Casablanca

October 19, 2024 Saturday
Our flight arrived in Casablanca around 5:30AM (early), we quickly went through customs (the customs officer looked at our passports and waved us through without saying one work to us.Andrew had pre-purchased an e SIM card, but I hadn’t bought anything so Andrew got a SIM card for $60 that had unlimited data for me while I tried withdrawing some dirhams from the ATM. The first machine didn’t work, so we found another one that did. The airport was extremely quiet. It was only 6 am by this time and it was still dark. We got a cab to the Marriott Hotel where Dean and Heather were staying. We arrived shortly before Dean came down for his morning run. We hung out on the couches in the lobby until Heather was up and dressed and then we went up to the room and showered and got ready for our Morocco adventure to begin.

First stop was the King Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca. We met our tour group (different group from G Adventures) and learned about the massive mosque that was completed in 1993 under King Hassan ll and is built over the Atlantic Ocean. It cost $800 million to build and is one of the few mosques open to the public to visit. 105,000 worshippers can gather together for prayer. 25,000 people inside and 80,000 people outside.

After the Mosque, we took a cab back to the Marriott, grabbed our bags and took another (cab cost 100DIR) cab to the hotel where we met Hicham, our G Adventures guide and the rest of our group. There were several G Adventure tours at the hotel. We got settled in our rooms and went to a room with tables set up in a u-shape and met the other 9 members of our group. We all introduced ourselves, stating how many G Adventure tours we’d been on and what we were looking forward to the most on this tour.

After meeting everyone except Sharon and Gilles (their flight arrived late that night), our group went for dinner to a restaurant that Hicham suggested. We frequently ate as a group.Read more