Vol 60 Day 12 Casablanca

I slept well. Erwan had given up his bed and was sleeping on a camping mat in his sitting room. How's that for hospitality? We ate a simple breakfast of bread, honey, bananas, nuts and tea. I checked my email and there was an offer for a couch near Fes from an interesting sounding dude so I replied that yes, I would like to stay with him. Told him I would come in the morning.

Erwan suggested an itinerary for the day of good places to see in Casablanca and we left, him for work and me for Miami Beach (pronounced Meeamee). I wandered around the resort on the beach for an hour or two, taking lackluster photos. Apparently the waves are good for surfing at this beach but I didn't see anything spectacular.

Then I did something so out of character for me. I went to the McDonald's across the street and had a cup of tea. I haven't eaten at a McDonald's in 15 years so why go now? Simple. I had to pee. And nothing is open in Morocco during the day during Ramadam. So I peed in the nice western toilet, took some photos of the tiles in the john and sat drinking tea for a while, resting my still red legs, staring at the ocean.

Next, I took a taxi to Mosquée Hassan II. Inaugerated in 1993, it's second only to Mecca in size. It can hold 25,000 worshipers and a further 80,000 in the courtyard. It's minaret is 200 meters high, making it by far the tallest structure in the country as well as the tallest minaret in the world. All of the building materials, except the glass for the windows, are Moroccan.

Where are the photos that usually accompany my blogs? As you may recall, my camera was stolen during this vacation and I'm afraid this is the day. So once again I offer photos lifted from the internet. Sigh. More about the theft in a bit.




Ok, so these photos aren't mine, but they are really similar to the photos I took that day so I guess it's ok.









I was filming a little video sequence when the call to prayer sounded from the minaret. I had a chance to watch that video a little later in the day on the viewer of the camera. It was pretty sweet. Sigh.

Next I took a taxi to Habbous Souk where I took a ton of photos. Finally I had found something photo worthy!

There were a few main streets to the souk and then a bunch of little alleys. I went down all of the little alleys.

I actually think my photos of the souk were better than the ones I found on the internet. Sigh.

There were three highlights to my time at the souk. The first occurred when I came around a corner and there was a very large crowd of Moroccans gathered in a very narrow street lined on either side by shops selling traditional Moroccan goods. Rugs, silver, brass, leather, pottery. Most of the crowd were women and they were gathered around a few large black garbage bags out of which a man was pulling draperies. It was a Moroccan women's drapery feeding frenzy. And they were frenzied. It was boisterous and colorful. I held my camera perched on my collar bone, while filming the whole thing, like I was just resting it there to protect it. I walked through the crowd, filming, then back through again. It was incredible. It was my first big "wow" moment in Morocco. I mean, the Grand Mosque was impressive, but this scene was Morocco. Finally.

The second cool thing was my chance discovery of an olive market. A small doorway led to a courtyard lined on all sides with men selling olives from large blue barrels. There were about 15 different sellers, each of them displaying the olives in a slightly different way.

I took at least a couple of dozen photos. It was amazing. Green olives. Black olives. Red olives. Green and black mixed. Those wrinkly black ones. Olives with pickled carrots and chilis. Olives with preserved lemon. I bought a bag of mixed olives with veggies to take to Erwan. It was so hard not to eat them but during Ramadam you cannot be seen eating during daylight hours. It is disrespectful.

On my way out of the souk I passed by a shop door. Fairly nondescript. I walked right by it without noticing it. What I did notice was all of the people coming in and out of it. A simple sign over the door read "Patisserie Bennis Habbous". That little voice in my head, which I have learned to listen to, urged me to enter. Not the most attractive shop ever but it was packed and most of the focus seemed to be on the cookie room so that's where I headed.

Everyone was buying cake boxes of mixed cookies so when it was my turn I mearly said "Moi aussi, s'il vous plait"

This is the label on the cake box. Next thing I knew I was handing over what seemed to be an overly large amount of dirham. I made use of their nasty little bathroom and was on my way. I would have to wait until I met up with Erwan at his apartment to sample the cookies and olives.

