Today was our last day with Mackenzie and Matt in Morocco. We rose early, had breakfast at Villa Garance where we’ve spent the last 4 nights, and headed north. Mackenzie, Matt and Bob stayed in navigation and problem-solving mode as we made our way into and through Casablanca, but Cathryn found the traffic, crazy drivers and feeling “lost” unsettling. We spent an hour finding our way to our hotel in Casablanca, sometimes because our map reflected only a tiny part of the city (3 million residents) and sometimes because the signage within cities is woefully inadequate. Highway signage is good, city signage is not. Finally, in frustration, Bob jumped out of the car, waved down a taxi, and asked the driver to lead us to our hotel – he went with the taxi driver, and Matt (driving), Mackenzie and Cathryn followed – not an easy task in afternoon crazy city traffic in Casablanca. But it worked!
We caught a taxi to the Hassan II Mosque, a spectacular new (completed in 1993) mosque that has the highest minaret in the world, and the third largest (after Mecca and Medina) mosque in the world. Tours are offered several times a day, and we joined the 2:00 tour that took us through the prayer room (capacity: 25,000 people), absolution room, and hammam room. The structure was simply mind-boggling and gorgeous. We were told that 100,000 people occupy the interior and exterior spaces every hour of every day during the month of Rammadan here – astonishing numbers, but entirely believable in terms of the amount of space.
We were tired after our day and struggling with the French language (which none of us speak much) so chose a Spanish restaurant for dinner. Mackenzie and Cathryn were delighted to be able to speak with the waiter easily.
At 10:00 p.m. a taxi arrived at our hotel to take Mackenzie and Matt to the Casablanca airport for their flights to Frankfurt and Seattle, and Bob and Cathryn bid au revoir. We’re sad to see them go, but have had a great deal of fun traveling together.
Tomorrow we leave Casablanca and return to Marrakesh.
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