0093 My Lightning Romance with Casablanca(Mor 004—revisit)

Parkbenching in Casablanca

I reach Casablanca in mid afternoon and decide to walk from the bus station to town… down a rather empty stretch of Oulad Ziane and then swing off to the left into a relatively uninteresting commercial/wholesale sector.  One street I find a bit interesting is a “blind alley”—a street lined with welders at work where you’ll go blind if you’re not careful…

I reach downtown where I need to find another digital camera.   I trapse around the downtown commercial area and then down into the Old Medina shopping area for a look. 

It’s dark by the time I finally find a camera, but I decide to go down to the to the plaza in front of the main Courthouse to take my clip and play a few songs…

After an uneventful session I head back to the bus station for an overnight ride to Agadir.

The view from my hotel

So ends my visit to Casablanca.  Rather uneventful, as all of my previous visits were.  Back in the 90s I stopped here a couple of times on trips from Agadir to Spain and back to go to the US consulate or to visit friends—or just to wander around a bit.  I never thought much of the city or cared much to explore it in depth. 

But that’s all about to change…

A week later…

I’m back in Casablanca, but I’m definitely not just passing through this time.

Entrance to the medina

So the question is, can I fall in love with a city that I’ve never really been interested in before? I’ve spent the last 8 years of my life living someplace I didn’t really like.  There’s no way I’m going to do that again.

So here I am.  I just have a couple of days to fall in love with this city.  Let’s see if I can make it happen before I have to leave. 

I plunge into the heart of the city, through the grimy alleyways of the Old Medina—an area where the police don’t dare to enter—or so I’ve been told.

A bit of contrast...

It’s a damp place that smells of mildew.  Outside, people carry out their pails of garbage and just dump them in the middle of the street.  Smoke from street vendor stalls mixes with fog makes it feel like I’m in a scene from “Gangs of New York”…

A crazy guy staggers about, mumbling incoherently… Prostitutes, glue sniffers, drunks and women veiled from head to toe mix in with the crowd of poor working class medina residents.  Nobody lives in this medina by choice.  This isn’t Fes or Marrakesh with it’s fancy riyads and luxurious hidden palaces.  People live here because they can’t afford to move out.

But as I walk about, there’s a strange sense of calm.  Nobody hassles me, demands to be my “guide”, asks for money or tries to trick me into buying something.

My official Hassan II mosque picture

And strange as it may seem, I start falling in love with this rugged city.  After 8 years of walking along empty streets and manicured lawns, being in a place where the raw struggles and frustrations of society are all out in the open is somehow enrapturing.  I’m sick and tired of living in a world that is so comfortable and perfect—and yet people complain all the time…

I step outside the Medina to get some air.  I head west along classy boulevards and upscale shops and taste a different side of Casablanca… Then on through a very dirty warehousing sector where workers carry boxes out by hand to trucks parked by the street and carry them up on ladders… Past the crumbling remains of once-beautiful French Colonial buildings…

I follow the old medina wall all the way around until I reach Hassan II Mosque, the tallest religious structure in the world… Even though I’ve visited it before, it’s still breathtaking… Quite frankly, I’m a bit annoyed that it wasn’t a “New Wonders of the World Candidate”…

At night, I head to the plaza in front of the Courthouse for another session.

And so after a lightning romance of just I few days, I am ready to say “I do” to Casablanca… I’ve found my new Favourite City. I’m moving to Casablanca, not for money.  I’m moving here out of love…

I will be coming back here, and I’m sure I will have many more adventures to tell of, and many more places to discover and people to meet… So this will be a blog that I will come back to later to update on my new adventures in this place…