Blogs from Grand Casablanca, Morocco, Africa - page 17

Don't be fooled by the exotic name, this is not a city where Humphrey Bogart sits in a bar muttering "of all the gin joints in all the world......et cetera". I haven't seen the film and I even have a mental picture what Casablanca is about, smokey charm and men with strong jaw-lines. Casablanca is not about this. It is a sprawling, filthy, sweaty African city which is a product of that all to frequent mass rural to urban migration. It is a city that gives the distinct impression that five million people have moved here and about four and a half million of them are disappointed. Those lucky half-million people with their convertable cars and sharp suits are surrounded by a mass of people scraping a living from selling tissues and cigarettes and others not ... read more

Arrived into Casablanca pretty tired after a nine hour flight. One of the other crew Anis (thats pronounced aneice) was from Morocco so was going back to his parents house and invited me to have lunch with them. I didn’t really want to intrude but he was insistent I come. I discovered that moroccans are very hospitable and are more than happy to welcome someone in their home. We got in a taxi and made our way to his family's house. They lived in an apartment block within walking distance to the sea. The apartment was pretty small for a family of five but was beautifully furnished in typical Moroccan style. His parents were really lovely, his mum couldn’t speak any English but his dad could so I chatted with him. His mum bought us out ... read more

The few days we had spent in Marrakech had come to an unfortunate end and the alarm waking us at 0700 didn’t make us feel any better about leaving. We scoffed down breakfast, packed, grabbed some money from an ATM and barely made it to the station in time to catch our train to Casablanca. We tipped the petite taxi driver handsomely as without his ducking and weaving we could well have missed it. We’d pre-booked our hotel and thought that getting a taxi should be fairly easy. We struggled to find any driver prepared to use the meter and when we did; our man mentioned a baggage fee as he placed our backpacks into the boot. We swiftly removed them and walked around the corner – away from the station. We found a driver willing ... read more

Finally the train hauled into Casablanca, I was overjoyed to be back, I'd be closer to my friends Fatiya & Abderrahim and their family. I rang Fatiya immediately and said I was in town and we could meet up in the morning, but in true Fatiya style she was having none of it and asked me to wait there whilst she'd drive over and pick me up. I told my travel companion and apologised for leaving him to his own devices but said that the Hassan II mosque & the medina near La Places des Nations Unis was worth visiting and it would be a 'modern' introduction to a Moroccan town. He wasn't too concerned, and as Fatiya pulled up he was heading for the Ibis next to the station. She told me to ask him ... read more

Lep pozdrav vsem! Najprej novica, da nisva sla v hribe. Razlog je bil, da tisti dan ni bilo vec prevoza (oziroma so naju prasci spet hoteli nategnt), potem pa ne bi bilo vec casa za morje. Izkazalo se je, da bi bilo boljse it v hribe, ker morje je bil cista beda. Najboljse letovisce, kot ga opisuje LP je en qrac. Neznanska guzva, kar se pa lepega mesta tice, pa sta to dve turisticni ulici + en kup Marocanov, ki si zelijo tvoje zadnje solde. Na plazi je pa tako pihalo, da sva se oba prehladila. Ker sva prisla iz vrocega Marakesha, naju je prav zeblo pri 28 stopinjah. Res ne vem, zakaj opisujejo Marocane kot izredno prijazne ljudi itd bla,bla. Tukaj je podobno kot v Indiji, vsak te hoce ogoljufat. To zame ni prijaznost. Mogoce ... read more