Morocco and then Menton, France 2018 | Casablanca

I arrived to Casablanca as planned very early on Saturday morning from Montreal. I managed to upgrade when I checked in so for a few extra dollars on the long overnight haul, I managed to eat well, and more importantly, sleep. But it was a pretty travel weary Carol who set her wrinkled self on a couch in the Idou Anfa  Hotel to wait for a room. Wait yes, for 4 hours. There's good news though because I met, finally, two of my fellow travelers--Carol and Jim--and two friendly travelers from Hamilton, New Zealand. Together we dodged our way through  downtown traffic like pros, and put ourselves down on the patio at Starbucks to watch the world go by. It felt a lot like home. The Boulevard Anfa was bustling with four lanes of fancy cars (there is a lot of money in Casa), mixed with mini-taxis (not necessarily safe), buses, trucks, motorbikes and Japanese brand SUVs. The crowd at Starbucks was pretty eclectic: black, brown and white faces and everything in between; old men in jelabas and young women in high fashion shoes and jeans full of holes; students glued to cell phones and computers; and tourists, of course. Except for the absence of streetlights at the crosswalk it all seemed a wee bit too normal. Margaret arrived and we walked a block or two and found dinner in an Italian cafe.

We topped off the evening with wine at the rooftop bar, where a pianist played familiar music. Except for the wine, which was Moroccan, we could have been anywhere.

That all changed when we met Fattah (Fa as in fa-la-la and TA with the accent on TA) at the hotel this morning and reviewed the plan for the next couple of days. We would visit the Hassan II mosque today, walk through the upscale seaside French corniche, and eat lunch along the boardwalk before piling into our van and heading for Rabat, the political capital of Morocco and home of the the royal family.

Amazing tile work everywhere!

Minaret at Hassan II

Trip-mates, at the Hassan II Mosque

Fattah is fantastic. He's proud of his Moroccan heritage (he stayed with his family near Marrakech last night) and he's knowledgeable. He's keen to answer the multitude of questions we put to him over lunch and on the drive to Rabat. He tells us the 'official' story that is taught in school and then fills in the gaps with a more authentic true-to-the-facts story.

Morocco then Menton, France 2018 | What I'm Reading

• The Sheltering Sky (Paul Bowles, 1948). Three American tourists--a husband and wife and a mostly unwelcome friend--get it all wrong as they travel through northern Morocco. They like to think of themselves as down-to-earth authentic travelers but fail to fit in or connect in any way to the very un-American locals. Track down the 1990 movie with John Malcovich and Debra Winger, then call me for a date!
• The Spider's House (Paul Bowles, 1984). My personal favorite, this story is set in Fez in 1954 just two years before Morocco achieved independence from France. Fez is broken up and breaking down with the Nationalists seeking to remove France from the country while retaining all that's good about their occupation, and the traditional Muslim tribally-connected families disenchanted by both.  The French are mostly dismissed as violent occupiers defending their colonial territory, but the contrasts between the motives of the Nationalists and traditionalists offer good insight on this bit of history, and the cultural clashes between the Americans and Moroccans sometimes read like a warning to all who would travel here. 
• The Caliph's House: A Year in Casablanca (Tahir Shah, 2006). By the author of The Sorcerer's Apprentice, you have to envy this author/traveler for his genius as a memoir writer. This time his effort to make a home for himself and young family in a shanty town outside of Casablanca is plagued by the bad fortune brought on by jinns (who resent his presence in the house) and his western ideals about how things get done. With the help of the bicultural-bilingual Kamal, he makes dubious progress. It's 343 pages, and 365 days, filled to bursting with cultural knowledge, funny and frustrating, and a forewarning to all who would travel there to beware of assumptions. This is Morocco. Let's hope it makes film.
• The Forgiven (Lawrence Osborne, 2012). A short read, an intense thriller, told without sparing the reader much at all, this story takes you to an expat mansion in the hills and a party fit for a bunch of well-healed westerners. You spend most of your time with one couple from Britain, who, on the way to the party, run down a young Moroccan (supposedly) selling fossils on the side of the road. I couldn't put this down, and went back to the last few pages repeatedly to make sure I hadn't missed anything! After Margaret pointed out that this is where we will be traveling, I spent a whole night tracing the route described in the book, and with some trepidation, matching it up to our itinerary into the middle and high Atlas.
• Hitler's Spy: A Novel of Deception (Colin Minor, 2012). This historical fiction is by one of my former EPL library trustee colleagues, and I dug it out and read it again. Set in a suburb of Casablanca during WWII, it embeds the story of the meeting of allied leaders to plan war strategy. I think I learned more about Churchill from this book than from any TV series. It's filled with intrigue, drawing a close line between fact and fiction.

Morocco then Menton, France 2018 | Getting ready and getting there

It's that time of year. Last week the snow fell heavily on cedar branches, a reminder that the garden needs to be harvested, roots plumped up with water in preparation for a long cold winter, perennials trimmed and mulched and put to bed. I too need to plump up on energy for the dark days of winter.  With daylight hours rapidly diminishing, frost and threats of snow, it's time to head off in search of warm, sunny days, good food, fresh air and exercise.

On  Friday, Margaret and I will head first to Morocco, then to the south of France. Packing is no longer the chore it once was. Figuring out what I can and cannot eat in Morocco is a bit of a challenge. Couscous and lamb tagine sound so nummy, but couscous is not on the GF menu. When I told Fattah, our guide, about my gluten intolerance, he was quick to suggest I bring some rice cakes. "Morocco," he advised "is a bread culture".

Our contact here in Canada for the walking trip in France was less helpful. She wondered whether I could eat some wheat products (croissants, pastries, breads--I think that's what she had in mind!). Well, no, GF means no gluten. So I'm told there will be fruit and yogurt and that there is a little store across the street from the hotel. I can just imagine how much GF product they have in stock! So my bag will include a wide range of GF snacks of my own making, and of course thin rice cakes, the only kind that will stand up to packing. I'll either have rice cakes when I arrive, or rice meal, depending on how Air Canada handles my check-in bag. Between that and the first aid kit (most of which is to do with food and water risks), I might be able to fit in a couple of pairs of pants and a shirt or two.

So instead of organizing and packing, I've been reading, comparing notes with Margaret as we make our way through a lengthy list of fiction and non-fiction about Morocco. France, of course, can wait. I'll post itineraries and hopefully maps later, but you can check out what we've been reading in the next post.

  Friday is almost here. I will leave the snow and cold behind and head to Casablanca via Montreal. The high today in Casa was 29, low 19.  It's an overnight trip from Montreal arriving 7 am in Casa, and we have a hotel near the Medina. I will spend some time on the plane planning my day. Margaret arrives late afternoon and we will hunt down that first lamb tagine--without the couscous. I'm looking forward to meeting the group (we are only 6) and Fattah, our trip organizer, in-house musician, and local host. You can find out about Fattah and this trip by checking out his web site here.