My final stop before heading back to the apartment was not on Erwan's suggesion list, but my guide book describes the Cathedral de Sacre Couer as Casablancas most classic piece of Christmas-cake colonial architecture so that's where I asked the next taxi to drop me off.

I was tired from walking and I needed to give my legs a break. I got out of the cab, walked through the entrance gates and thought "You've got to be kidding! This is what I came to see?" It just wasn't all that. I took a photo of it, so I could remember how lame it was and plunked down in the grass to rest. The grassy churchyard was full of groups of high school students, ranging in age from 13 to 18. We smiled at each other and I watched them doing their high school kid stuff. Laughing, flirting with each other. I stayed on the grass for about half an hour then turned to pick up my purse and camera. My purse was there, my camera was not.

No, no, no I thought. This cannot be happening. I started searching furtively around me, looking to the kids in front of me for rescue. Perhaps one of them was messing with me and would now hand it back to me and laugh. They looked at me. I looked at them. One of the girls aked me what was wrong in French. I couldn't remember the word for stolen. Or gone. Or help. The girls in the group gathered around me and figured out what I was saying. They babbled to the boys. A couple of them left to go talk to other boys in the area. No camera. I started to cry. I felt crappy. Panicky. Scared. I cried. The girls gave me tissue. I could not believe one of those kids had taken my camera. There were no other adults there. Just me and the kids. I asked for the police and they led me down the street where a policeman guarding some government building took over. He called someone and told me to wait. Attente ici. I cried while I waited.

A piece of crap van pulled up. Two plain clothed cops got out. The guard dude told them what was going on. They invited me to get in the back of the van. I sat on a rickety little bench and we drove a few blocks to the station. There were two homemade baseball bats under the bench. We walked down a little ramp into the single-room station where I was passed off to another officer. There were a few chairs in the waiting area against the wall and a concrete counter behind which were two ancient desks. I was ushered to a seat behind the counter at one of the desks. Each desk had an old fashioned typewriter. The spindly black manual kind. Only they had Arabic keys. No computers, just the two old typewriters.

The officer pulled out a form and started filling in my info. He'd ask me a question in French and I did my best to answer him. We did ok with the Name, Nationality, Passport Number part of the questioning but when we got to the describe what happened part it was all over. Finally I got out that I had a French speaking friend. He asked for the number, called Erwan, briefly explained what was going on and handed the phone to me. I immediately started to cry. Sheesh. I am such a girl sometimes. Erwan agreed to come on down and he was there within minutes. With him translating we finished up my statement fairly quickly. It would have been even quicker if the officer had not been sharing the pen with the other officer who was taking someone else's statement for something or other. I'm not kidding, they were sharing a pen. One room, a concrete counter, no computers and one pen. And the officers carried no weapons. In spite of how upset I was I found the cultural experience fascinating.

I was given this reciept for my statement and that was that. We went to Erwan's and he fed me a delicious salad, soup, bread and the olives I'd bought. He also informed me that I had inadvertantly stumbled upon the best and most famous bakery in Casablanca. He made tea and I tried a cookie. Then I ate another. And another and another. Holy crap were those cookies ever good. Delicate pastry wrapped around almond filling. I could not stop eating them.

Living in Oman, I am starved for quality baked goods. No one knows how to bake in Oman. The cookies are bad. The brownies and other bars are bad. The cakes are bad. Think Safeway Bakery then imagine pastries even worse than that. Even the better hotels produce desserts that leave me unsatisfied. I fear I will develop Type II diabetes while I am home for Christmas from all of the sweets I'm planning to consume. I may have to eat a dozen chocolate cupcakes from Roses Bakery on Orcas. One for each month I've missed out on them.

I sent a text message to my next CouchSurfing host, informing him that I would not be heading his way in the morning as planned. Erwan had an idea for getting me another camera but I needed to wait for him to be off work before we could check it out.

So alright, again I had an off day. But it had been going well until my camera was stolen. Up until then I had started to think that maybe coming to Morocco had not been a mistake after all. I am still mourning the loss of the photos I took of the olive market and the video of the drapery feeding frenzy. Sigh.