Blame it on the Bogart: Searching for Casablanca, the city that isn't like the ...
05.10.11
With a 3.8 million population, it's Morocco's biggest city and its ugliest. It could be the financial epicentre of any developed but not-quite-developed-enough country, only it is grimier and greyer, and the street reeks of mackerel (fishing and fish canning are two of its biggest industries).
And there is an alarming hairstyle trend catching on among the Casablancan men, that involves lots of gel and a quiff to make Elvis's seem tame.
Parisian-type cafes spill into the street, but the chairs are grubby and the tea oily Moroccan mint fare, potent enough to power a car, sometimes peppered with sage, always saturated with sugar.
The patrons are clusters of men - women stick to the hammam for socialising - who talk in huddles and yell 'hello baby,' at passing Western girls. The promenade would overlook a sandy beach spilling onto the Atlantic were it not a magnet for burger chains.
Streets behind the coast are boulevards of shops, though mostly empty or shuttered, apart from a neon-lit Pizza Hut with full tables. There's a Roberto Cavalli boutique, a desperate sign of wealth, but peer inside the dust-clogged windows, and the shelves are empty.
Source: Daily Mail