Wanderluster

Casablanca first

Alisa, Sofia, and I headed off to Morocco January first to ring in the new year with some travel. After an afternoon in Madrid, Spain, we had a little time in Casablanca. We landed at night, in the fog, appropriately enough. The drive in the taxi to the city center made us feel like we had landed somewhere very bizarre because so the fog was so thick but no one seemed to find that out of the ordinary.

After a little hotel mix-up (our original hotel had overbooked because alegedly the king was in town...?..?) we ended up at a 4-star, really nice hotel with a super bathroom, a lot of space, and satelite TV. yeah, we were roughing it.

Our visit to Casablanca consisted of walking around the city in the day, eating in cafes, stopping for coffee, and visiting the new-ish Hassan II Mosque that tourists are allowed to go inside (with guided tours) to see the interior. It was amazing and way over the top with all the decoration.

After more walking and more food we were back to the hotel to rest up for a morning departure on the way to Marrakesh.



I thought I would include a photo (more to be found, as always, at shutterfly) and this time... something high-tech.... a video I took with my camera, that is a pretty terrible video but gives a good idea of the size of the Hassan II Mosque's area and the call that goes out at sunrise, noon, 3:00, 6:00, 9:00, (and maybe I missed a time in there somewhere, I can't remember)... all over Moroccan cities... it's the call to prayer and each mosque announces it so you end up with a lot of overlapping competing calls if you're in a city with a bunch of mosques. We hardly even noticed it by the end of the week but at the start of the trip it was pretty cool and kindof haunting to hear it everywhere. I'm still working on editing this and maybe splicing it with another movie clip I have.... we shall see.

posted by Wanderluster @ 3:37 PM