According to my pathetic map, I should have been close to the royal palace. But nothing in the lively Mers Sultan Quarter of Casablanca, where the trams exceed the shoe and coffee shops, seemed remotely palazial. I tried a road, then the next one. Finally, I approached some teenage girls in jeans and head scarves that lowered diets out of a snack bar.
“I am looking for the building,” I said rudimentary in French and I indicated my map. “He says he should be close here.”
One of the girls looked at the sheet of crushed paper and in a voice full of teenage contempt, he asked: “You don’t have a telephone? “
No, I didn’t have a phone. Or rather, I did it, but I was not using it.
Except for the purchase of my plane ticket, my plan was to explore Casablanca – a Moroccan city that I had never visited – without using the Internet. This meant any online research, no GPS, no Ubers or Airbnbs, no virtual dictionary and without scrolling without brain to avoid social embarrassment.
At a time when more and more of us feel the need for digital detoxification, I am deeply aware of how the Internet, for all its benefits, also changed the journey for the worse. Not only does it play a key role in supersonism, but has also flattened the sense of discovery. By allowing us to examine the restaurant menus, view the sites and fill in not missing lists, the Internet tells us what we will experience before arriving.
I could have used a guide, but it seemed contrary to the spirit of the effort. After all, my main goal was to see if I could restore the serendipity of exploring and learning some retro travel lessons along the road.
Lesson 1: Get a good map
After flying at the Mohammed V airport in Casablanca, my first order of activity was to identify a map. I approached a woman sitting at what I took to be the information desk. “Of course I have a map,” he replied. “I have a phone.”
However, he directed me to the train to the city center. When I arrived at the Ariosa station, I understood how difficult it could be to travel here. There were no indications “You are here”, no place to store the luggage while I oriented myself and no clear indications-at least not to this non-Arab-of reader which direction led to the center of the city.
Still without maps, I chose a direction and started walking. A palm lined avenue looked like a good bet, and I was soon among shops and restaurants. Beyond a gate in what I took to be the old Medina, I saw a hand painted sign: “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 and bespectacled, welcomed me into the hall with the pillow and it did not seem offended when I asked to see the only remaining room, a 360 dirhams deal or about $ 37. It was simple and clean, but a little claustrophobic, with a window that opened on an internal courtyard. I took the room, deciding that I would look for something more spacious the next day.
In the meantime, I asked Mohammed a map. “A minute,” he said, sitting on his computer and printing one from Google. About a dozen roads on it bear names; The rest was a tangle of lines.
Lesson 3: Embrace your ignorance
The good thing about ignorance is that it can transform everything into a discovery. And there was a lot that fascinated me along the tortuous alleys of Casablanca: graceful minarets; Bakers who pull hot and flat loaves from outdoor ovens; The splash of street art, vivid against the whitewashed walls that gave the name to Casablanca.
My wandering started out of the Locanda door. Keeping the port on the right, I lying to the west, through the Rauco food market, where the sellers sold fat walnuts from the trolleys and square squares where men sat at low tables by eating fried fish sandwiches. Walking along the bastions built when Portugal ruled the port, I saw a huge structure. I asked some guys who immersed themselves in the ocean from a rocky beach of what it was. “C’est La Plus Grande Mosquee du Monde” was the answer.
Did I really come across the largest mosque in the world? Alas, my informants were not entirely reliable. The Hassan II mosque can have one of the largest minarets in the world, but it is not in itself the largest. And while the tourist buses around the corner have shown, it is the main attraction of Casablanca.
I was able to understand why the boys exaggerated; With a capacity of 25,000 people, the mosque is designed to amaze and not only with its size. Each centimeter is covered by intricate crafts, from plaster to chalk to mosaics to keys. At the accompanying museum, I learned that they had used 12,000 craftsmen to be completed.
My walks have brought more discoveries: the streets of the center flanked by Art Deco buildings; Contemporary Moroccan art to the elegant Villa des Arts; The Abderrahman Slaoui Museum, with its Berber jewels and travel posters of the colonial era.
Traveling without expectations makes you even more attentive to ordinary life. I liked it to come across a man in a square that sold coffee from a small pot and the household shop where the frenetic women of Djellabas climbed to put their hands on the fryers who had just been on sale, some transported three or four.
Casablanca was not preparing tourists; He was too busy living his life.
