayed overnight, then took the train to Casa the next day. Marrakech, I have to say, didn’t make a great impression either, but I was there for such a short time and would return to that city twice more before I left Morocco, so I’m not going to deal with it just now.
The train ride from Marrakech to Casa, though, was one of my favourite things in those first few days. The ticket was fairly cheap (90 dihrams, I think), the train was clean and it left on time. And, for three hours, I got to sit curled up in my window seat and watch the countryside unroll in front of me. The whole time I was travelling, I loved watching out the windows of moving vehicles. For me, it felt like the only time I got to see the real, everyday life of the country, not the show put on for tourists. I got to see people going about their business, faces unguarded. I got to see people farming, and travelling, doing their laundry, sitting and chatting. I took dozens and dozens of photos out the windows. Sometimes I captured what I was aiming for, sometime I missed, but that is the joy of digital photography and an 8gig card.
Near Marrakech, which is in the interior of the country, the terrain all looked like a kind of stony desert. There were furrows in the ground, like it had been farmed, but it all looked too dry to have ever grown anything. It was early November by this point, though, before the winter rainy season, so it’s likely the landscape is much more lush in spring. We passed through hills a couple of times, passed dried river beds carved deep into the dirt, passed villages and towns, each with at least one minaret, often startlingly white amidst the browns and pinks and ochres. And as we neared Casablanca, on the coast, we began to see much more vegetation, much more green.
I shared a second class cabin on this train journey with three women and one man. The woman opposite me at the window seat was a very motherly sort, who offered us all limes once the train was underway. Only the gentleman accepted. I found out later that it is customary to share your food with the others in your compartment.
In Casablanca I had booked two extra nights in the hotel where the Intrepid tour began. It was generally ok, although on the second night I was joined in my room by a couple of cockroaches. Yechh. I arrived from Marrakech in the afternoon, and had intended to squeeze in a quick visit to the Jewish muesum before it closed. It was a long way out from where I was staying, though, and the concierge warned me off that neighbourhood after dark, and I was completely unable to hail a taxi, so I decided to wander around the hotel neighbourhood instead.
The big French colonial buildings that the guide book raves about weren’t far from the hotel, so I wandered out to see them. And then I meandered around through the shopping area that surrounded the hotel. Almost all the buildings in Casablanca are white, or, rather, were white once. Everything is covered in a greyish/brownish grime. Probably from decades of traffic. The cars in Morocco are certainly not limited by any kind of emissions tests, and the air is redolent of exhaust fumes. Also, the drivers are universally insane. Traffic laws and the lines in the road seem more of a suggestion than anything else. Also, traffic lights are very hard to see from a pedestrian’s perspective. And then there are the motorbike riders who weave through traffic like maniacs. My trick for not being killed during those first few days was to wait for a local who was crossing in the same direction and to stick close to them.
It’s also a good idea to keep an eye on where you put your feet. There are many, many potholes, and some places where the pavement has buckled entirely. All unfixed. We had a guide in Essaouira who said that Moroccans are good at building things, but not at maintaining them. This seems to be universally true.
I also perfected my skills of selective deafness. A foreign, white woman travelling on her own garners attention. Although, at least I’m not blonde. There was nothing threatening, nothing I couldn’t handle. I dressed respectfully and didn’t make eye contact. But the constant low-grade attention was draining by the end of the trip.
I ended up wandering as far as the south wall of the old medina, but wasn’t willing to go in and get lost on my own after dark, so I headed back to the hotel and watched Switzerland beat Germany at football on Eurosport while organising myself for the next day.
Thursday, November 5th, 2009
The next morning I headed out relatively early to see the Hassan II Mosque, Casablanca’s main tourist attraction. It was about 9:30 and there were very few people around. In the huge courtyard that surrounds the mosque, capable of holding 80,000 worshippers during Ramadan, this felt rather odd; there should have been more tourists. I wandered around outside taking photographs. The mosque is huge, majestic and just stunning. It’s also right on the edge of the ocean – the first time I had seen the ocean up close in a long time. It was built there because of a verse in the Quran that says that God’s seat is upon the water.
