Vol 59 Day 11 Casablanca

I awoke early in the Urine Hotel. There were no bugs in my ears. No rats nibbling on my toes. Perhaps because I had protected them with the airplane socks. I got the hell out of there after a very fast shower in which I tried to minimize contact with the floor tiles I had just washed with my shampoo.

I left my bag in the room and asked the desk dude what time I needed to check out. "3:00", he said, "and please make sure to tell the housekeeper when you leave". I was thinking, Why? It's not like she's going to clean the room!

Before leaving the my room I ate the bread and water I had purchased the night before in case Ramadam was a little more strict than in Turkey. Good thing, because none of the restaurants were open.


In fact none of the businesses were open. Ramadam is taken as seriously in Morocco as it is in Oman. I walked around; trying to find things to take photos of. I wasn't impressed. There wasn't a lot to see and I'm sorry, but the city seemed ugly. Dirty. Noisy. Smelly. The women didn't smile back at me and the men became excited if I even looked at them.

Detail of the above building.

I found an internet shop that was open, finally, after much walking. Two CouchSurfers from Casablanca had offered me places to stay. Yay! I tried calling them but my Oman cell phone would not call out in Morocco. The same thing happened to me in Turkey. I could receive calls and text messages but not make calls or send text messages. After even more walking I found a cell phone store that was open and bought a Moroccan SIM card. Same thing I had to do in Turkey.

I chose to stay with Erwan, a French expat who moved to Morocco to teach at a French School. He gave me his address when I called and we arranged to meet when he got off work. The main languages in Morocco are Arabic and Berber. French is also spoken in the cities. Now, I took French in school but that was 25 years ago and it is a bit rusty, to say the least. If I had known I was coming to Morocco I would have brushed up on it or at least have picked up a phrase book. But I had thought I was visiting Iran so I was thrown into Moroccan culture with no knowledge or planning. I could generally come up with the words I needed to express myself in French but unfortunately it was usually 5 minutes after I needed them. I just kept repeating "Je ne comprend pas" and "Je ne parle pas francais." As for my Arabic, the dialect they speak in Morocco is quite different than in Oman. And most of my Arabic is dental. Do you have a toothache? Top or bottom? Open wide. Close. You have a cavity. You need a filling. That sort of thing. Not terribly helpful outside of the clinic.

I walked around some more, killing time until I could meet Erwan. Every now and then I would come across a beautiful building.



Detail of the tile work.

If you blow this photo up you can see what is almost a shack on the roof terrace over the first floor, towards the right. Wacky.

Erwan turned out to be super nice. He fed me a pureed vegetable soup, bread, fruit, nuts and dates. His Moroccan friend, Zach, came over for a bit but he didn't speak any English and my rusty French was quickly used up. After he left Erwan's Italian friend, Germaina came over. Her English was pretty good but she claimed she just didn't like speaking English. I poked around on the internet a bit, looking for a CouchSurfer to stay with in Fes or Marakesh. I had decided that Casablanca was not for me. I sent out a bunch of last minute couch requests. Erwan and I chatted for a bit, he burned me a CD of my photos from the last couple of days in Turkey and of Morocco so far, and then we went to bed.

Ok, it wasn't the best day, but neither was it the worst, and I really was trying to keep a positive attitude. I was hopeful that tomorrow I would see some cool stuff and that an excellent CouchSurfer would offer me excellent accommodations.