Standing right at the foot of the Atlantic, with its 210 meter minaret towering over Casablanca, this behemoth of a Mosque is an amazing feat of oriental architecture. The green part on top is a sliding roof.

Here is another shot so you can get a sense of the size of the thing…

Hint: I am the small yellow thing in the bottom middle…

Part of the outer arena of the mosque.

My third day in Morocco and I haven’t done anything I’ve planned to do. Just wandered aimlessly around Casablanca (best way to see any city), and went to Rabat (not too exciting). The strange thing is, while I don’t think I “look” like a tourist in Casablanca, I got hounded by hordes of street kids and beggers…”Monsieur…Un Dirham”, they’d repeat with unrelenting perseverence. I guess you don’t have to look like a tourist to suffer these annoyances, they smell you…or it might be that unconcious look on your face saying “I am lost” that gives away the fact that you’re a non-local.

Anyway, a one-week visit is certainly not enough to explore this country…

So I am flying to Casablanca in 8 hours time. That will be my first visit to a North African country (other than Egypt, of course). Heard surfing is great over there, and definately looking forward to try it out (if I can somehow rent or borrow a board).

No scuba diving in Morocco though, which is weird. A quick googling turned up an even weirder reason: the Moroccan government prohibits recreational diving becuase of its use in drug trafficing. So if you really want to dive in Morroco, you need to obtain a permit, and when you do get the permit, good luck finding a dive shop to rent equipment. Its a shame, there are a number of amazing WWII wrecks off Morocco’s Atlantic/Mediterranean coasts.