I also paid for a tour of the inside with an English-speaking guide. We had to take our shoes off at the entrance, but we were allowed to carry them with us in plastic bags that they provided. Construction on the mosque began in 1987 and was completed in 1993, so it is quite recent. The main prayer hall is stunning, with a breathtakingly high ceiling. Everything inside is ornate, everything has been made beautiful. The building materials came from all over Morocco, and other than a couple of Italian exceptions, all the materials were locally sourced. The hall can hold up to 25,000 worshippers, with 20,000 at ground level and 5,000 on the balconies. The floor is centrally heated in winter, and the roof slides open for ventilation in the summer. There are glass sections in the floor that look down on the ablutions room below, and ornately carved windows overlooking the ocean on the north side. The entire building is a work of art.
We got to go down and visit the ablution rooms as well, where worshippers wash before prayer. The pillars down in this area are built of a special material designed to absorb moisture from the air. It was still humid down there, but the brass chandeliers weren’t oxidized, unlike the ones in the stairwell exposed to the ocean air.
The last stop on the tour was the hammam. This has nothing to do with religion, but is intended to be a purely social area of the mosque. It is not yet in use, but it is beautiful to look at.
The tour over, I took a final look around and headed off. I was determined to find Rick’s Cafe near the north-west corner of the medina. I walked through a very dodgy neighbourhood to get there, which I probably shouldn’t have done, really. I got to where I thought it should be, but couldn’t find it. Nor could I find any street signs to make sure I was in the right area. I finally gave up and hailed a cab. We made it, literally, about 10 metres down the road, when I caught sight of ‘reserved for Rick’s Cafe’ parking spots, so I had the guy pull over and let me out again.
So, yeah. Rick’s Cafe. Some enterprising American, a former diplomat, I think, has actually opened a place called Rick’s Cafe. They tried to decorate it like in the movie, and everything. It’s much smaller than the one in the movie, but there is a piano. Although, while I was there, the music was canned. There was a doorman, a receptionist, and a large number of wait staff, but since it had only just opened for lunch, I was the only patron in there. Awkward. I ordered a fresh-squeezed orange juice and paid an exorbitant amount of money for it, but decided not to stay and eat.
Later in the afternoon I finally made it out to the Jewish museum. I had the usual trouble trying to hail a cab to get me out there. I finally lucked out, though, and found a really nice cab driver who had actually heard of the museum. It’s not big, it’s tucked in a residential neighbourhood, and only a couple of people visit per day (judging from the guestbook), so most people don’t even know it’s there. This guy did, though, and we chatted all the way out there. He asked if I was Jewish, to which the simplest answer was yes. He asked if I prayed and if I believed in god. I hedged, but essentially said no, and that my dad didn’t like religion so we were never exposed to it in the house when I was little. Tradition yes, religion no. I had to keep it pretty basic, because while my French is still pretty good, it is no longer up to philosophical discussions. He asked my name and said he would say a prayer for me, which was very kind, and then he told me about his family.
The museum was a converted house in a residential neighbourhood that did, indeed, feel unsafe. Lots of high walls and absolutely no foot traffic. Inside, there were photos and artifacts from Jewish synagogues, mellahs and homes from across Morocco and across time. But there was very little in terms of history or context for them. They were interesting to look at, but I don’t feel I know more about the history of the Jews in Morocco, which is mostly what I was hoping for.
There have been Jews in Morocco for about 2000 years, until the 1950s, when many of them left to live in Israel, North America and other countries. It was interesting to see how Jewish dress and design had been influenced by the arab world around them. Jewish costume in Morocco was very different from that in Europe and North America.
A last note for anyone thinking of visiting, keep in mind that most of the information posted by the exhibits is in French and Hebrew, and only occasionally is there any English.
The guard from the museum walked me to the corner and waited with me until a taxi came along. There was another woman already inside, but they were going roughly in my direction, so I hopped in. This is the way it works in Morocco, I finally found out. An occupied taxi will still stop when hailed to work out whether both destinations are in the same area. Sharing is very, very common.
