Casablanca - more than just a movie

Pipers on the Roof
I arrived in the evening in Casablanca, an ecelectic city of old french buildings, interesting sexy people, and gloing palm trees. (am typing on a french keyboard s;cuse the typos°0 ) My first night was spent drinking left over french wine from the plane qnd s,oking Shisha, tobacco from a trqditionql bong on the terrace (well, more like q concret roof top) of Hotel Rialto with the hospitqble Berber hotel qssistqnt Abdul qnd tzo Swisses, Korin qnd Kristian: Its so aromatic and easy on the lungs. Till the next dqy I suppose... The city is no where near the glitz and glam of the 60s movie, but I recon gazing at the colourful rooftops and watching the people in both traditional robes and designer western gear buzzing in and out of restaunts still barbequing away at 10pm is quite a good warm up for this fantastically exotic country.

Moroccan Cats
I did some cat spotting early on the second day. The central fresh food market close by serves beautiful sweet coffee and cheese roll for just 3 dh (50c AUD) a pop, amongst other things like legs of goats, tourtles, flowers, spices, fruit... Cats here aren;t owned by any one but are certainly well looked after with all the left overs. Like in most developing countries they are much smaller than Aussie/kiwi cats, but are not shy because they are relatively well treated and respected here, and perhaps helped with the absence of dogs (seen one so far but the streets are FULL of cats). Every body loves cats here so I have developed a bit of photographic collection of them just lounging around the street, waltzing into eateries for a pat and a feed.. oh puuuurrrrrr.
Touristy Stuff
I absolutely love roaming the streets here checking out the people, zhqt they sell, food, Arab buildings, the Medinq. But being a tourist here is like being a tourist - men chat me up all the time and every one points and gawk and yells out "japaan japaan nippon nippon" so i just need to learn to chill and smile politely and walk fast. But the Fench is improving particularly the numerics.

I highly recommend the maze like Medina (traditional old town inside a wall) and the Hassan II mosque - 3rd biggest mosque in the world after Mecca and Medina Saudi Arabia. It happened to be a Friday when I was there and I got there just as the midday prayers crowd left. It was almost like the calm after a storm, even though the believers are all very reserved and quiet as they leave. I bumped into Abdul at the entrance, the night before he said that he wasn;t going to the prayers but still hope to go to paradise. He was there anyway and he said being at the prayer and in the bosom of the mosque (my interpretation) and hearing the voice of the Imam was asolutely amazing and many of his fellows cried. I really could understqnd when I went in - first sittin g in the court yard chilling out and waiting for the guided tour to start then later inside this magnificent place. It was right away from the chaos of the big city next to the rolling sea, the breeze blows in through the large pillars and delicately crafted mozaics, you do indeed feel completely spiritual and calm, your mind reach somewhere outside your body when you are embraced by this eerie and lifting place. I can,t explain it and perhaps why this place is so enchanting to muslims and non muslims alike.

Hammam
Later in the arvo I took the liberty of trying out the Hammam, the traditional bath house. From the research i did before hand i expected it to be some shabby dark little bath room, but the Hammam Ziani in Casablanca was out of this world. It was extremely bright and clean and maticulously decorated with traditionally crafted bathing basins and tile out of beautiful bluegrey marble. There were several big plump ladies right there helping you out scrubbing and massaging you depinding on what you ordered. Insence and steam fill the air. It was just like arriving at Cleopatra;s private chambers, my mind just kept boggling.

There,s no wonder why Moroccan women are all just so amazingly gorgeous - they spend hours in the hamman just exfoliating and shampooing and rubbing seaweed potion into themselves. There were four or five different chambers for different stages of the washing/pampering process, and at the end there;s a lounge for resting and waiting for husbands to pick them up at the door.

Moroccan women are generally quite voluptuous and unshy about taking the kit off once they are in an all female domain. The etiquette is to just wear a g string and they all have colourful lacy lingerie. I paid 20dh for the lady there to scrub (exfoliate) me on the big marble benches. You may as well call it a butchers table cos she was super strong and just stripped me literally in pieces with the scrubbing glove. I had no idea I had this much dead skin till I looked down on the marble floor qnd there were hundreds of grey bits of dough like lumps of my skin. They call that "speghetti".

So still with steam in my head I drifted off to sleep. The evening prayers continued and the beeping of the petite taxis and ushers yelling in customers fadsing into the night. Rose city Marrakech tomorrow at the break of dawn.