Lesson 4: let it go fomo
I found my second hotel on a road of villas draped by Bougainville. The rooms of The Doge (about 2,200 dirham), once a private house, spread hard in their origins of the age of jazz, with walls lined with velvet and at least one photo of Josephine Baker. Staying there, among the inlaid furniture and fragrant orange fragrant soaps, I tried not to ask myself if there was even a more delicious Casablanca hotel i he hadn’t done it found.
Traveling disconnected means letting go of the fear of losing. The Internet can convince us that his best lists are objective truths and that any traveler who does not make his way through them has satisfied himself less.
I had to fight a thick to the central market, where dozens of fish stalls served fresh oysters and fish tagpines. How to choose? I established myself from Nadia because of the local businessmen there. Was the juicy grilled sardines seasoned with pungent kermula sauce there the best on the market? They were the best I ate.
The same was valid for the perfectly spicy chicken Shawarma that I tried in the luxury Racine neighborhood, and the delicate pastries of the Gazzella horn in a bakery in the Gauthier district – places I had chosen because they were busy with local customers.
But that strategy did not work in my search for a sitting restaurant that serves traditional Moroccan food, since local diners often choose a kitchen other than the one they get at home. So, when I entered the tiled dining room of Le Cuistot and I heard Spanish accents, British English and New Jersey, I had no great hopes.
But my tfaya couscous was soft, tasty vegetables and onions and caramelized almonds added the right sweetness and creaking. When Aziz Berrada, the chef and owner, told me that his couscous was the best of Casablanca, I believed him.
If so, he was just one of his talents. Before Aziz became a chef, he told me that he had been a photographer for Hassan II, the same monarch that had ordered the construction of the imposing mosque. When that monarch died, Aziz decided that it was time to change his career.
Lesson 5: Talk to people
My conversation with Aziz – that it would not have happened if I had been buried in my phone during dinner – made me look like seeing the building where he had worked. So, on my last day, the Doge’s reception officer printed yet another Google map.
It was then that I lost myself. After receiving any help from teenagers who drink the soda, I wandered for the blocks, in the end asking for indications by an older man indicating the red flags in the distance: the palace.
Only it was not open to the public. Never, apparently.
The Internet would reveal it. Yet, while I took the awareness that I had spent hours to reach those impenetrable walls, I spied on a road flanked by bookstores. At least, I thought, I could find a decent map.
And I did it. But the road also led the shops to sell hand fabric rugs and a copper tea set, a courtyard full of barrels of olives and a Warren of whitewashed alleys that reminded me of Andalusia even before I came across a small museum of Andalusian tools.
The Habous neighborhood seemed almost a set of Morocco stage, which is appropriate, since it was designed by the French in the 1920s and 1930s.
I learned it from a woman who showed up as an ima when I stopped for mint tea at Imperial Café. It was sitting near me and it seemed to be a celebrity or the mayor, so frequent were the greetings of the passers -by. I asked if I could talk to her about the neighborhood.
“Of course, honey,” he said in perfect English. “I love Americans. You’re so spontaneous.”
Lesson 6: Stay open
Imane suggested moving our conversation to a close position that promised that I would love. I overcome my skepticism, imagining that I could get some local advice.
As we walked, Imana’s quick fire monologue left the small room to ask for his favorite restaurants. But I learned that once he had lived in the United States, selling properties, working on a jewelry company and leading a Uber.
Finally we have reached a set of walls only marginally less impressive than those of the palace. The guard inaugurated a carved door in a splendid building, with walls of green and blue geometric tiles and intricate plaster and dotted plants of orange trees. I still had no idea where I was (later I learned that he was a former court and residence for Pasha, and is now used for cultural events). And I was baffled by the staff, including a bureaucrat with the stern face and a cleaning woman who greeted Imane effectively.
Who era Imane? A politician? A cinema star?
I finally realized. “Are you an influencer?” I asked.
“I don’t like labels,” he replied.
I have never learned Imane’s favorite restaurants. But he told me about his mission to spread the message that we are all connected. In the end, he pulled the phone out to send us, live, while we chatted.
I had arrived like this without my phone. I was lost and found my way, I discovered monuments and small jewels. I had developed a sense of the city as a place that still existed mainly for its residents, not for its visitors.
And I was there on someone else’s live social media feed.
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