My first port on the trip around the world was Casablanca, Morocco. We arrived on 3rd of September, hot and humid day in Casablanca. My friends from the ship and I awoke at approximately 0515am to be among the first to watch us pull into Morocco with a dock time of 0800am. Shipboard life is great but the excitement to be in our first port was universally evident by the dozen or so other people that were already up there on the observatory deck. with the same mindset as we watched dolphins swimming by the boat welcoming us to land. To be honest, Casablanca smells rather putrid. Somebody described it as "dead fish covered in urine," and unfortunately, I'd have to agree. Why they chose it as our port is sort of beyond me, but I suppose we have to start somewhere—the culture shock and discomfort is only going to get more difficult as we go on. We toured around the city, stepping off the bus from time to time to explore the markets, alleyways, and other areas. Some parts did smell better than others, specifically the areas with food, but overall, it wasn't very pleasant on the nostrils. With absolutely no plans for this country, as any other, me and my friends decided to go to Rabat, the capital of Morocco and enjoy the first day over there. Leaving the ship I already saw trash everywhere, as well as bunch of people trying to sell something or to give you a taxi ride. Port as a port was smelly and dirty, but seven of us were more than ready to leave Casablanca and go to Rabat. We took a comfortable train and in about hour and a half we got to the capital.
Rabat is well known for the big market place with a lot of cultural buildings and amazing architecture. The first thing that we experienced in Rabat was food. Very famous food of Morocco is Chawarma. Chawarma is a popular Arab wrap, pretty much looks like kebab with a lot of meat and spices. It was very delicious.
Market place was overwhelmed. People were everywhere trying to sell you clothes, especially scarves, bracelets and many other things. Bargain is very popular in Morocco and once you set the price you cannot change it and you should buy a product. It reminds me on Turkey more or less, except that Turkish people were more offensive. The traffic was extremely crowd with many cars, motors and busses. Market place was dirty with a lot of trash everywhere around it.
On the other side, just five minutes from the market place, there was a huge temple with clean and green garden covered with yellow and pink flowers with the view on the Atlantic Ocean.
We walked down to the Ocean where the view of the city was beautiful. Unfortunately, there were hundreds of children on the street begging and asking for money, food or water. Water is not drinkable in Morocco; so many people cannot afford to buy bottle water. After visiting quay, we went to one of the mosque in Rabat where we were waiting for our friend to pray. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to enter, since we are not Muslims and we did not want to pray. On the train station I got an amazing kisses and hugs from a local kid, which was the highlight of my first day. Finally, after seven hours in Rabat, we took a train back to Casablanca and prepared ourselves for tomorrow’s adventure to Fes. Before we went to the ship, we decided to find our friends Woody and Luke who supposed to be in famous Rick’s café in Casablanca. Straight from the train station, we went to Rick’s café not even thinking that that place is actually very fancy and that you should be dressed appropriate which we were definitely not. However, we went there, smelly and dirty from the whole day trip to Rabat. The food was delicious and atmosphere was amazing. Music, furniture, lights.
The day after, Woody, Luke, Megan, Chelsey, Brian (who we picked randomly on the way to Fes), Kemel and me took a train to Fes. Brian wanted the first class ticket, so we decided that we need AC for the four hours long ride. Somehow, we ended up in the second class cars with thousands of people standing in the train and chilling, I guess. I was probably 35 degrees outside, while in the train was even more. Seven of us, big backpacks and lots of people. Sounds amazing . First hour we were trying to find the first class cars, but it was almost impossible since we were walking really slowly through the train. Than we decided to jump off the train, run to the front cars of the train and take our seats. Running was fast, and we almost lost one the people, since train conductors do not care a lot. Finally, we ended up in our first class cabin, which was comfortable and dirty, of course .
