With nothing else to do, we headed into town and wandered around the Medina. Popular with both the locals and tourists, the Medina is an old market area which houses all sorts of small businesses selling clothes, footwear (even Haviana jandals!!), jewellery, electronic stuff, touristy nic nacs etc. Unlike markets in many other countries, the prices of the goods in the Medina are (generally) clearly marked and haggling isn't really in place.
The quality of the goods looked pretty good and if our bags don't turn up soon, we may need to do more shopping there!
From there we wandered through the streets and down to the port which is a major growth area of Casablanca. The port itself looks pretty run down, but nearby they are in the middle of building a massive business and tourist marina complex. There's several buildings already complete which are home to a couple of the banks, but not much else. They've got a long way to go, but the plans they have will turn the port into something great for everyone to enjoy.
There's a stark contrast between the new beautifully architected marina buildings on the seaside and the homes on the other side of the road. 'Homes' is not the right word - Shacks would be more apt! Whilst there are concrete and block apartments, there is also a huge slum area where people are living in tin shacks! It's hard not to look shocked when you see other human beings living in such poverty, when right across the road there is enormous wealth!
It certainly puts our lost luggage into perspective!
Following the port road we walked until we reached the Hassan II Mosque. It stands on a beach point and is the largest mosque in Africa, the seventh largest in the world and has the largest minaret in the world at 210 metres. The walls of the mosque are made of beautiful marble and tiles and has a massive retractable roof. It can hold an impressive 25,000 worshipers!!!
Either side of the mosque are (very rocky) beaches which were full of people lazing around or swimming or jumping off the walls - your typical beach scene, but very rocky and pretty rugged looking!
After watching kids jumping off the walls into the sea, we meandered our way back towards the centre of town for a bite to eat before heading back to the hotel at 4:00 (as organised with the hotel reception) with fingers, eyes, toes, legs, arms all firmly crossed to see if our bags had turned up on the 2:30 flight. Alas, there's no news!
We're getting more and more frustrated by the minute. There doesn't seem to be anyone that really knows what happening. They can't even tell us if they know where the bags are.
Next step, we get hold of our tour leader - the tour officially starts tonight at 6:00pm. It wasn't until this afternoon that we were able to find out who the leader was and get his number - more frustration!!!
We meet up with Samir and he seems like a pretty good guy and he's hopeful that he can help. After a couple of calls, he says we must wait until the next flight gets in around 9:00 this evening <sigh>
Well there nothing more we can do, so we rest up for a while before our meeting with our fellow Intrepid travellers at 6:00pm. We're on a planned 15 day tour of Morocco with Intrepid Travel. We used them when we were in India a few years ago and really liked the mix of having an organised tour, but the freedom to do your own thing most days.
Our tour party size us 15 - made up of Croatians (2), English (1), Indonesian (1), American (1), Japanese (1), Aussies (7) and Kiwis (2 - us). They all seem really nice and we have people of all ages, with the youngest in their 20's and oldest in his 60's.
Once we'd done the welcome and obligatory pre tour talk, it was off to dinner as a group. Food and alcohol tend to be great ice breakers and soon there was good conversation going on across the table. Dinner for me and Cindy was Harira - a traditional Moroccan vegetable soup with beef thrown in. Absolutely delicious with just a hint of spice. Definitely would have that again.
After dinner it was back to the hotel to see about the lost luggage. This time? maybe............
No
BUT, apparently they have at least found the bags in Barcelona. Samir tells us that they will be sending them to Casablanca tomorrow. However as we are leaving in the morning, they may not arrive in time. If that happens, they will be sent to meet us in Fez, in two days time. This news certainly lifts our spirits - we can easily live with two days!
Just quietly, I'm not convinced that we'll see them! I hope I'm wrong.
No comments:
Post a Comment