Casablanca

In 2020, we had to cancel a trip to Morocco and Spain when the pandemic hit. It took six years, but we finally re-booked everything we had to cancel. Six of our friends decided they wanted to come with, so we forged ahead and booked everything a year ago.

Two months before we were due to leave, the US decided to bomb Iran. We were all flying with middle eastern airlines and immediately chaos ensued. Flights cancelled by the airlines, flight times changed, refunds offered. It was a mess. We had until two weeks prior to our departure date to decide whether or not to cancel the trip. After this date, we would lose our Morocco tour money with no ability to claim insurance because the cancellation would be due to war. We couldn’t cancel our flights and re-book on another airline, because the Asian airlines had jacked their prices up so far it was ridiculous and flight times and layovers bordered on absurd.

Eventually, after a shaky cease-fire between the US and Iran continued to hold, we all decided to bite the bullet and see what played out, crossing our fingers and toes that the flights would continue as scheduled.

In the week leading up to the departure date, a death in the family of one of our friends almost knocked them out of the trip, and a health scare did knock another friend out of the trip. Eight intrepid travellers became seven. Ian lost his wallet two days before departure and was busy researching travel cards and other payment alternatives until he found it again.

The day of our flight, we woke to news that Iran had bombed Saudi Arabia. Five of us were on the same Qatar Airways flight and we waited nervously, checking the flight status every half an hour to see if our flight would be cancelled.

Thankfully, after a nail-biting day that seemed to drag on forever, our flight left on time at 10:45pm. Next stop, Doha, in the heart of the middle east.

We arrived in Doha 14 hours later to news that Dubai had been bombed and flights with Emirates were being cancelled. This was concerning, given Rob and Caitlynne were, presumedly somewhere in the air on an Emirates flight.

We boarded our flight in Doha, wondering if we would be affected by the renewed hostilities. We sat on the tarmac for almost an hour, thinking that our flight might be cancelled at any moment. As we took off from Doha, we breathed a tentative sigh of relief: we were en route to Casablanca, but where were Rob and Caitlynne?

We landed in Casablanca 8 hours later and I quickly messaged Rob to see where they were at. Thankfully, they were already waiting in our hotel. We’re here! Well, we were there after waiting two hours for our luggage to come out!

That night we decided to all go our separate ways for dinner. We weren’t really hungry. Lidia didn’t want any dinner and I wanted something light. I went down to the hotel restaurant and saw that the menu had a very Spanish influence. Makes sense since we’re so close to Spain and they ruled here for so long. The menu had an extensive tapas list and I thought “Perfect!” Three small tapas dishes will do me nicely, so I ordered a tortilla, grilled octopus and some chicken croquettes. When the waiter came to deliver it to our room, the three tapas dishes were the size of main meals! The tortilla, rather than being a tapas-sized wedge, was an entire tortilla covering the whole plate and there were 6 croquettes and a massive plate of octopus on a bed of roast potatoes. There was no way in the world I would get through it all, so I called Dennis and Linda, hoping they hadn’t eaten yet. Luckily, they hadn’t, so I told them to hot tail it to our room and dig in.

I had my fill, and Dennis and Linda also ate all they could with heaps of leftovers. I called Ian and he also hadn’t eaten, so he came up as well and finished everything else except one slice of tortilla. Dinner for one became dinner for four and it was all delicious!

The hotel was a little dodgy. Ian’s shower head shot the water out horizontally across the bathroom and Rob and Caitlynne’s shower head kept swivelling, spraying water everywhere. Our shower won the award as the worst, however. When you ran the water through the bath tap it warmed up, but as soon as you switched it over to the shower head, the water went stone cold. Lidia and I both had to have a sponge bath and couldn’t wash our hair.

The next morning, after washing my hair in the bathroom sink, then eating breakfast, our driver Lahcine came to pick us up at 8:30 for a city tour of Casablanca. We went to a magnificent mosque with the mandatory Moroccan tiled fountains and architecture. Ian lost his wallet again but thankfully, after much sweating, found it in his backpack. We then went to Rick’s Café, famous from the movie Casablanca, but actually not the real film site, just a café that looked like the one in the movie that they’ve renamed to attract tourists.

We left Casablanca and drove towards Rabat, the capital of Morocco, which was apparently named by a frog (don’t fact check that). We stopped at a touristy restaurant for lunch and had our first tagine. Can’t say we were very impressed. I think it was more about the view, placed right on the port with the walled Kasbah of Rabat perched on the cliffs opposite, surrounding white buildings.

After lunch we were met by a local guide, Mustafa, who took us around Rabat. He started with the mausoleum of Mohommed V, who liberated Morocco from the Spaniards and is revered as the father of Morocco. The mausoleum was guarded by spear-wielding cavaliers sitting on their horses. There was a short guard that was a little cavalier.