Fes-cultural center of Morocco. Bunch of taxi drivers were waiting on the train station trying to give us a ride to nowhere since we did not decide where we are going to stay. When we decided that it was going to Medina, we took a little van for six people. And btw, in the train, we got the third wheels with us-one old lady from the ship and young girl from Hawaii. Old lady started complain from the beginning which was kind of annoying, but I put her on the ignore mode. The van was so fun with nine of us, on the floor with our backpacks. I was making some jokes so people were laughing most of the time. You know me . My heart was pounding and I was leaning forward gripping the passenger seat in front of me as our taxi gripped corners and zigzagged its way through cars and pedestrians who all had the same idea we did. This idea was, “Get there first. Doesn’t matter where. Just be first.” Two lane roads had three cars and four bicyclists all trying to inch ahead of the others. Motorbikes whizzed passed our windows in a constant but erratic stream. We ignored red lights and flew across intersections, cutting our way through gaps in the cross traffic. Halfway through the ride, I realized I had yet to buckle my seatbelt. I guess I didn’t need it . We ended up in some “hotel”, call it however you want where we met eleven more SAS kids which was kinda cool . We immediately got our lunch and started eating delicious chicken and beef, but old lady is vegetarian, so she almost puked on the table looking at eight greedy people trying to feed themselves. While we were having our lunch, eating meat, she had a T-shirt with the sign “Stop killing animals”. She was absolutely pissed, while the rest of the group didn’t care about her at all. Later that night, she left with some random people from the ship. I guess she didn’t like us .
Walking through the old city of Fes, which was Medina, we got a historical picture of Morocco. At the evening, we order beer, of course and chilled on the roof of the “hotel”. I said “hotel” because they consider that as a hotel, but it was more like better hostel. Bathroom is definitely very weird. They do not have showers, but just a pipe and the way to use that pipe was weird. I tried to take a shower, but it did not go the best way I made flood in the bathroom, so I decided it is better if I just don’t take a shower Which was not good idea, since the rest of the group didn’t take a shower either, so you can guess how did we smell . Night on the roof was cool. Twenty people, good energy, bear, music and beautiful view on the old city of Fes.
The next day we spent mostly exploring the city and shopping. At some point my lovely camera died forever. RIP to my camera . That was not the best part of my Morocco trip, but shit definitely happen L Life goes on. Just 5 minutes later I met a guy in one of the shops whose job is to sew scarves and dresses almost 24/7 and whose English was bad, but I still was able to understand him. I asked him: “What is your biggest dream in life?”, he answered: “To work.” I asked myself than: “I am complaining in my life, saying that this life is hard. Well, it is hard comparing to what?”
Later that day, we took the train to Casablanca. In the train we had a chance to meet local people and make some good friendships. I met a guy called Mohamed who studies in Casablanca and who explained me more about Islam and Morocco’s culture. Also, we met a middle age lady who is a teacher of French in high school in one of the places between Fes and Casablanca. She was very polite; she invited us to be her guests and to visit her and her son again in Morocco. The train was crowed, but we had seats in second class .
Our last day in Morocco we spent in Casablanca. We went to the random streets, found couple of kids and started playing soccer. Suddenly, after ten minutes, from eight kids at the beginning, we ended up with around hundred kids who wanted to play soccer with us. It was really fun. Our team lost probably 15-3, we were really bad comparing to them. J At the end of the game, Brian gave them a new soccer ball that he brought from the states. Kids started freaking out. They started hugging us, saying thank you, come again and so on…I was blessed to have a chance to play with these kids and to be part of their community for an hour. It reminded me of my childhood and the time when I was playing outside with my friends. It reminded of innocents of the kids and creatures that don’t know what means being greedy. It reminded me of all of my friends that I met in childhood where we had only true friends without any interest and purity of kids.
Last thing that we did in Morocco was the visit of the third biggest mosque in the world called Hassan II Mosque. Hassan II Mosque-impressive building standing next to the ocean representing power and strength. With the largest religious minaret in the world, it's wickedly tall. I believe it took somewhere around six years to build the whole thing, and it is enormous. It almost feels like a compound.
In order to feel inspired, one must rip themselves away from the familiar and get yourself away from your comfort zone. Crowd everywhere, poor people trying to sell you something that you probably don’t need, and who used to talk very closely, but who we are to judge them? Americans and Europeans who used to have their personal space? Well, these countries seem to be very different and we have to handle it. Morocco was not cultural shock for me, but it was definitely good experience.
This was just the first port, it’s weird to remind myself that I’ve only been on the ship for a week but I can safely say that the 450 students on this ship are among the luckiest 19-21 year olds in the entire world.
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