Meet my new workout partner. I never got his name. I only joined him for one workout, and couldn’t even complete one rep. My heels are on the wall for this photo. My man is free-standing. He does pushups from this position.

Our workout station is right on the coast in Casablanca, overlooking the second-biggest mosque in the world. That would be the Hassan II Mosque, which has enough room for 105,000 people to pray. (And by the way, praying Muslims take up more space than, say, seated football fans, so this place is huuuuuuuge.)

It was plenty hot today, and it’s Eid, so almost everyone is off work. That means if only they had a beach here, it would have been packed. Sadly, no beach, just a seawall, a rocky shoreline, and enough floating plastic trash to choke a blue whale. I’ll admit that was enough to keep me from swimming. The pool at the hotel was good enough for my tourist ass. Besides, if I’d been swimming in the plastic, I might have missed the confrontation with the cops.

Boys will be boys, and cops will be cops. Teenage boys like jumping off seawalls into the surf. (Teenage girls too, but I didn’t see any of them. There seem to be a great many things that women aren’t allowed to do here, at least not in public. “Where are all the women and children?” was a frequent question, not to be answered until much later.) Cops like preventing teenagers from doing reckless things, and for reasons I’m sure they themselves understood, the cops standing guard over the Hassan II Mosque decided one particular stretch of the wall was off-limits for jumping. This, of course, became the only bit worth jumping off of, so cue the laugh track and the Benny Hill music as the cops, hopelessly outnumbered, tried to prevent an unending stream of boys from jumping lemming-like into the sea. I took one photo that captured the moment perfectly.

I just love the defiance of that boy in blue! Sometimes my camera is touched by luck; I caught him about half a second before his buddy shoved him off the wall.

The biggest challenge of the day wasn’t the jet lag and it wasn’t the equatorial heat. It was the smells. Families at the beach burned plastic trash to cook their meat. (Cancer, anyone?) Men and dogs urinate in public here. The sidewalks are dotted with dog shit (I hope that’s the only kind) and in the older parts of the city, trash jams the sewers and the stink just builds and builds. Clearly the locals don’t mind; I wish I could shut my nose off as easily as they can. But I am a Western tourist and apparently prissy enough that open sewage is not a thing I like to be downwind of.

Highlight of the day: reconnecting with Morgan and meeting Morgan’s brother Nats. Morgan was on the Peru Crew six years ago, when we went down to hike the Moonstone Trail and see Macchu Picchu. That was a hell of a good time, and Morgan is a hell of a good guy to bring on an adventure. He’s an emergency room doc and he does not fuck around when it comes to the first aid kit. The man has everything.

Morgan the doc. Possibly because of his beard, everyone here calls him Ali Baba.

Nats is a natural born politician if ever there was one. He makes instant friends with everyone, yet somehow he’s not a bullshitter. But over the next few days, I would come to learn he has a weakness: if you put carpets in front of that man, he’s going to buy one. He is powerless to resist.

Nats the councilman. He did this same shot in the nude, Burt Reynolds style, but those photos are just for his OnlyFans.

Second highlight of the day: the most amazing roasted almonds, rolled in a spice blend I’ve never had before and—spoiler alert—would never find again once we left Morocco. Anise, fennel, I don’t know what all was on those things but they were damn good. Anfa Boulevard in Casablanca, one or two doors down from the Hôtel Idou Anfa. I’m telling you, they’re worth the trip.

Philosofiction

Morocco, Day 1: Eid, Ego, Superego