Casablanca

The largest city in Morocco, and Harry is here for one day, on a layover, with a shopping list: a warm jacket, a ski mask, a headscarf, a sleeping bag and ski goggles, for a cold-weather trip he won’t name.

His impression of the city is better than he expected. Very walkable, palm trees in winter, French colonial buildings with mosaics next to the old medina, and — his own phrase — a city with character, which he says is the kind he likes.

Obs: this source has auto-generated subtitles. Prices below are spoken without a stated currency and carry the unverified marker.

The medina, and two lost negotiations

He walks in admitting he hasn’t done a market run in a while and needs to get his negotiating hat back on. He then loses twice, cheerfully.

The jacket, sold to him as a genuine Moncler, which he does not believe for a second and says so:

• Opens at 800 (from video – unverified).
• Drops to 450, then 400, then 350, then 300, each described as a special price.
• Harry’s problem, stated on camera: it is his first day and he doesn’t know the conversion rate. He guesses “maximum 100”, offers 200, and takes it.
• It is bright orange, and he notes afterwards that if he stood out before, he certainly does now.

The football shirt:

• Asked 200, he offers 100.
• Settles at 190 — a ten-unit discount, which he calls out as pathetic.
• He puts the value at about $15 and says that’s expensive.
• The walk-away works, he confirms, and still barely moves the price.

His verdict on himself: he has been out of the game too long, got roped into two purchases, and everybody is happy anyway. His verdict on them: Moroccans are very good at this.

The traditional shop, and Pikachu

A shop selling Moroccan bags, carpets and goatskin, run by a designer who then spends the rest of Harry’s medina visit telling him where to go — which Harry says is the reason his day worked at all, having been walking around like a headless chicken.

The shop also contains a parrot called Pikachu, with 18,000 Instagram followers. Born there, doesn’t fly off, tweets when someone comes in because she wants attention, and has a haircut Harry admires. Her owner’s description of her, which Harry enjoys: she’s an Instagram girl.

The city

• Old doors and old buildings that make him feel transported back in time. Every street, he says, has its own story.
• Table football on the side of the road, and boys playing football on every open surface. He declines to join on the grounds that he’d be shown up.
• Raja Casablanca is the team, and it comes up constantly.
• The Hassan II Mosque, on the Atlantic. He is told it is the third largest in the world, immediately says he thinks that’s wrong and not to quote him, and settles on it definitely being the biggest in Africa. He compares its size to the mosque he saw in Istanbul. It was closed when he arrived and opens at 7pm.

Rick’s Café

The restaurant built around the film Casablanca, and the one thing he wanted that he doesn’t get.

• You need a reservation, which the group ahead of him had and he didn’t.
• No cameras, which settles it.

He tries anyway, is turned away, and goes elsewhere.

The shoe clean

His shoes are the dirtiest they have ever been — bought a month earlier for over $100 and, in his words, ruined.

• Quoted 50 (from video – unverified), which he works out as about £4 and calls expensive — then says he doesn’t mind paying more given the state of them.
• The cleaner fetches extra equipment for the job, and Harry rates the effort above the result: not perfect, but the shoes were beyond saving.
• He pays about $10 or more.

The useful part happens beside it: a man approaches Harry, and the shoe cleaner gives him a look. Harry reads it as a warning about the man and takes it as one.

The haircut

Walked into a barbershop with no appointment and was waved to the front — the men waiting stopped and let him go first. He asks for a skin fade with very little off the top, and notes that he hadn’t been asked for any instructions before the barber started.

The whole exchange happens with no shared language and works out fine.

Dinner

A famous restaurant with cannons outside and a grand traditional entrance. He gets in without a reservation by arriving early, at 7pm — his first meal of the day, having lived on coffee since morning.

• Bread and dips, one spicy, one tomato.
• Beef skewers, ordered instead of tagine because he fancied them, with vegetables rather than fries.
• Served in under five minutes — the fastest service he says he’s had.
• Very tender and well seasoned. He had expected a tourist trap charging high prices for average food and says it wasn’t.

The hammam

The end of the day and his favourite part of it. The menu offers several packages — a royal hammam, a chocolate hammam, massages by the hour — and he takes a combined hammam and massage across three rooms.

• Marble throughout, and you lie on a heated stone. He’s sweating immediately and says the heat is what makes it work.
• A hand scraper takes off the dead skin — hard, brittle, brush-like. He rates the pain five out of ten and says the point is the parts of yourself you can never clean, particularly your back.
• Then a chocolate and coffee scrub, which smells overwhelmingly of coffee.
• Then a face mask.
• He is told the hammam originated in Morocco.

His verdict: the best hammam he has done.

Harry’s tips

• Check the exchange rate before you walk into the medina. He didn’t, said so on camera, and it cost him both negotiations.
• Use the walk-away — but expect it to work less well here. These are the best hagglers he’s met.
• Go to the mosque after 7pm. It’s shut before that.
• Book Rick’s Café, and don’t bring a camera. Both are why he didn’t get in.
• Arrive at restaurants early if you haven’t booked.
• Do the hammam, and pick the combined package. His favourite of the ones he has had anywhere.
• Watch the person serving you. The shoe cleaner’s warning about a passer-by was the most useful thing anybody told him all day.

Source

• Underground Moroccan Massage Hits the Spot 🇲🇦 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPixwjP8LgQ