Casablanca re-

A couple of days after getting into Fez, she also had a cold. A small one, she thought, but it gave me this impression of being thirsty all the time, the throat felt parched seconds after swallowing anything. She had regular headaches, especially if she had walked in the sun and there were a few days of runny nose as well.

It is not pleasant to be sick away from home but what to do!? These are the times where she prefers being with her own company but she was in a house with 7 other people in it. To compound it all she suddenly heard this decision of all of us going back to Casablanca to fetch the cars. She was not pleased.

Casablanca is not a place she needed to go back to and in her state (not that the cold had degenerated into flu or anything) she had no inclination to go walk in the dirt of Casablanca. She nearly stayed back but then she thought she’d go and help Coen drive the car back.

We were to leave on Monday morning early, they had made an internet booking at their hotel in the Medina again. She was feeling better and went to the market with Fatimah on the Saturday. She suddenly remembered that we have not tasted the b’tilla of Fez – the town where the original recipe comes from. So, we promptly went to order one at a good patisserie. It is one of those places with piles and piles of cakes which we tasted as we browsed. The b'tilla was meant for Sunday lunch and cost a small fortune.

Getting home to hear that there had been another change of plans, we are leaving Sunday morning early. The b’tilla was put on hold. Hence, we packed a small bag and at around 8 left the house to look for a taxi – the usual taxi drivers were not answering their phones. We got lucky, barely had we reached the main road that there was a taxi stopped there.

Since we were at the station early, she thought that we could catch an early train even if it was not a rapid one. So, we boarded the 8h50 train and were in Casablanca at around 13h00. It was Sunday, traffic was calm and that part of town relatively clean. Surveyors were working opposite the station, highly likely checking the lay of the land for the tramway service that they are working on.

Hotel Central

La Place

After being given grief by taxis, they decided to walk. It was not too bad. The sky has been overcast, so the sun was not hitting down. We stopped at a café for orange juice and proceeded with the walk. They decided that they’d try to find the hotel by going through the main ‘baab’ of the medina. That part of the Medina was not too smelly and dirty that day and we had none of the hassles of so-called guides like in the other Medinas.

At the hotel, the manager recognized them and gave them a good welcome and assigned them the same rooms the men had when they were there last time. The room giving on the square was nicer but noisier. The view was better, there was the square that had flowers in it and relatively clean and the medina wall and then the main road and the port where boat repairs are done.

The Hotel Central is some 90 odd years old, they are told. It must have been a graceful place with no pretentions. The rooms were adequate, the toilet/shower was sufficient as hotels go. However, as many things in Morocco, it has seen far better days and the maintenance people have done a rather slap dash job with it. The cleaning crew was not much better but at least the sheets are clean. It seems to be quite popular; there was a constant flow of people from all over the world coming and going there.

After a good rest, we went walkabout in the souk. The impression one gets is that much of the goods are what we would call ‘genuine copies’. She knew what she was looking for but lost interest in shopping very soon as they sellers were giving her their ‘version of the truth’ about their wares.

Hole in the wall tajine restaurant

Dinner was a tajine made at a tiny restaurant around the corner from the hotel. A real hole in the wall sort of place. The people there remembered the men from last time. The guy cooks the tajine on the spot and serves it scalding hot at the table. It was a meat ball tajine with a poached egg. It was fascinating to see how the guy made his meat balls with one hand and russled the tajine en un tour de main. It was very tasty and she started speculating how she could get one of these cooking utensils back home. Coen was not keen on the carrying and finally they struck a deal of finding one there made by Le Creuset!

After dinner they went for a free mint tea at the hotel and then bed. The Medina was more animated by then, people walking and talking, traffic, music etc. The evening azaan was heard but nothing deafening like in Port Louis. Even the morning azaan was heard from their room, it was unlike any azaan they have heard before, they could not make out the words but it was not too disturbing.

Then at 7h00 the chantier naval let out a siren for the start of work. By then there was much activity to be heard in the Medina anyway. The men left after a simple breakfast of coffee and bread – they have to meet with the shipping clerk and carry on procedures to clear the cars. 

It looks like the cars are not going to be out that day. The one container was a big logged in and needed for other containers to be moved before they reached that one. So one more night in Casablanca and more roaming in the Medina.

The hotel manager pointed them out to a fish restaurant. At first he said ‘down there’ and she thought it was on the ‘place’ itself. Later, when the others also poffered the wish to sample this restaurant, she asked for proper directions and got told it was down there, around the corner where the ‘tabac’ was.

Roof top

After another binge of shopping and a sundowner on the hotel rooftop they walked there. It looked pretty much like one of these lonely Medina residential streets, but then suddenly there was this carved entrance and a menu hanging by the door frame. They thought they would have to eat in the doorway that had a few chairs and these typical café tables. But no, further down it was a fully fledged restaurant, complete with paper table cloths and napkins.

Seafood b'stilla

There, they ordered paellas and one seafood b’stilla. The food was excellent, the service rather medium and the décor over-the-top. Upon entering this place the flower shaped neons hit you in the face. Then there is some woodwork and some typical Moroccan painted work. It was all piled into the place for effect.

Seafood b’stilla is made a bit differently to the chicken/pigeon one: it has seafood of course but also chinese noodles and lots of herbs. It was not sweet nor are there so much nuts in there either but very tasty all the same.

The waiter said that they did not have chilli sauce but when they walked out a person eating the the ‘doorway’ actually had a small plate of chilli sauce in front of him!

It was not a warm evening. They had mint tea and went to bed. As usual, the noise from the ‘place’ was there but they managed to sleep a bit.

The next day, they checked out and we walked to the baab below the place to wait for a taxi. We got into the first one that stopped. This was driven by a young rather rude Moroccan who would not hear for putting his counter on. He was very rude, she was on the point of walking out but Elismé said they’d put up with it because this would be the last time they use the taxi.

Off we went in the direction given to them. Finally, we reached the industrial area of the port and they stopped. A girl from the clearing company had come to fetch them since taxis are not allowed further up into the port area. We all really squeezed in her rather spacious Renault Fluence.

At the depot, Hans’ car was out and they started to work on the other container with the 2 Toyotas. After some shoving and pushing the two cars were out. The batteries of all the cars were dead but with back up batteries and jumper cables, they all started fine. Hans had a little damage on one side light but with the help of all the people of the depot, they could hit the road to Fez at 9h45 that morning – 5^th of July.