Morocco Part 1: Casablanca

Hello Again!
One month later, I am finally getting to my Morocco blogs. It's fun to look back on everything I did in this North African country. 

Casablanca: June 4-6, 2010
After a week in Madrid, it was time to change locations for the second half of our USD MBA trip. Mabela and I wanted to get a jump start on Morocco, so we planned a quick weekend visit to Casablanca. This was my first time in Morocco, as well as my first time in Africa. (The rest of our classmates took an organized group trip to southern Spain, where we had both already been, and the plan was for everyone to meet up in Marrakesh on Sunday.)

When the two of us touched down in Morocco for the first time, we both experienced some culture shock. I had been to one partly Muslim country last year, Malaysia, but I knew Morocco would be quite different. Morocco is 95% Muslim and 5% Jewish, so I figured we would see a lot of traditionally dressed Muslims, and we did!

Mabela and I dressed conservatively for our trip, but we still encountered many strange and curious looks. We made our way to the train station in the airport to get into the city, trying not to stare at all the covered faces. Casablanca is the main international airport as well as the main business and commerce city of Morocco. Right away, we had a difficult time communicating with everyone. Morocco has 2 official languages: Arabic and French. We speak neither! Sometimes Spanish would work, since Casablanca is in northern Morocco, which is close to Spain. The two countries are only separated by about 15k of water. We bought two train tickets to the Casa Port station, and the adventures began. We ran to the train station, hoping to make the 7pm departure, but the train was just leaving as we arrived. Trains depart to 2 major train stations every hour, Casa Voyeur and Casa Port, so we had to wait for the 8pm train…Then, it didn’t help that we got on the WRONG train at 8pm! *Flash back to Vietnam 2009 when Nicole & I slept through the wakeup call on our sleeper train & got stuck on the train heading back the wrong way! So not good with trains!*

Back to Casablanca...Everyone in the station was boarding and there was limited signage so we followed along. After we were well on our way, the train personnel came by to check our tickets. After looking at mine, he began speaking dynamically to me in French.  I don’t understand French, but I was getting the feeling that he was trying to communicate “wrong train.” Luckily, a young man behind us got up to help, and luckily, he also spoke French, Arabic, AND Spanish. He translated for us, and we figured out that we should get off at the main stop – Casa Voyeur, and take a taxi into town. The other option was to switch trains somewhere else, but after passing several remote, sketchy looking small stations along the way, we decided to go with option one. It was nearly dark at that point, and the language barrier would have made things too difficult if we got lost.

We negotiated a price of 20 dirham with our taxi driver to get to our hotel. (The exchange rate is $1 = 9 dirham.) Immediately, I felt far, far away from home. As we began our drive to the other side of town, I looked at the people covered from head to toe, the deteriorating buildings that looked straight out of a movie filmed in the Middle East, and the cafes filled with men only. Culture shock!

We arrived to our hotel safely, and found that it was in an old part of town. We didn’t know any better and had just booked a cheap hotel near the “city center.” (This was the OLD city center.) The staff was very friendly, and the service was excellent. My only complaint was the lack of English spoken by the staff. I thought for sure it would be different at a hotel! I guess we chose the wrong place, but Mabela and I got by. We had modest accommodations, but we shared the same restaurant and lounge with a nicer hotel next door. Our first night, we dined on pizza and salad nicoise. Actually, pizza wasn’t even listed on the French-only menu, but I think it’s a universal word. Vegetarian is also similar in French as it is in English, so I was content when our vegetarian pizza and tuna salad arrived without a problem. I slept well that night, and didn’t hear too much from the nightclub downstairs. Earplugs are key when traveling!

We awoke to a call from a university professor that resides in Casablanca that was scheduled to speak to our USD group in Marrakesh on Sunday. We originally got in touch with him in San Diego to share a train or car ride with him from Casablanca to Marrakesh, and he was calling to check up on us and make sure we arrived safely. He said he would show us around Casablanca later that day, so Mabela and I made our own itinerary for the first half of the day. After a light breakfast, we got a map from our non-English speaking receptionist, who circled some of Casablanca’s highlights on the map. It took us a while to get our point across, and in the process, I made up a new word: “tourisimo!” Mabela laughed at me, and I laughed when that was the word that made him get out the map. Really? Tourisimo?

The hotel concierge assured us it was ok to walk to our first stop, the medina, which is the oldest part of the city that is completely surrounded by a high wall. The night before at dinner, we spoke to some Australians who had already spent a day in Casablanca, and they said to take a taxi everywhere. Many of you know I am “cheap” while traveling, so we decided to walk. My observations: there were men sitting and smoking in cafes everywhere, there were a few covered women hurrying around the streets, it was not a nice area of town, and driving in Casablanca looked crazy. After countless stares, we found the medina and entered the old city walls. Immediately we were approached by a man dressed in white from head to toe, who spoke amazing English! He said he wanted to show us his shop, but actually, we ended up getting a full tour of the medina. We knew we’d have to tip him in the end, but we didn’t mind. We felt more comfortable having a tour guide at this point.