Not wanting to spend another night alone in my hotel room, and not feeling comfortable in the male-dominated cafes, I went to see This Is It, the Michael Jackson movie, for the evening. It was on and it was in English. That was all I needed.
Friday, November 6th, 2009
I booked a half-day tour with a guide and a minivan through the concierge. There were a couple of other people from the Intrepid tour I was about to take who had already signed up for one, so that made it cheaper. I was also really pleased to meet up with other travellers from the tour. I was already feeling very lonely and discouraged after only a couple of days. It was also really nice not to have to deal with hailing taxis.
Our first stop was the Hassan II Mosque, which I had already visited the day before. The others went in to take the tour, and I sat on the sea wall to write postcards and watch the mist roll in. There were a lot more tourists around this time, which was nice to see. Two men sitting on the wall not far from me came over to chat. They seemed nice, so I abandoned my deafness rule. Abdul was visiting from Tangier with his friend. He had only been to Casablance twice, and had never seen Marrakech, but had travelled extensively to other countries. We mostly talked about travel, where we had each been and where we would like to go, but he was also slightly shocked to find out I’m not married and don’t have kids at my age.
The others came out of the mosque and I said goodbye to Abdul. We got back into the minivan and headed out to Ain Diab. This is the Cancun of Casablanca. It’s cleaner, there are beaches and huge hotels, expensive shops and Western restaurants. We got out of the van and walked a bit. We passed what must be a very expensive gym where you can run on the treadmill while looking out over the ocean.
We also visited a cluster of white buildings on a rock out in the ocean. Tide was out so we could walk out to it. Our guide for the day was unable to find the English words to explain to us what this place was, and it was only after playing 20 questions with our Intrepid guide later on that we were able to establish that it was a shrine. I wish I had known that at the time. I would have been more… respectful, somehow. Long ago, someone holy had come out from Iraq and lived there, and now there are women who live there and take care of the shrine.
We got back in the van and drove through the different areas of Casablanca. We saw the area where the very rich people live – diplomats and movie stars. It has a very different feel from the area around my hotel; the walls are high and clean, nothing is crumbling, there are palm tress, red honeysuckle and purple bougainvillea everywhere. The houses behind the walls each seemed to be different from the others. All had their own character, some traditional, some modern, all beautiful.
We drove through the rich shopping area. Cleaner and fancier than the area around the hotel, it has the really expensive stores as well as the ones like Zara and Mango that are staples of every European shopping street.
We also visited the Habous. This is like the Disney version of a Souq. Wider streets, cleaner, nicer. It had lovely keyhole doorways, cobblestones, and brightly coloured wares. There were some stunning teapots that were not at all traditional, but very beautiful. Also teacups, leather slippers, djellabas, jewellery, crafts and ‘magic boxes.’
We finished up with a drive past the palace and a stop at the big white colonial buildings not far from the hotel. A couple of the other Intrepid travellers and I went for lunch in some small restuarant not far from the hotel. Our first exposure to real Moroccan couscous. I pointed out the ‘broccoli potato’ to the others – I had encountered it during my first meal in Casablanca. It looks like a potato and tastes like broccoli, but is actually some form of turnip, we eventually found out. It was a part of any meal that came with vegetables, and I’m sure our guide told us its proper name, but for the length of our stay it was universally called the broccoli potato.
We had a wander through the medina for a while, which is much smaller in Casa than in other cities (Fez, for example). And the souq within it is much more functional than touristy. We arrived probably around 1:00p and the medina felt nearly empty, but as we were wandering, suddenly huge crowds of people came streaming through. It was Friday, and a holiday, and prayers in the local mosque had clearly just let out. One of the guys I was with stopped to buy some sunglasses (he had forgotten his) and I got to see some haggling in action. Then we all headed back to the hotel for a siesta.
That evening was our Intrepid meeting. There were actually two groups on two different tours meeting up there, so it was a moment of confusion before we got ourselves sorted with who belonged where. A couple of the people from the sightseeing tour I had taken that morning were in the other group, and it was a bit sad to see them go. Our group then headed out to a restaurant much nicer than the one where we had eaten lunch, and we spent a lovely evening chatting. It was so much nicer to be with other people than to be travelling on my own.
kithika