Morocco On Prayer Day

For months I was day dreaming about my cruise trip through the Mediterranean. But the fact that we were going to stop at Morocco for a whole day it was pushing my travel bug to wild dreams of colors and incredible architecture. By nature I am a dreamer with a creative imagination. With only watching a pretty picture of a place and having on me the travel bug like a tattoo in my soul, I could have a whole adventure in my mind. I can see myself exploring the place, having the most awesome experience without needing to travel anywhere… Everything happened in my mind. Saying that, can you imagine how it was for me those few months before my trip? I search the web for images of Morocco, in each pic there were so much color, architecture, flavor, culture, awesomeness that my expectations were growing by the minute.

It’s incredible how different culture could be between countries, and how that influence priorities. Thursday night before we got to Morocco, after dinner we went to our room and we found the itinerary for the next day like always but there was an additional paper. The paper was explaining that the King decided that, that Friday (the day of our visit) it was going to be prayer day. That meant that our visit to the Mosque only could be on the outside, we were not going to be able to enter the Mosque (something that was part of our tour). Also explained that the King it was in town.

I wont lie that it was quite a disappointment not to be able to see this beautiful building on the inside. It makes you wonder why praying the day that the tourist comes. And don’t get me wrong I am a person of faith and also respect the faith of others. But it’s clearly the need of money in this country and one of the things that keep jobs, and money flowing here are the tourist that comes weekly on the cruise. So the question again is why the day that tourist are in town and want to see this magnificent building?

Nether the less the experience of being there, been able to see with your own eyes a whole different culture still fill your soul with knowledge and gratitude of who you are and where you come from.

Our tour guide told us that we can take pictures of everything we wanted but of two things.

We couldn’t take pictures of soldiers.
We couldn’t take pictures of anybody that say no.

Still of the advise, in our group we had an “adventurous person” that took the risk of taking a picture of a soldier and our tour guide had to remind him the danger and the risk that he was putting all of us because of that. Also we had another “adventurous lady” in our group that also took the risk of trying to get in a building that a soldier told us that we couldn’t get in. Seriously I don’t understand why is so difficult for some people to just follow the rules, specially if your actions can affect a whole group of people.

Even though the image that I had created in my head about Morocco, all colorful, with a clean street market full of beautiful and inviting items to buy, leading to majestic historic buildings that nobody can resist to photograph weren’t exactly what I saw, reality has its own beauty.

Now let me explain, I did see some beautiful buildings but I also saw poverty, an unsanitary street market, filthy streets, restrictions, fear, stress, and a million of street cats everywhere specially at the market.

Every country had a little bit or some others a lot of the things mention above, so lets concentrate on the good stuff! Let me show you the beauty, the interesting, the cultural of my half day at Casablanca Morocco.