Marhaba!
Bienvenue!
It's raining as our plane attempted to land and the pilot decided to circle above Casablanca for almost an hour, blaming poor visibility due to a thunderstorm. It rained too in Madrid where I met up earlier with Mel (my London-based good friend) for our connecting Iberia flight to Morocco. Rain was something I didn't anticipate during my first day into this part of North Africa but this is part of the adventure. Including a delayed arrival.
Mel and I are joining a trip with Intrepid Travel which starts in Marrakech tommorow. It's quite a compact itinerary that will give us a varied view of Morocco: from the mountains to the desert to the sea. We're trying to polish our rusty Arabic hoping the locals we meet can understand us - sorry, no French please!map courtesy of Intrepid Travel
Casablanca has been romanticized in the classic movie of the same name but that's just about it. Don't expect the spirit of Bogart and Bergman to lead you to Rick's Cafe. This sprawling city is a typical major urban center plagued with traffic and congestion. If there's anything worth seeing, it's the huge Hassan II Mosque along a reclaimed land facing the Atlantic. It's a short taxi ride from the Casa Voyageurs train station where we board our Marrakech-bound train later tonight.
It rained again just as we were walking along the promenade near the mosque. Even the winds at this time were fierce, sending everyone scurrying for cover. We went back to the train station, grabbed some swarma (boy do I miss this!) and waited for the 6:55 train. If we had a delayed arrival, we certainly had a delayed departure too - the train didn't arrive until 8:00 pm! After two flights with hardly any sleep at all, I could really use that 3 hours or so of train ride just sleeping.
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