We left Rabat at about 10:30 on Thursday morning March 1st. Saying bye to Rabat was bittersweet. The busy and unique city had really started to grow on me, but around the next corner was a new adventure and I like to call myself an adventure seeker! The train ride to Casa was rather uneventful. We had to walk through about five cars to find a free one and it was strange walking from car to car because each had a different atmosphere. We found seats at the very back of the car named (by me) “the cave” because of its dark and clammy nature (now that i'm looking back-it was a little gross). We both journal-ed a little bit and snoozed a little bit. We arrived in Casa at about noon and set out to quickly find a hostel and drop our stuff off before meeting our friends at the Hassan II mosque. My first impression of Casa was that there was a lot of construction going on. We kept having to cross the road back and forth because the sidewalk would end on one of the sides. People had told us that Casa is not very touristy and not that nice of a place to visit-but we wanted to form our own opinions. That's what traveling is about because one place for someone could be brilliant and it could be a dump for someone else.
We found a hostel only about five minutes walk from the train station that was only 70DH a night (about 7 euros). We put our stuff in a five bed room and hung up the clothes that were still wet from their laundry adventure. We gathered our things and then set out to find the mosque. We got about 3 minutes walk from the hostel when we started worrying about our stuff being left in an unlocked room.
This was my first time staying in a hostel and I didn’t really know etiquette or anything. We turned around and returned to the hostel where we got all of our important things and put them in our purses and then started hiding our backpacks under the beds and in other inconspicuous hidings spots (as inconspicuous as you can find in an open room with 5 beds).
Then we left for real for the mosque. And let me just say right now, after we found it (which was a little hard because of the unfriendly people who didn’t want to talk to us), I discovered that if coming to casa for nothing else than to see this mosque than it is 100% worth it. The Hassan II mosque is the most incredible and elaborate mosque I have ever seen! It is situated right on the water and a part of it hangs off over the water. It is absolutely magnificent. We spent an hour just walking around the outside and taking in its immense beauty. Unfortunately the friends we were supposed to meet up with were not there and us being out of date citizens and not having cell phones, couldn’t contact them.
At 2pm we tried to find the place where the tour was taking place. We wondered down some stairs and awkwardly found ourselves in the actual washroom where the women go to cleanse themselves before prayer. Normally if you are not Muslim you can’t enter a mosque but this is the only one in Morocco where they give tours of the main room of the mosque to non-Muslims. So we scurried back up the stairs and found the actual entrance.
The tour was incredible! The inside of the mosque is huge and the roof actually opens up to create some air flow during Ramadan when it is mandatory for everyone to come to the Mosque to pray. It was very interesting to see the divide of where the women and men pray. We also saw the huge cleansing room they use during Ramadan. People enetering the mosque to pray must wash their hands, feet, face, hair and arms before they begin. At the beginning of the tour our guide said there were a few rules and the first one was that only men could take pictures inside the mosque. Everyone just kind of looked at him and didn’t say anything. Then he was like “oh that was a joke!!” And there were some nervous giggles and he was like “I was waiting for someone to say something.”
But why would anyone say anything? There are a lot of women’s rights issues in the Arab world so why would anyone risk saying anything in case it was true? It was interesting.
Our guide was like a drill seargant. He would semi-shout at anyone who lagged behind to take pictures, etc. In addition there are two hammams in the mosque, a traditional Moroccan one and a Turkish one. Neither of them are in use, which I found to be a bit peculiar. They were both beautiful hammams and their only purpose is to show tourists?
After the Mosque we walked along the beach a little bit and then found a coffee shop where we checked our email, checked into our flight and checked the reviews on our hostel. They were all relatively positive except for the bit about cold showers, but who takes showers anyways? We did a bit more roaming around town and then found a great restaurant with an outdoor seating area inhabited by stray cats. We ordered some dinner. After dinner we found an internet café and printed our boarding passes and then picked up some pastries and walked quickly towards the beach.
We sat on a wall overlooking the ocean, the sunset, and the mosque and enjoyed our delicious almonds pastries. It was a perfect second to last night in Morocco!
When the sun started to dip under the ocean, we decided to walk back to our hostel before it got too dark. Unfortunately a couple of knuckle head guys thought it would be fun to follow us home. We walked twice around a round-a-bout to try to get them to stop but they continued. They walked farther behind us but then got closer and started trying to talk to us. We stopped next to this group of people but then they started talking to us too so we just continued our walk home. They had been following us for about 10 minutes when we started getting a little concerned and I finally couldn’t take it anymore. I turned around and saw their smiling faces from the amusement of following us. I said
“Do you speak English?" And he said “un peu” and startled cackling! So I said in my super serious hardcore voice “we want you to stop following us RIGHT now.” And I watched the smiles fade off of their faces and they turned around and walked the other way. I surprised myself with my stone cold stare! (I’m secretly a hardcore badass!!!!)
We made it back to the hostel alive but very tired. We hung out around the hostel trying to make friends (actually trying to find the courage to talk to other people). Same thing. At about nine we were going to head out into the medina to find some dinner but the guy working the hostel told us to be very careful and come back quickly because it was getting late and a little dangerous. We walked around for awhile and were upset to find that all of the restaurants and cafes were filled with only men, along with the streets and pretty much everything else. We were feeling a little discouraged so we returned to our hostel defeated and foodless. We decided to hit they hay pretty early.
This is what we ate for dinner:
This is what we ate for dinner:
LOLZ for being 2 women in Morocco!
No comments:
Post a Comment