There were many more locals than tourists inside the old city walls. We mostly saw jewelry, clothing, and art shops, as well as a local food market. The food street felt particularly narrow and crowded, and it reminded me a little bit of what I saw at a local Cambodian market, only much smaller. I enjoyed looking at the spices and olives, but didn’t enjoy witnessing a live chicken chopping directly to my right. I’m glad we had a light breakfast!

Mabela and I ended up purchasing 2 things each inside the medina walls: a painting, and a necklace. Today, I am happy with those purchases. Negotiating for the paintings took some time, however, and I was definitely sweating by the end of them. Mabela and I naturally played “good cop, bad cop” during the negotiation process, which is exactly what the store owner and our tour guide were doing to us, I am sure. Our guide spoke to the owner in Arabic, telling him our prices and vice versa. The shop owner started out at 1600 dirham ($170) for two paintings. I was shocked at this ridiculous pricing and came back at 500 dirham ($55) for the two. The back and forth went on for a while, and I kept trying to “leave” until we ended up getting both for 600 dirham, or approximately $33 each. I’ve found pricing to be completely different than what I expected it to be in Morocco. Many things are priced actually very similarly to the US, and nothing was as cheap as Southeast Asia.

At the end of our tour, even after negotiations, I still think we overpaid the guide for two necklaces and for his time. I was a bit fatigued from our last negotiation, so I was just ready to move on.  Our next stop was the 3rd largest mosque in the world - Hassan II Mosque! (Mecca is the largest.)

We negotiated our taxi price for the short ride to the mosque (from 30 dirham down to 10), and were immediately amazed by its presence. The mosque is huge and is partially situated over the ocean. The building itself is huge, and has the highest minaret in the world at 200m or 689 feet!

We took a guided tour (in English!) and were amazed to hear some of the facts. The mosque only took 6 years to build (1987-1993), cost over $800 million to construct, and modern technology is incorporated throughout the structure. The massive doors weigh tons, and are raised like garage doors to open electronically. The roof can also slide open electronically to the heavens. They only do utilize these features during very special Islam times of worship, so we didn’t get to see these aspects in action.  It's also important they keep the mosque closed since it's on the beach. We saw the elevator that takes the women up to their worship area! So different than any mosque I have ever visited. It is huge inside, and all the beautiful intricate carvings were done by hand. There are several huge chandeliers that can also be raised and lowered electronically. There is an area in the middle that fills up with water. There is a lower level with all the baths and hammams. Overall, this was one of the most impressive religious structures I have ever seen.

After our tour on our way out, we had some awkward encounters with foreign men who wanted to come and talk with Mabela and me. Perhaps I should say they attempted to talk to us because their English was so bad, and/or they didn’t speak Spanish either. One thing we both understood before we left was the invitation to go have couscous with them at their mother's house. ("She makes the best couscous in all of Morocco!) Yeah right!  Get lost. That was my first experience with a bad Moroccan pickup line, and in Marrakesh, they only got worse.

What do you think when you hear the word Casablanca? Most people think of the movie, so we couldn’t leave Casablanca without dining at Rick’s Café. A woman noticed an opportunity, and opened the nice restaurant and bar in 2004. It was designed to look and feel like the restaurant in the movie, Casablanca. We were greeted by a door man in a tux, and all of the wait staff was dressed to the nines. It was a white tablecloth restaurant as well, so we dined well that day. The prices were comparable to the US, and the food was excellent.

We couldn’t decide what to do for the rest of the day until the professor called, so we went back to the hotel for a soda and to rest. The professor called and said he would pick us up to drive us around the city and take us to dinner. It felt nice to have someone the university trusted to show us around by car…We actually go to see the nice part of Casablanca that we didn’t realize existed! After a relatively short drive along the coast and past the mosque, we began to see nicer buildings and some western influence. McDonald’s was the first sign. Next we drove past a cinema with the 2nd largest movie screen in Africa. The professor jokingly said that Morocco always tries to get ranked somehow. As we drove further away from our hotel, it kept getting nicer and nicer until we were finally in the new “city center.” Note to anyone who travels to Casablanca – stay in the NEW city center! It’s much nicer. There were nice shops (Zara, H&M), luxury hotels, and fine dining restaurants. Basically it was a world of difference from the old Casablanca, and I am very glad we were able to see that area.

Another interesting note from our professor was that we were definitely staying in a hotel in the “bad” part of town. He said he wife was even afraid to drive by herself in that area. It’s funny to look back on it and laugh now, but I will definitely be informing STA travel of this since they recommended the hotel. The 3 of us went to a nice Moroccan restaurant on the coast for dinner, and let the professor order things for us to try. I actually liked most of it, especially the first course. Everything I had was seafood, but this was the last time I enjoyed seafood on the trip. I generally prefer to stick to a traditional vegetarian diet rather than a pescetarian diet when I travel. Countries have different ways of preparing meat and seafood, and it usually doesn’t sit well with me. At this dinner, however, it was good. We had good food and good conversation. Mabela and I learned a lot about Morocco, US and Morocco relations, and the Muslim culture.

The next morning, the professor picked us up and we drove in his car to Marrakesh to meet up with the rest of the students. The drive took a little under 3 hours. 

Next blog - Marrakesh!