The five of us took a taxi tour in Casablanca. We took the ship's shuttle into town and decided to take a taxi for what we thought would only be 10 Euros to the Hassan II Mosque. Well, we ended up doing a 2 hour tour with the driver. We were all a little suspicious after he removed his taxi sign after we got in his car and were ready to get back to the ship once he was pulled over by the police. Thankfully we got to see all of Morocco we ever wanted to see and do not feel the need to go back.
First we went to Hassan II Mosque, which is the second largest Mosque in the world - largest religious monument after Mecca. We could not go inside because we are Christians. Which was fine. It was an impressive monument. Our driver then drove us through Anfa (a wealthy part of town), past Rick's Cafe, the Royal Palace, we stopped at Andalusian Gardens and we saw the old and new Medina. We also drove through the United Nations' Square where the police pulled over our taxi driver. Our driver got out and argued with the police, got back in the car, told us they were giving him a ticket for speeding, and then immediately our driver took us to a strange park and told us to get out of the car and wait while he went to take care of his police issues. The park was filled with lots of locals and we were not sure if he was going to come back for us or not. Thankfully none of us were alone. We just watched our pockets and stayed together. Our driver did come back to get us. He then wanted to drop us off at a pharmacy to see a spice demonstration and a theater. But after he dropped us off at the strange park we just wanted to get back to the ship. I'm glad we made out of Morocco safely because we later found out that most taxi drivers pack guns and will sometimes drive people to secluded places and hold them up for ransome. Scary!!
Here are some pictures from our day in Casablanca.
Hassan II Mosque
Cab driver sitting in the back seat talking to Collin and Cathy while Dad and I looked around at one of the places we stopped. Look closely and you'll see there is no Taxi sign on top of his car, yikes!
United Nations' Square before we were pulled over by the police
Rick's Cafe
Casablanca from our balcony
1 comment:
yeesh, that sounds kinda scary! but the pictures look really neat!
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