Casablanca

Day 4

Play It Again Sam

Casablanca ............. Romantic it ain?t.

All dock areas are industrial and functional rather than pretty.
This one is a total sh*t hole.

The shuttle bus taking us from the ship into town gave us a hint that the sh*t hole status was not confined to the docks.

The driver dropped us off in what seemed to be a side street (albeit a very busy one) and told us this was the center of town.

We went for a walk and took our life in our hands every time we tried to cross a road.
They claim that there are traffic lights and pedestrian crossings ..........generally they lie.
And when there is a crossing - these fecking lunatic drivers just go where and when they want.
It is mayhem.

Also I was being checked out the whole time because of my camera (an SLR) even though I tried to keep it hidden under a jacket when not using it.
Needless to say I didn?t use it much.

The two places we wanted to visit were the mosque (the largest outside Mecca I believe) and the bazaar.

The mosque was quite a distance away and since nowhere had a map of the city (not even the tourist information place ??????) and I refused to commit suicide (financial or physical) in one of those taxis (which were all falling apart and looking like they had been used as bumper cars) we didn?t go.
Turns out that you can only go round in a guided tour and they would not let me use a DSRL anyway (that would make me a commercial photographer seemingly)

We didn?t get to the bazaar either thanks to the bus drivers route to where he dropped us off (which was the wrong place anyway).
If he had gone the correct route to the right spot it would only have taken us 5 minutes to walk there ........... well 15 trying to get across the roads.

Ahh well!

There is always next time ........................NOT

Casablanca will not be seeing me again.