Traveling offers up both pleasure and pain and the balance of the two can determine how satisfied I am at the end of the day. Too much pain can overwhelm me and leave me feeling low and discouraged (not to mention homesick). Too much ease and pleasure and I am not appreciative enough of the joy that came with no struggle.

Well today we had a bit of both. We started off with breakfast at the restaurant just 20 steps from our lodging. Yesterday I ordered blindly off the menu and hit gold. Today I was not going to make any changes. A Moroccan breakfast often consists of cheese, olives, bread and amlou. But let me describe this further. The bread in Morocco is amazing. The French (colonial) influence is very apparent.  The buns are chewy and crunchy just like a baguette. The pastries are soft and rich. There is also a type of bread that is very grainy and nutty tasting. My breakfast consisted of the nutty tasting bread, a pot of spreadable cheese, some oily black olives and amlou. Amlou is a spread made with crushed almonds, argan oil and honey. The flavour is amazing. Add to that meal, freshly squeezed orange juice and cafe au lait. The result: complete satisfaction.

Our outings today consisted of visiting Rick’s Cafe (of the movie Casablanca fame) and a trip to the Hassan II Mosque. Rick’s Cafe is a romantic reconstruction of the 1942 film and is every nook and cranny has intricate carved chairs and buffets, beaded and metal lamps, a piano bar, marble fireplaces, and more. I felt that I needed to have a classy drink to celebrate the occasion and also, perhaps, to pretend I was as sophisticated as Ingrid Bergman, so I order a martini. I only needed a few sips before I felt like I might slip from “oh so elegant” to “oh so unable to walk down the curving staircase without falling” and so Rudy finished it off.

With our fancy drinks finished we headed down the avenue to attend to more serious endeavours (the mosque).  The Hassan II Mosque is the only mosque in Casablanca that non muslims can enter. It is a palatial affair with  space inside to accommodate 25,000 worshippers and a surrounding courtyard that can hold 80,000 more.  The minaret is 210 metres tall. The roof is retractable and can open to the heavens and the building was built out into the ocean. The marble pillars, walls of mosaics, carved wooden balconies and grates and the painted cedar ceiling were only some of the wonders. It was almost too much.  I do hope that the King (who completed the build in 1983) invested as much in helping the people of Morocco as he did on constructing this edifice.

But it was not all beauty and pleasure. Oh no. There was some pain involved. Well, perhaps not for me. Rudy was the one who had to suffer today. While we were being ushered into the lower hall where the 350 huge marble washing stations were, Rudy neglected to read the signage. Danger was lurking just inside. Marble curbs surrounded the washing fountains and Rudy, so engrossed by the glory and splendour, slipped on the edge of the curb and twisted his ankle and fell flat on the marble floor. Luckily his noggin missed the enormous marble basin or it might have been much more than a sprained and swollen ankle that would have resulted.

While that was the most serious incident of the day, our pain did not end there. The wind whipping off the ocean was joined by rain from the heavens and we had trouble getting transportation home. We called an “Indrive” taxi but were met with hostilities from the regular taxi drivers. One glared, spoke harshly to us, and lurked around so he could get the license plate of the “illegal” taxi. In the end the Indrive taxi woman couldn’t risk picking us up and we were too mad to take the offer of a ride from the irate regular taxi guy. And so we continued on foot. Rudy limping. MaryLou very cold because she didn’t have her rain jacket and Dave and I just generally grouchy. We tried for a long time to get another taxi on another cold windy corner but everyone was desperate for a ride and we did not manage to secure one. On we tramped. Another opportunity. Another disappointment. The taxi driver asked to much and we dug in our heels. He followed us around the corner and berated us. Is this story getting too long? Too much of the same? Okay. I will just say that we did finally make it back to the hotel in two separate tiny taxis with a couple of rally drivers swerving in and out of traffic. We were just in time for our tour group meeting.

The tour group is a varied group . Some of us are pretty run-of-the-mill and some maybe not so much. There is an unhealthy number of teachers in the group (too many know-it-alls) but we shall have to get along for the next 15 days. After our meeting we headed out for a supper together to a nice place where most of us had tajine, a traditional Moroccan meal cooked slowly in a clay pot. I had a vegetable tajine but others had chicken, veal or lamb.

Well, it is time for bed. Tomorrow we are up early and off to Tangiers.