No Regrets!

Our morning taxi to Hassan II Mosque was a great way to beat the heat. The driver was friendly and the unmetered fare was reasonable.

We got tickets for the mosque museum, grounds, and tour. Decorative arches and buttresses covered the doorways and ceilings of the museum. Lindsay marveled at the colorful and intricate wood carvings, brass engravings, and tile mosaics. I was blown away by the photographic opportunities outside as we approached the mosque.

The mosque is an interesting mix of brutalist concrete and hard angles and intricate carvings. It is absolutely massive, made even more impressive by the flat and immaculate grounds surrounding it. It helped that there were relatively few people walking around. Lindsay, dressed elegantly in linen with a bright green headdress and looking like a Moroccan model, helped give a classic, timeless elegance to my photos.

For our tour, we were asked to take our shoes off and place them into little bags. Then we walked inside. Looking up and around, we were surrounded by magnificently carved and intricately decorated walls and ceilings. A breathtaking, magnificent opulence that cannot be captured in words. The architecture features wonderful symmetries and asymmetries that make things really interesting for a photographer. Hassan II Mosque is one of most impressive buildings I’ve ever been in.

Our guide spoke broken English and didn’t seem that into it, but he gave us the basics. The mosque features an enormous retractable roof that opens and closes in five minutes. Construction was completed in 1993, and it’s now the third largest mosque in the world by size (behind only the Grand Mosque in Mecca and the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina, Saudi Arabia) and the 14th largest by capacity. Given that most impressive religious structures around the world were built so long ago, it’s surprising to me that Casablanca found the passion and budget to build something like this today. Construction of the mosque was entirely financed by public, commercial, and international donations.

The most amazing thing to me is that the entire structure was built in six years. With all of its intricate carvings and painting, I would imagine that designs alone would have taken at least a decade, with approvals and permits taking a decade more. This building is every bit as large and magnificent as Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, and that building has been under construction for 142 years and counting. Perhaps the Catalonians have something to learn from the Moroccans.

After a short walk along the steamy waterfront promenade, we hopped into another friendly taxi to Morocco Mall. I’m starting to get a little more confident with my French, using it to talk to merchants and waiters and taxi drivers with mixed success. It’s enough to impress Lindsay, which is good.

Morocco Mall is big, but a little less impressive for us who come from an America filled with enormous Mills shopping malls of our own. The aquarium with sharks and stingrays in the center of the mall is a nice touch, and the Muslim prayers echoing throughout as we walked made the experience unique. French and Arabic signage and spoken language seems to be woven together seamlessly. Everyone here is friendly and seems to get along.

After some mediocre smoothies, we did some quick shopping for some linen shirts and shorts in earth tones that are more appropriate for a Morocco vacation than the sporty stuff I usually wear. A few of the stores were refreshingly cool, but I’m wondering if the rest of the mall had AC or if AC in Morocco really isn’t a thing at all. I am constantly on the edge of sweating.

Then back into a taxi for a ride across town back to the hotel. Aside from the mosque, I’m not all that impressed with Casablanca. I thought it might be a charming outpost in the desert, as depicted in the 1942 movie, but instead it’s a sprawling city of 4 million. A constant haze lingers, and parts of it look like Beirut. We did learn that there is a tourist trap called Rick’s Cafe with props and ambience that honor the film, but any other romantic notions of Casablanca have been squashed.

We headed to our hotel lobby to meet our G Adventures group. This is one of the most exciting moments for me in a trip like this. In the first few minutes, you can get a feel what kind of group you have, what kind of people you’ll be spending the next week with, and what kind of trip this might be.

Nice group, everyone seems friendly enough. Good mix of ages and backgrounds. Our leader, Mohamed, seems like nice guy, if a bit low-key for a tour leader. Mohamed announced that I was a G Adventures VIP, having been on five trips with the company. I feel that may become a running joke.

Tradition is a group dinner on the first night. Mohamed took us to a nearby restaurant called Les Fleurs, where we all got to know each other a bit and I had a lamb tagine that was rather gross.

Headed to bed early to prepare for an early start this morning.

I now sit on our minibus heading east out of Casablanca. Outside, concrete apartment blocks and satellite dishes have given way to rolling hills and farms and what looks like olive plantations. We’re headed for the Roman ruins at Volubilis and will be arriving in Fès later this evening.