Lonely Planet Morocco
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Travel notes from Casablanca
Hi Everyone,
Today I have just arrived in Casablanca from Tunis courtesy of Tunisair. Why when you travel on developing world airlines all the passengers clap when you land?
Anyway we got here in one piece and checked into the youth hostel in the medina. At the moment I'm typing to you all from the posh surroundings of the Meridian Hotel Business Suite, leather covered desks and leather chairs etc. If only they new I was staying at the hostel.
When I last left you I was enjoying the desert surrounding of the oasis town of Douz. The next day we left bound for Tataouine via Gabes. At Gabes Manfred and myself continued travelling together.
Tataouine is the centre of the Ksour district in the south of the country, where all the Berber strongholds are. We took a louage out to Nouvelle Douiret and hiked the rest of the way to the old town. We planned to stay the night as our guidebook said there was a campsite there. It has since closed so we were a bit stuck as this place was in the middle of nowhere. Some French tourists came to our rescue with their RVs and gave us lunch and in the afternoon drove us back into Tataouine.
From there we headed north to the island of Jerba and the main town of Houmt Souq. We stayed there for three nights at the countries best youth hostel. The hostel occupies an old funduq used during the camel caravan days. The building is built around an internal courtyard, the camels where stabled downstairs and the merchants slept upstairs. It was a good place to relax in. Spent our days either on the beach being tourists for the day, or sitting around in cafes near the port doing as little as possible.
While on Jerba I popped into the Tunisair office and changed my flight to Casablanca by a few days. You can see most of what there is to see in Tunisia in two weeks. Hence I'm here today. Headed back north along the coast towards Tunis. Stopped in Sfax for a night, which is where they filmed quite a bit of The English Patient, for you film buffs. Manfred and myself went our separate ways from Sfax as he was flying home from Monastir. I travelled to El Jem by service taxi to see the Roman Coliseum which is almost as big as the one in Rome and is the most spectacular Roman ruin in North Africa. That afternoon I waited for the train to Tunis, and waited, waited, waited.... four and half hours later it turned up and eventually got me back into Tunis last Friday night.
Spent a few days kicking around in Tunis suffering for a few days from some dodgy food, I won't go into details. Spent a day out at the Bardo museum, which was fantastic. They have the best mosaics anywhere in the world. There was a nice park there as well where I spent the afternoon sleeping on a bench. It's a hard life.
So that was Tunisia for you. For a summary I'd say it's a fairly tame country, hassle free, etc. Highlights for me where the Roman ruins at Bulla Regia, the oasis at Touzeur, staying at the hostel on Jerba and the Bardo museum in Tunis. Stayed within budget too at about 100 pounds a week, which is on the more expensive side for this part of the world.
I'm off this afternoon to see the sights of Casablanca, which is the Hassan 2 Mosque. Then tomorrow I'm going to skip out of town.
I'm thinking of boarding the train, because I'm going to Marrakesh on the Marrakesh express... Now where have I heard that before?
Well don't work too hard all you people who are supposed to be working. I'm off to explore Morocco and if I see an Internet cafe or a big posh hotel I'll let you know how things are going. While I'm in this hotel I was going to make full use of the facilities and go to the rest room to stock up on some toilet paper, we don't have any down at the youth hostel. Its good to see how the other half live.
Regards,
Geoff.
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