Morocco Part 1: Casablanca and Tangier

We came in thinking Morocco would be unlike anything we have ever seen. Short story, it WAS. On this journey, we ventured for the first time to Africa, our fourth continent, (only three to go!) and to our first Muslim country. It was so interesting to learn about the crazy mix of cultures that all filter through Morocco; Jewish, French, Spanish, Berber, Arabic, and African cultures all have a visible influence. Interestingly, despite the potential for conflict due to this diversity, the Moroccan people are actually pretty progressive and live harmoniously – each respecting each other’s differences.

We’ll get to the sand, mountains, genies and magic carpets in a little bit, but our story here starts in commercial Casablanca. Most known as the setting for the aptly-named and quintessentially quoted movie “Casablanca,” this city is actually very developed and serves as one of the ports on the Atlantic side of Morocco, provoking trade and commerce. That said, it certainly didn’t feel very touristy with only a few points of interest. We stayed our first night in the Casablanca Sheraton after a travel day from Spain. It was here where we got our first glimpse of the unique beauty we would see in the days to come.

Most of our time in Morocco was with a small group of 12 young adults that we booked through G Adventures, so we had some time to ourselves before joining with them the following day. We used this time to first visit the Hassan II Mosque, which is the world’s third largest Mosque after the ones in Mecca and Medina. This Mosque has capacity for 25,000 people and has sections for a hammam (traditional bathing area for pre-prayer ablutions) as well as the massive prayer chamber. Words simply don’t describe the scale and beauty of this holy place.

After taking ALL the pictures, we headed for lunch at Rick’s Cafe, which was only a few blocks away from the mosque. If you haven’t clued in yet or seen the movie, this is the main setting for the movie “Casablanca” and was a must see! Note, however, that this was a recreation of the Hollywood set that was incredibly well done. We dined in style on curried chicken and salmon before finally meeting up with our group.

Interestingly, us Americans were in the minority of nationalities represented in a strongly Australian and Canadian group. (It seems the Aussies are perpetually on vacation as we have run into them everywhere we have been.) It was also a very well-traveled group with almost half visiting Morocco as part of an extended world tour. The group got oriented quickly at the Hotel Casablanca and then had our first dinner together at a Moroccan restaurant nearby, dining on Pil Pil (shrimp tagine) and shawarma.

We packed up the bus and headed to Tangier the next morning after breakfast. Tangier has been a major port for centuries and is only 9km from the south of Spain. In fact, you can even see the Spanish coastline from the medina. Our guide, Mohammad (Momo for short) did a great job along the way of wrangling us all and pointing out various points of interest during the 4-hour bus ride. We checked into the Hotel Chellah and promptly found lunch nearby. With free time in the afternoon, we found ourselves in our first ancient medina (old city) and suddenly surrounded by the smell of spices, merchants of all sorts, and CATS!

While this was a good introductory medina, it left us feeling rather shortchanged compared to what we had pictured in our minds due to the bustle, grit, and fast pace we experienced all around us. Instead of the bright stalls with colorful fruits and fabrics, we found knockoff Adidas, cheap tourist trinkets, and foul smells. In fact we didn’t have a particular attachment to anything in this city, or even in Casablanca based on how industrial and crowded both of those cities felt. It’s neat to say that we’ve now been to both of these cities, but I can’t say that we would recommend them for the casual traveler.

But no worry, all of these initial perceptions about Morocco were about to be blown away over the next few days…

-GP