Casablanca to Fez

Saturday, May 11, 2013

Brief history of Morocco:  originally inhabited by Berbers who succombed to various invasions.  The Arabs arrived in 684 AD and the Berbers converted to Islam.  Today 95% of the people are Muslim.  There have been 7 dynasties to rule Morocco, the current dynasty dates from 1669 and is under the rule of King Mohammed VI.  Morocco was among the African countries to be dominated by Europe in the early 20th century, and was allotted to France.  Morocco gained independence from France and Spain in 1956, but French is still an official language and still taught in schools, as well as Arabic.

We were picked up at the airport by Brahim, who will be our own personal driver for the entire trip.  We have a large van to ourselves.  Brahim suggested that we start in Casablanca, esp the Hassan II mosque.  We wondered what the big deal was with a mosque, especially since it is such a newly built mosque.   Then we saw it.

It is the third largest mosque in the world, with the highest religious minaret in the world at 200 meters tall.  It took 10,000 men six years to build.  It can hold up to 105,000 people and has a movable roof over the prayer hall.  We joined a 9 am tour group (they had about 6 tours going on at once, in different languages).  We had to take our shoes off for the prayer room and were given bags to put them in.  Perfect - a bag to put laundry in later.  Anton was wearing sandals so he had to walk around in bare feet, but he wasn't the only one.  We got a tour of the prayer hall, ablution hall, and hammam (bath).  Our tour guide looked like someone straight out of the Casablanca movie.

After the mosque, we did a quick photo stop at Rick's Cafe of the movie fame, ha ha we really need to watch that movie when we get home.  We stopped at a lunch market for bananas, so good!  Then a two and a half hour drive to the city of Meknes.

Meknes is surrounded by a thick wall and we went in through the famous Mansour Gateway.  We think that means Thursday because of market day.  Sometimes we're not quite sure exactly what Brahim is talking about.  There was a huge reservoir just for the sultan's 12,000 horses to drink. We went inside a huge place that used to be used as a granary.  Lunch on a rooftop terrace.  The main dish here is called tajine (pronounced ta-jean).  We thought it would be like stew but not so far.  Anton ordered something which came loaded with cinnamon, phew!  After lunch we spent a few minutes in the market looking at huge bags of spices, then went to the mausoleum shrine for Moulay Ismail.  He was a tyrannical sultan who reigned around 1700 and made Meknes his capital.  We had to take our shoes off again and it smelled like feet in the room, but the guy at the door made us laugh.

After Meknes we took a scenic drive up a mountain to view the town of Moulay Idriss, beautifully nestled in the mountains.  When we left Casablanca, the terrain was generally flat, but now we are in the foothills of the Atlas Mountains.  The roads are hilly and windy and inevitable you get stuck behind a slow moving truck.  But not for long, because there's alot of interesting passing that takes place.  There was a rather nasty accident, and everyone swam around it like a school of fish. Even though lots of vehicles were stopped and there were emergency vehicles, it only slowed us down by 5 to 10 minutes.  Drivers were remarkably impatient.
We spent an hour at Volubilis, some very well preserved Roman ruins.  Some of the mosaic floors were perfectly intact.  There were columns and arches, but our favourite part was the stork's nest and babies plopped down on the top of one of the columns.

At around 6 pm we arrived at the city of Fez.  Brahim was not able to drive us in to our riad, so someone came with a handcart to take our luggage.  We followed him straight into the narrow streets of the souk (lanes and lanes of market).  After many twists and turns and narrow alleyways that we could never find again, ever, there was our riad.  A riad is an old colonial home built around a courtyard, and most are used as hotels.  It is quite a beautiful room.  It cooled down nicely and we had tea in the courtyard, then went up to the rooftop for dinner.  It was a very nice view over the city, but the breeze was a bit chilly.  We suspect it may be noisy here tonight, we can hear the distant noise of the souk and have heard several "calls to prayer", but we can also hear other people in rooms around the courtyard.  Maybe we are just too used to our quiet life in the country!