No telephone, no internet: First visit to Casablanca

According to my miserable map, I should have been close to the royal palace. But nothing in the crowded Mers Sultan Quarter in Casablanca, where trams hit shops and cafes, looked out of remote palace. I tried a road then the next one. Finally, I approached some teenage girls in jeans and led by Downing Diet Cokes out of a snack bar.

“I’m looking for the palace,” I said in elementary French and showed my map. “He says he should be near here.”

One of the girls looked at the crumpled sheet of paper and with a voice loaded with teenage contempt, he asked: “You don’t have phone; ”

No, I had no phone. Or rather, I did it, but I didn’t use it.

In addition to buying the plane ticket, my plan was to explore Casablanca – a Moroccan city I had never visited – without using the internet. This didn’t mean online research, no GPS, no Ubers or Airbnbs, no virtual dictionary and no stupid circuit to avoid social embarrassment.

At a time when more and more of us feel the need for a digital detox, I know strongly how the internet, for all its benefits, has also changed the journey for the worst. Not only does it play a key role in excessive, but it has also leveled the sense of discovery. By allowing us to read the restaurant menus, to visualize websites and to compile lists, the internet tells us what we will experience before we arrive.

I could use a guide, but this was the opposite of the spirit of effort. After all, my main goal was to see if I could restore the sense of exploration – and learn some retro travel lessons along the way.

Lesson 1: Get a good map

After flying to Casablanca’s Mohammed V airport, my first series was to locate a map. I approached a woman who was sitting on what I got to be the information office. “Of course I have a map,” he replied. “I have a phone.”

However, it directs me to the train to the city center. When I arrived at Airy Station, I realized how difficult the Unplugged here would be here. There were no “you are here” signs, no place to save my luggage while I got oriented and there are no clear evidence-at least not in this non-Arabian reader-from which direction it led to the city center.

Still without a map, I took a direction and started walking. A palm Avenue looked like a good bet and I was soon in shops and restaurants. Beyond a gate on what I got to be the old Medina, I saw a hand -painted mark mark: “Ryad 91.”

Lesson 2: Ask to see a room

I knew from previous trips to other Moroccan cities that “ryad” or “riad” means “Inn”. Soon Mohammed, a tall, man full of man, welcomed me to the pillow lobby and did not look offended when I asked to see the only rest room, a 360 dirhams deal or about $ 37. It was simple and clean, but a bit claustrophobic, with a window. I took the room, deciding that I would look for something more spacious the next day.

In the meantime, I asked Mohammed for a map. “A minute,” he said, sitting on his computer and printing one from Google. About twelve ways to this were named. The rest was a confused of the lines.

The good thing about ignorance is that it can turn everything into discovery. And there was plenty that fascinates me along the Casablanca routes: cute minarets. Bakers pull warm, flat bread from outdoor ovens. The launch of street art, alive against the whitewashed walls that gave his name.

My wanderings started outside the door of the inn. Holding the port to the right, I entered the west, through the farm food market, where sellers sold oily nuts from trolleys and leaf squares where the men sat at low tables that eat fried fish sandwiches. Walking along the bastions built when Portugal ruled the port, I saw a huge structure. I asked some boys diving in the ocean from a rocky beach. “C’est La Plus Grande Mosquée du Monde” was the answer.

I had really stumbled in the largest mosque in the world? Unfortunately, my informants were not absolutely reliable. The Hassan II mosque can have one of the largest minarets in the world, but it is not the largest itself. And as the tourism buses around the corner proved to be the main attraction of Casablanca.

I could see why boys exaggerate. With a capacity of 25,000 people, the mosque is designed to accept and not just its size. Each centimeter is covered with complicated crafts, from plaster to mosaics to fretwork. At the accompanying museum, I learned that it took 12,000 craftsmen to complete.

My rides brought more discoveries: roads in the city center with art deco buildings. Contemporary Moroccan art in the elegant villa des Arts. The Abderrahman Slaoui Museum, with posters of Berber jewelry and colonial era.

Traveling without expectations also make you more careful about the usual life. I liked to come to a man in a square selling coffee from a small container and the housekeeping store, where the frantic women at Djellabas were confused to get their hands on fryers who had just surpassed, some of the three or four.

