Casablanca

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26 February, 2010
We arrived back in Barcelona to a bright sunny day. We decided not to go on any excursions because we had heard via the news that there was to be a big storm coming through Barcelona and also Noel developed a head cold, so we just spent the day on the ship, moving from place to place as they disinfected the ship, due to all the new passengers coming on board. As it turned out, it was a perfect day, probably in the 70 degree area. (just think for a couple of hours we were almost the sole paying passengers, kinda nice) After the new hoards got on board, the ship was filled to capacity, we got underway at 7:00 pm, off to Casablanca.
27 February 2010
This was a day at sea, started heading for the straits of Gibraltar (known in the olden times as the Pillars of Hercules). Noel was hoping to photograph these, but as we travelled through there at 6:30 p.m., it was getting dark, it was cloudy and was starting to rain, so no pics at this time. We then entered into the Atlantic Ocean, it was fairly calm, but as Gerrie found out there is a rhythm to the ocean (ie Atlantic/Pacific) and there is a constant rolling effect which causes the ship to rock. I thought the ship was going to tip over, don’t think I slept all night, but we didn’t get sick either. The Mediterranean Ocean isn’t anything like that.
We wish to advise we are now bronze latitude cruisers, yippee, we only have eight more to go to become gold members or three to become silver.
28 February, 2010
Arrived in Casablanca, Morocco (North Africa) (Noel was having déjà vu, including Egypt this was this third time back to Africa in six months) to rain and cloudy skies and for this part of the world, this will probably be one of the five days that it gets rain. Had breaky, went out on the excursion “Highlights of Casablanca”, the sun came out about noon and it was beautiful. The City of Casablanca is not an old city, in fact in the 1900’s it was just a fishing village. most of the buildings have been built in the last 50 -60 years. The guide was quick to point of Casablanca the movie was not shot on location, but was completely done in Hollywood. In fact there wasn't a hotel as seen in the movie at all, the Moroccan's did however did after the fact build one to match the movie. There are some brightly dressed men throughout the city they are camera shy except when you want a photo with them, then of course they are quite obliging for money.
During the tour, we stopped at the second largest mosque in the world outside of Mecca. It has the tallest minaret in the world at 200 metres. The Mosque is so large, it will hold 25,000 people inside and 80,000 in the plaza which is located around the mosque. The woman and men pray in separate areas, the women pray behind the men on raised platforms, so the men will have pure thoughts and not be focused elsewhere. (SEX). Most of the handy work inside the Mosque is hand carved. We then drove through part of Casablanca and like any city it has run down areas. There is an area called a shanty town which is enclosed in a fenced area, most of the structures appear to be made from whatever they could find, sheet metal, plywood, branches, cardboard, whatever. The funny thing is it looks like every one of the shacks in the shanty town appears to have a satellite dish (how can this be). Some of the luxury homes and apartments have two or more of the dishes. I guess there isn't any cable in town. Casablanca on a whole seems to be a relatively clean city, cleaner than Egypt, hands down. In the more luxury part of the city, there are ground keepers that are always pruning and caring for the trees and plants. It looks like Casablanca is making efforts to build tourist areas, it has some beautiful beaches and the climate to match. The final photos is the gate to the Royal Palace of course us commoners were not allowed inside or even close to the gates, even though they have built a new Royal Place in Robat, and that is were the Royal family lives year around this one is the Summer cottage.
Back on the ship for dinner and then leaving Port for Agidar, Morocco, which is south of Casablanca.
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