We then drove up to the Kasbah, which is a fortified city. Inside was a “medina”, which is a labyrinth of narrow, winding streets lined with white-washed buildings with colourful doors and windows. Small shops sold various Moroccan trinkets. We wandered around the streets soaking in the ambience and then headed back to the van.

We checked into our hotel and after settling into our room we heard a knock on the door. We opened the door to find Lady Caitlynne standing there. She came in laughing and explained to us that she wasn’t sure which room we were in so she placed her ear against the door to see if she could hear us talking inside. She turned around to find the cleaning crew behind her, who asked he if she was ok. They must have thought she was some kind of a pervert listening at people’s doors so she sheepishly hurried back to her room.

That night a few of us decided to seek out a local bar for a drink. This is no mean feat in Morocco, where alcohol is hard to find and bars as rare as hen’s teeth. We found a seedy little bar, brimming with locals. Smoking is very common here and the bar was enveloped in a cloud of smoke as almost every patron chugged away on their camels. We settled in for a beer in the crowded upstairs room amongst the locals, soaking in the lung-destroying atmosphere.

We emerged into the fresh air and went to a local tapas restaurant where we feasted on some delicious tapas dishes before retiring for the night.

The next morning, we went down for breakfast, arriving to find that Ian had blown up the coffee machine. Apparently, there was milk spurting out everywhere and the staff had to come and repair the machine. Poor Rob looked crestfallen, explaining that he had lost many of the photographs that he had taken the previous day. They weren’t on his phone or Google photos. He was quite upset about it.

While we were waiting for Lahcine to pick us up, Rob came down to the foyer and told us he had found the missing photos; he had taken them on Caitlynne’s phone!

We started the long drive to Tangier. On the way we decided to play sight-seeing bingo, where we had to spot various items, including a donkey with a cart. Caitlynne excitedly pointed out the window shouting “donkey!”. She would have totally nailed it too if it wasn’t actually a horse.

We stopped for lunch in a beautiful little city called Asilah. Before lunch we wandered around the medina inside their kasbah. It was much larger than Rabat’s and absolutely stunning. We explored the narrow streets before emerging onto a lookout which gave us expansive views of the kasbah wall lining the beach, the white-washed buildings rising behind the wall in multiple layers.

Lahcine took us to a local restaurant for lunch, which wasn’t touristy, serving very traditional local dishes. I ordered the tagine and this time it was magnificent; a bubbling stew of beef meatballs served in the traditional terracotta dish that it was cooked in. Everyone else ordered the cous-cous, since it was Friday, which is apparently cous-cous day. They all enjoyed their meals thoroughly. Rob also ordered a dish called briouat, which is similar to a chicken samosa. They were also delicious.

Feeling completely satiated, we boarded the van to drive to our next stop: Tangier. Along the way we stopped at a place called Hercules Cave. Legend has it that Hercules rested here in between fighting monsters. Lahcine gave us the entry money and on the way down to the entrance Dennis suggested we skip the cave and use the money to buy beer. Good luck finding beer here anyway, but we decided to enter the cave and see what all the fuss was about. It was a very popular tourist attraction with a massive crowd of people inside taking photos of themselves against the rocky walls. A small opening (apparently shaped like Africa), led to a tiny grotto. The cave was actually man-made and after 10 minutes we were left wondering why it was so popular. We should have found that beer instead.

We then went to see the lighthouse at Cape Spartel, which is the northwestern-most point of the African continent, placed at the entrance to the strait of Gibraltar where the mediterranean sea meets the Atlantic Ocean. The lighthouse, built in 1864, is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Morocco.

From there we drove into Tangier. We parked at the bottom of a massive hill and lugged our suitcases up through the streets of the Medina to our hotel. The hotel was beautiful; a traditional Moroccan building with a central courtyard, the rooms lining the courtyard on each level. When we arrived, we sat in the lounge and enjoyed some traditional Moroccan mint tea before heading to our rooms.

After freshening up, we all went our separate ways to explore the medina. It was crowded and bustling with life. One little boy rode past on his bike wearing a Bluey tee shirt! Bluey is everywhere, even in Morocco! The medina was expansive and after a while Lidia and I found ourselves completely lost in the labyrinth. I had forgotten the name of our hotel, so I called Linda to ask her, then google-mapped it back.

Linda and Dennis had done some reconnaissance and found the only bar in the entire medina, which was a 12 minute walk from our hotel up a steep hill. We decided to meet them there. Google maps took me up some winding, narrow streets until we ended up in a tiny courtyard, surrounded by colourful doors. A shrivelled old man sat on a three-legged stool in front of a massive doorway stacked to the top with baskets. We couldn’t find the bar anywhere and I approached the old man and said “Dar Nour?” He jerked his thumb to the right. We wound our way to number 20, found a locked door with a giant knocker and knocked. A man answered the door and pointed us to a staircase which wound up to the rooftop. We emerged onto a rooftop bar with 360 degree views over Tangier. We enjoyed a drink and a spectacular sunset over the medina.