Casablanca - map

For the previous week I had been investigating an upcoming national religious holiday. It was called “Eid al-Adha” or "Festival of Sacrifice" and it was approaching. In the Muslim calendar, this holiday marks the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son to God.

I decided to travel the day before the holiday, thinking that travel would be difficult during the holiday. This proved to be correct.

The long bus ride went fine all the way down to Casablanca. At the bus station in the central part of the downtown, I took a short walk to the hotel “Hotel Du Centre” which had a good location just a couple blocks from the medina. Price for a single room with a private bath was 190 DM. It was the late afternoon, so I had a chance to walk around the city’s central business district for awhile. This was a major big city, and I was downtown in the center of the commercial area. I saw lots of black Africans for the first time on my trip. I thought that maybe Morocco had an immigration problem from other nearby African countries.

The next day marked a major change. The streets were deserted and all shops were closed. The multi-lane thoroughfares that had been dangerous to cross were not only easy to cross, but I could jay-walk as I desired and even stop half-way across the street to snap photos.

This first morning I took the short walk (about 30 minutes) to the Hassan II mosque. It is a modern building and the third largest mosque in the Muslim world, after the mosques in Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia. The minaret on the mosque was very tall, and as a comparison for me, was about 50 feet taller than the Seattle Space Needle.

It was most impressive and located right on the ocean.

Those mosque doors are gigantic - see person in foreground for scale

I noticed a lot of evidence on the sidewalks (blood) that sheep had been slaughtered for the observance of the Muslim holiday and they were roasting the meat on outdoor fires.

Self-portrait at tile bench at the mosque

The second day I took a walking tour of the parks that extended south from the center of Casablanca. There were quite a few large parks and they were conveniently located next to each other, but they were generally poorly maintained.

Parkland south of the Casablanca downtown

Because of the holiday, many of the restaurants were closed, and even some hotels seemed to be closed. I had to resort to western-style eateries such as McDonalds and KFC – which I usually go out of my way to avoid.

The third day in Casablanca things started to pick up a bit in the commercial area and some, but not most of the stores were open for business.  I was able to do some tourist shopping.