Morocco

 

The Silver Wind's first stop in Morocco was at the small city of Agadir in the south of the country.  The city is an agricultural transshipment point, the location of a thriving fishing industry and a tourist resort due to its long sandy beach.  The stop at Agadir was primarily to let off passengers who had booked the ship's overnight tour to Marrakech.  As the ship landed, Michael and I saw about a dozen folks waiting in the lobby with their overnight bags.  It's amazing the amount of "stuff" rich people think they need for one overnight.  I say rich people because the trip cost more than $2000 per person for a bus ride, a fancy meal, a tour and a hotel room for one night.

As usual, Michael and I took the first free shuttle bus to the downtown area.  A major earthquake leveled the city in 1960.  Agadir has been rebuilt as an airy, open modern city. The guide on the shuttle bus explained the local economy as the bus detoured through the fishing docks where we saw the day's catch of sardines bought and sold on the jetty pavement. He said that Agadir is the world's largest exporter of sardines.  The port is a few miles from the city center and its boulevards, beaches and resort hotels.  We got off the bus at a large square next to the Valley of the Birds, a city park and bird sanctuary that was not yet open at 9:00 a.m.  In fact, nothing was open at 9:00 a.m. beyond the occasional coffee shop and the local McDonald's.  I got a kick out of posing next to a stop sign in Arabic.

 It is most pleasant to be out and about before the crowds. It is fascinating to watch shopkeepers and trinket sellers set up their stalls and get ready for the day's business.  We walked through a market that was just getting organized and were able to watch some leather workers cutting and stitching wallets and purses.

The market, the small local mosque, the bird sanctuary and the beach resorts seemed to complete the list of local sights.  After a walk through the sleepy streets, we caught the next shuttle bus back to the ship. 

Michael and I had a pleasant walk around the city and were ready for our 1:00 p.m. departure for Casablanca.

The next morning we docked in Casablanca.  The famous movie of the same name, except for a few exterior shots, was not really filmed here.  Our tour, "Casablanca and the Grand Mosque," drove us by "Rick's Cafe," a rundown bar (at least the exterior) that was named after the one in the movie.  Otherwise, Casablanca is a completely modern Arab city with French inspired wide boulevards between many roundabouts and crooked streets in older areas.  The architecture is French Colonial, modern, Spanish and Arabic. The area called the new medina looks like a walled slum and the old medina in another part of the city is mostly a tourist area.  The really big attraction is the Hassan II Mosque, the second largest mosque in the Arab world.  It has the largest minaret in the world at 210 feet, a retractable roof and an over the top interior.  My photos do not really do it justice.  Everything is overwhelmingly huge and ornate.

I'm writing this after having visited the Alhambra at Grenada, Spain at a later stop.  It is clear that this huge mosque is making a statement that modern Islam is more powerful in every way than anything that came before.  Unfortunately, the Hassan II Mosque is not as delicate or beautifully proportioned as the Alhambra.  It overwhelms the senses with sheer size and quantity of complex ornamentation.  The builders of the Alhambra mastered dramatic settings with natural light, careful placement of architectural elements and the clever use of water.  True, the Alhambra is a palace, not a mosque but the relationship between it and Hassan II is obvious.

We made a photo stop a mile away near a lighthouse to view the mosque from a distance.  We then took the usual drive along the shore, through the rich neighborhoods, past the racetrack and back to the city center.

Our tour of Casablanca showed that it is a city of traffic jams, severe enough that we missed a couple of advertised stops in order to make sure we had time for the inevitable retail experience at what I assume is the guide's cousin's store.

The bus battled more traffic as we drove through the street market. We stopped for a walking tour of the old medina and a view of the door to the sultan's palace.  We encountered more traffic jams on our way past Mohammed V Square (no photo opportunity here) and all the way back to the port.

Casablanca is a moderately interesting city with a BIG mosque. It is not the romantic city everyone imagines.  There was a lot of construction underway, contributing to the traffic.  I wonder who is financing the large amount of infrastructure we saw being upgraded and the new high rises that now block the view from the Atlantic of the immense mosque.  A Google search shows the Moroccan economy is based on Tourism, Potash, Agriculture and the illegal export of hashish.