Casablanca

Outside my window.

 The fishing port.

 The Hassan II Mosque.

 The inside is massive and symmetrical.

 There are many street vendors selling any manner of things.

This is two blocks from the mosque.

 I have no idea what this is about.

Guide Rachid, on left and room mate Wim, second on right.

Wednesday, September 13^th.

After I got myself organized and had the included continental breakfast I decided to go for a walk and explore. I walked through the neighbourhood streets watching the street scenes, crazy traffic, street vendors and lots of people until I got to a local square. This is where the old Medina starts, but I didn't feel like going in there just yet. Medinas are markets where the vendors are trying desperately to get you to buy something, and if you do want something you have to haggle. I don't want anything so I decided to go to the harbour and walk around the harbour wall to the mosque. This is about a four kilometre walk.

When I got to the harbour I stumbled across a fishing boat area. I wandered around watching the buyers and sellers and trying not to fall down on the fish gut slippery cement. I watched a couple of cats and a few lesser egrets trying to snatch a couple of fish for themselves.

Then I followed the sea wall until I got the Hsassan II Mosque. This is the largest mosque in Morocco (third largest in the world) and apparently the only one in the country open to non Muslims. The construction of the mosque lasted six years, from 1987 to 1993 (it was not here the last time I was - 1979). It is the work of 2500 workers and 10 000 craftsmen. At 200 metres it has the tallest religious minaret in the world. The mosque covers 20 000 square metres and is equipped with a movable roof (to let God in). It accommodates 25 000 worshippers inside and another 80 000 in the square outside. One third of the mosque is built over water.

The weather was quite warm but when I sat in the shade it felt great as the salt air blowing off the Atlantic cooled me off. There was a mist in the air from the salt. I bought a ticket for the inside tour. It is beautiful inside and everything is symmetrical and the workmanship is beautiful, including in the ablution station in the basement where Muslims wash before praying and the hamman (where they would bathe, get a massage and socialize). The hamman has never been used and is only a show piece.

From there I started to walk back and was looking at my hotel card when a man driving a late model Jeep SUV stopped and asked if I needed directions. I told him I was trying to get back to my hotel, so he offered to drive me. We had a good chat as he tried to find the place, but eventually he got lost in the new one way streets and couldn't get me to it, so he let me out and pointed in the direction he thought it was. But of course I got lost. I had to ask directions a few times but eventually I got there.

The Intrepid group meeting started 15 minutes later. There are 10 of us and we met our Moroccan guide, Rachid. We are two Canadians, one Belgian, two Kiwis and five Australians, four guys and six women and all but two are fifty plus. My room mate is Wim, the Belgian.

After filling out the paper work and listening to the introduction we went out for dinner. Most of us had tagine, a stew type meal. Mine was veal with almonds and prunes and was very good. After that four of us went to a local bar and had a couple of small beer before calling it a night.