May 27, 2017 - Casablanca, Morocco

We boarded our overnight flight from Montreal, Canada to Casablanca and took off on time at 7:05 p.m. The plane was half empty, so we arrived almost an hour early into Morocco – 5:30 am instead of 6:30! Customs was pretty fast so we had about two hours to wait for our hotel transfer with our tour!

We met our tour guide and shuttled to our hotel, the Grand Mogador. We passed quite the diverse landscape on the 45 minute ride into town. Wheat fields with horses, cows, and sheep; agave fields, prickly pear cactus, and palm trees!

There were miles of apartment buildings, all with satellite dishes and many hanging their laundry.


Because Ramadan began yesterday, there are few restaurants open between sunup and sundown, so we had lunch at the hotel. Tobey, the adventurous eater, tried the Moroccan soup and tea. The soup had lots of celery, some carrots, and chicken. It was really pretty good. The Moroccan tea is a sweet mint tea and also good.

We took a long walk after lunch to explore the area. We are near the water, but the ports are industrial and not really accessible. We kept walking and found a local fish market which was packed with people shopping and different varieties of fish.





The fishermen were also busy mending their nets.

Looking back across the bay, you can see the city and one of the prayer towers.
We wandered through the streets on our way back to the hotel. Some of the buildings are ornate and interesting, but most are plain block style construction.

The drivers are crazy here and we are glad we don’t have to deal with the traffic. Motorcycles and motor bikes are popular forms of transportation and they weave in and out of traffic, seemingly carefree! This side street had an area set aside for motorcycle parking.

Vendors were set up selling everything imaginable, from spices and fruits to beautiful lace cloths.

We were back to the hotel by 3:30 to rest and freshen up before our welcome dinner and tour orientation this evening.