February 17, 2023
Day 2: Recovery Day in Casablanca
Housekeeping stuff while adjusting to time difference
“Are you awake?” “Yes” It’s 0322 local time: in the middle of the night. We get up and start to quietly organize our gear, and stay up for about an hour, then sleep for another 4 hours. “It’s 0822,” when Rachel checks the tablet to see what time it is. We woke up just in time for the breakfast that is from 7 to 9 in the mezzanine. This is quite the buffet spread! A vast selection of food on long tables: one with coffee, another with cereal and toppings, OJ and water, a choice of omelet and a very long table of assorted pastries. We make this breakfast light, still adjusting to the time difference and not wanting to push our luck.
The goal today is to get a sim card for the phone and exchange money. We walk around and find an ATM. One goal completed. Then the saga begins of a long morning search. The streets of Casablanca are like a spider web, not a grid.
We find a little shop on a side street selling sim cards. “Parlez vous anglais,” Patrick asks the shop owner. He takes the phone and makes several attempts with different types of sim cards no success. Even another customer tries to help, she speaks better English. The determination is that our phone is locked and we don’t have the code to unlock. He suggests we go to the train station, a bigger shop.
On the way back to the hotel, we stop at a BIM supermarket. We are impressed with the selection and buy bottled water and nutella. We have a water filter with us, but the water is so cheap. (10 dirham= 1 USD) Back at the hotel, Patrick starts to reassemble his bike.
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We go out again for a second attempt at getting the sim card for the phone. We walk to the train station and telephone shop. He is unable to help us and sends us to the Grand Market and to go into the Passage du Succo, an alley near the market with lots of phone shops.
We walk down a main street and eventually find the Market and the alley.
At another shop in the market for a third attempt of finding the sim card. He goes through the same sequence of trying to get the card to work. The conclusion is, the phone is locked and he knows someone who might unlock it.
“Ferme” Patrick says to the shop owner and points to the phone. The man gets his phone and Patrick talks into it for google translate. At this point we are trying to find a cheap phone to have data and a hot spot, and to make phone calls, nothing fancy. He finally understands and we follow him to another shop he thinks the guy there can help unlock the phone. This too is unsuccessful.
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Stopping into another shop we ask if he knows how to unlock the phone. This person can’t help but says we need to go to another Grand Market that is far away and we will need to take a taxi. The man writes the address of our destination on his business card.
We decide to find something for lunch before continuing on with the search. There are plenty of sidewalk cafés and small eateries. We pick one that becomes quite busy as we eat a “chacuterie pannini” with fries.
Then onward in our continuing search for a taxi to take us for our fourth attempt in getting the phone unlocked. As we go in search of a taxi, a man in an Orange vest approaches to sell us a sim card. One of the largest telecom companies here in Morocco is Boutique Orange. Again Patrick explains phone is “Ferme”. We follow the man with the orange vest back to a shop in the Grand Market that is near the first shop when we started this search.
Finally, after an exhaustive search we accept we just need to buy a new phone with a sim card. The next step of explaining we “need data” Patrick says. We buy a simple Samsung phone that still seems expensive, with all the “help” we had along the way we probably overpaid some, but $10 more or less will not break the bank.
And then, just like that we have completed the morning task and start walking back to our hotel.
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“People are friendly and want to help” Patrick says and continues as we are walking. “We shouldn’t assume because someone wants to help they want money.” Then a man passes us and turns and says “Welcome to Casablanca, I want you to like my country.” He speaks very good English and tells us his teacher is from Santa Barbara California and he missed Jiffy peanut butter. The man continues to tell us about a Berber show. He keeps talking as he walks us back to our hotel because he was going to a coffee shop nearby. We exchange names, his name is Mohammed.
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We rest then head out again toward dinnertime. We are less than a block away from the hotel and Mohammed comes up to us again. He again brings up the Berber show and escorts us to the shop. The Berber call themselves Amazigh, the “free people”, while Berber is probably a derivative of Barbary, they are an indigenous peoples of North and Sub-Saharan Africa whose existence dates back more than 20,000 years.
It’s not like he had described an exhibit would be but a rug shop. Is he just a tout and did he wait for us all afternoon to reappear? Inside the shop he introduces us to the shop owner and leaves. The owner then tries to sell us a rug, or a huge wooden door in traditional Moroccan style. That we are traveling on bicycles is not problem, everything goes “guaranteed” on FedEx to our doorstep. Patrick convinces him that he will not make a sale today. We then go back into the spider web of streets to make our way back to an area we recognize.
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For dinner we have a “poulet tajine” (small stone claypot with a domed lid that slow cooks chicken, potato and vegetable stew) with ample bread and a plate of fresh food on a side street full of small eateries. Each restaurant has several waiters trying to entice potential customers with their menus. Then back to the hotel. We are slowly making the adjustment to the new time zone.
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If you get a great deal from your network provider on a new phone it will usually be locked to that network.
I bought a phone once from an electronics shop and the sales person asked what network I intended using and I replied without thinking. When I tried to get an overseas sim I found the phone was locked to that network.
Moral of the story is that you always need to insist that the phone you are buying is unlocked.
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