Morocco Arrival

Our tour bus and guide, Mohammed, met us at Casablanca Airport and we set off along the modern three lane highway. The bus was large enough for us all to grab a window seat and thus we had a panoramic view of the flat, verdant countryside featuring numerous olive trees  and squat, white farm houses. Morocco is a North African country situated on the Atlantic Ocean. It has a population of 32 million and, along with Algeria and Tunisia, forms that bloc of nations known as the Maghreb, loosely translated as "red sunset". Mohammed informed us that the spectacular local sunset is because the sun rises in Mecca and sets in the Maghreb. Morocco is a constitutional kingdom with strong secular traditions and, of course, the dominant religious faith is Islamic. We were heading for  Rabat, Morocco's capital, and along the route we by-passed the nation's largest city, Casablanca. We would return to this city on our penultimate day and following in the footsteps of that enigmatic, inimitable legend, Humphrey Bogart, I was keen to explore this exotic, French influenced city with its wide boulevards, public parks and imposing Moorish architecture. However, after two days of virtual continuous travel I was a little weary and I was glad when we reached our hotel in Rabat so that I could turn in. I'll get a chance to have a look around Rabat tomorrow and I'll tell you about it in my next post.