303 Casablanca

1st September 2018  Miles today  188, Total miles  1,117
We got up for breakfast and although we were not expecting too much we were still seriously disappointed.

It was so bad that I decided to take photos of it but due to the nature of it, I feigned taking photos elsewhere at the same time. Like this...

The pool area.

I then turned around 180 degrees and without them knowing I took this....

Honey coated, fresh (very fresh!) wasps. 3 of the 30 or so scrabbling about in the bowl.

We did not spend long at breakfast and were soon back astride Wallace and on our way to Casablanca.

The health and safety Taliban are a bit slack in this country. Much like the hand tightened wire ropes holding this lot in place. 

 Morocco is a very polarised society, the haves and the have not's. No prizes for guessing which camp these women are in.

These were all over the place. Simple, hard farming.

Are we there yet ?????????

 We did eventually arrived in Casablanca and right on cue, the sat nav packed up again. We had programmed in the co-ordinates of our hotel from the web site and even these transpired to be wrong. so it took about an hour of riding around in circles (literally) to find our hotel. By the time we got to the hotel we were dripping wet and on our chins.
We decided to stay 2 days and recover somewhat and get some laundry done. This later transpired to be 3 as our computer finally packed up. It would work but would not allow anything to be plugged into it and was so slow that it was unusable. I went in search of one and after trawling many streets finally found one that needed the software putting on it so we did not get it till the next day whereupon I had to do it all over again so that it was registered to us.

2nd September 2018   Miles Today 0 Total 1,117
Anyway, when in Casablanca, one simply has to visit 'Rick's Cafe' from the famous 1942 film 'Casablanca' starring Ingrid Burgman and Humphrey Bogart. (Kids - They were very famous film stars in their day). Rick's Cafe was a bar that the film centered around so we had to go.

We were in Casablanca so we just had to go to 'Rick's Cafe', the main stage from the film Casablanca.

 For the oldies among us who remember the film, you need to say this in Bogart's voice, "Of All The Gin Joints, In All The Towns, In All The World, She Walks Into Mine, only to find, no Gin."

Now this would suggest that this was a proper bar. You would be wrong. No alcohol served. I had orange and Karen had tea. Needless to say, we did not stay long. It was lush and very fancy but with no beer, gin or vodka, it was a big disappointment. We had intended to spend the evening there but you know us!!  Having spoken to some other visitors, we heard that the female owner had died and the cafe was taken over by Muslims and they had stopped serving alcohol, but we also heard that this was a temporary thing as a mark of respect.  However, Morocco is basically a dry place except for the hotels and some smaller cafe's, but you drink inside, not out on the pavements.

Wot, no beer.  Bye.....

It did redeem itself a little. It had a Yamaha piano and drum kit.

These two were reluctant to have their photos takes so I asked them to turn away. Bless em. Different rules down here.

Wallace blocking the entrance to a night club. No one seems to care here!

3rd September 2018 Miles Today 0 Total  1,117.
We also tried to get the sat nav working properly and I reset it not realising that it would wipe all its maps of Europe. Oddly enough, the free map of Marocco was still intact. On top of that I had forgotten to  bring the computer lead to reprogram it, with us, and when I did finally get hold of one, it would not communicate with the computer and appears to totally [insert your own expletive]. Ask me if I am getting a bit peed off with electronic gadgets ...  Grrrrrrrr  ( No where near as peed off as I am with gadget man!!!!)

Casablanca, as has the parts of Morocco we've seen so far, been a total assault on all the senses. Smell, sight, sound and tastes.  Riding into town with all the sat nav problems, I was really glad I was a passenger. Ray coped brilliantly with only a couple of near misses. Vehicles seem to be able to go anywhere, come from anywhere and end up anywhere.  There are not enough eyes to cover all  of them and as for pedestrians and mopeds, well to quote Dave Allen, "May you're God go with you". Even walking through the market, the mopeds come down the little alleys missing people by millimeters and nobody but us tourists bats an eyelid.  We have arrived in the middle of a heatwave, even the locals are struggling, and as soon as you move, you are soaked through.  I am permanently doing a Ken Dodd bad hair day and feel like we are being poured off the bike.  There is a permanent odor in the air and a lot of toilet smells as you walk the streets.  The noise from the traffic is worse than the taxi's in New York, the horns here, seem to have  an on switch that has got stuck.
On the plus side, the market was fantastic, all the goods, thousands of people wandering through and 
 just the noise that they all create, are unique in their own way.
We've not been really brave when it has come to the food, but we did have Moroccan Tapas which was very tasty and we could identify most of it.  To be honest, neither of us has wanted much to eat due to the heat. Long may that continue!!

This is the main Mosque in Casablanca and it is huge.

 The 'Medina' which generally means the 'Old City' is a pure rabbit warren and just like in all the Indiana Jones type movies, is just a jungle maze of tiny back streets with absolutely no early city planning. The people literally do live on top of each other. 

Some of the central streets have markets on them selling all kinds of fruits and vegetables that we have no idea what they are.

Entrance to the old Walled City.

Some areas were partially covered from the heat. This was about 2pm and most sensible people were at home.

Tomorrow......Marrakesh.