Casablanca did not cause tourists. He was very busy living his life.

Lesson 4: Leave fomo

I found my second hotel on a road from villas with bougainvillea. The rooms in Doge (about 2,200 Dirham), once a private house, bent hard on the origin of jazz, velvet walls and at least one photo of Josephine Baker. Staying there, amidst the so -called furniture and soap with orange aroma, I tried not to wonder if there was even a more excellent Casablanca I hotel. I haven’t had I find it.

Traveling disconnected means to let the fear lose. The internet can convince us that its best lists are objective truths and that every traveler who does not work through them has been installed for less.

I had to fight a sting in the central market, where dozens of seafood benches were served fresh oysters and fish. How to choose? I settled in Nadia because of local businessmen there. Was the juicy sardines on the grill that rushed with intense Chermoula sauce the best on the market? It was the best I ate.

The same is true of the perfectly seasoned chicken shawarma we showed in the luxurious Racine neighborhood and the delicate pastries of Gazelle Horn in a bakery in the Gauthier district – places I had chosen because they were busy with local customers.

But this strategy did not work in my quest for a restaurant serving traditional Moroccan food, as local visitors often choose a kitchen different from the one that arrives at home. So when I got into the Le Cuistot dining room and listened to Castilian Spanish, British English and New Jersey Accents, I had no great hopes.

But my tfaya couscous was fluffy, tasty vegetables, and caramelized onions and almonds added just the proper sweetness and crunching. When Aziz Berrada, the chef and the owner told me that his Cusk was the best in Casablanca, I believed him.

If so, it was just one of his talents. Before Aziz became a chef, he told me, he was a photographer for Hassan II, the same monarch who had ordered the construction of the imposing mosque. When the monarch died, Aziz decided that it was time for a career change.

Lesson 5: Talk to people

My conversation with Aziz – which wouldn’t happen if I was buried on my phone while the food – made me be willing to see the palace where he had worked. So, on my last day, the receptionist in Doge printed another Google map.

Then I lost. After receiving no help from teenage soda, I wandered for blocks, eventually asking for instructions from an elderly man who pointed red flags in the background: the palace.

Only it was not open to the public. Always, obviously.

The internet would have revealed this. However, as I struggled with the realization that I had spent hours to reach these impenetrable walls, I was seeing a road with bookstores. At least, I thought, I could find a decent map.

And I did. But the road also led to shops selling carpets with handmade carpets and copper tea set, a courtyard full of barrels of olives and a Warren of whitewashed alleys that reminded me of Andalusia, even before I met a tiny museum.

The expanding neighborhood almost looked like a Morocco setting, which is suitable, designed by the French in the 1920s and 1930s.

I learned this from a woman who introduced herself as Imane, when I stopped for mint tea in the imperial coffee. He sat near me and seemed to be either celebrity or mayor, so frequent was the greetings from passersby. I asked if I could talk to her about the neighborhood.

“Of course, my sweetie,” he said in perfect English. “I love Americans. You’re so spontaneous. “

Lesson 6: Stay open

Imane suggested that we move our conversation to a nearby location that promised to love. I went through my skepticism, estimating that I could receive some local recommendations.

As we walked, Imane’s rapid fire monologue left some room to ask about her favorite restaurants. But I learned that he had once lived in the United States, selling real estate, working for a jewelry company and driving an Uber.

Eventually we reached a set of walls only marginally less imposing than the palace. Our guard caused a carved door to a beautiful building, with green and blue geometric tile walls and complex gypsum and courtyards intertwined with orange trees. I still had no idea where I was (later I learned that it was a former court and a house for Pasha and now it is used for cultural events). And I was secreted by staff, including a bureaucrat with a stern and a cleaning woman who greeted Imane.

WHERE were Imane? A politician? A star of the movie?

Finally, it seemed to me. “Are you influenced?” I asked.

“I don’t like labels,” he replied.

I never learned Imane’s favorite restaurants. But she told me about her mission to spread the message that we are all connected. Eventually, she took her phone to convey to us, lived, as we discussed.

I had come all the way without my phone. I had lost and found my way, discovered monuments and tiny jewelry. I had developed a sense of the city as a place that still existed mainly for its inhabitants, not its visitors.

And there I was in the living food of someone else’s social media.

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