On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Good morning everybody,
Today we’re off to Casablanca and Dakar! Oh the places we go on this blog, thank you so very much!
I’ve been around less than usual because we just got back from a 24 day cruise that started in Barcelona and ended in Buenos Aires. I don’t seem to have taken any pics in Barcelona or Malaga, our first two stops. But I do have some from the two places we went next: Casablanca and Dakar.
I’ll see what I can dig up from our subsequent stops too.
The monumental Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca. The guide said the minaret is the tallest i the world (I think). The square out front holds something like 100K people.
Another shot of the mosque.
The mosque wall.
The mosque is beautiful, but on the whole, I was disappointed in Casablanca. I expected something romantic with narrow streets. A lot of it is fairly new, having been built by the French. I confess I don’t remember why. Much of it was apparently destroyed in some way.
These big Balboa trees were all over the city and are included in much of its imagery.
That’s a prayer run in front of the man standing near the tree. He had knelt to pray shortly before I took this, but I waited until he was done.
This Monument of the African Renaissance is gigantic, taller than the Statue of Liberty. It’s new and quite controversial because it was so expensive and Senegal is very poor.
The Goree Island memorial.
It’s from here that thousands and thousands of Africans were shipped as slaves. You can see the door to nowhere in the hallway at the bottom.
Clinton, Bush, and Obama have all made stops here.
JPL
What an amazing voyage. I hope that the current occupant of the White House doesn’t sully the site with a visit. Imagine him talking about the trade possibilities of Senegal.
eclare
An amazing trip! Thanks for all of your updates along the way.
Baud
Awesome.
sab
Blue skies there were amazing.
The history? ! I am numbed even thinking about it. So much pain and loss.
sab
Thomas Jefferson had Sally Hemings sent over to Europe with his daughter. He missed his daughter. His daughter had a slave nanny who didn’t want to go. So they didn’t send her. Good for them. So they sent 14 yo Sally Hemings instead. Two teenage girls on a ship with sailors are safer than one teenage girl. Good for them. Once in France, Sally was free. France at that point didn’t have slavery. But her entire family was in Virginia. So when Thomas Jefferson went back, so did Sally Hemmings. Southern families were complicated. There were no good choices.
DonL140
24 day cruise? The mind reels. I’ve done ten days and it seemed to take forever. That said, what a treat this must be, to see these places I can mostly read about. Good travels!
arrieve
Morocco has been on my list forever. What a treat to wake up to pictures of it — thanks for sharing, and I’m looking forward to seeing more from your trip.
debbie
Those trees!!!
rikyrah
The pictures are beautiful ??
Dorothy A. Winsor
@JPL:
I can’t even picture Trump making the trip to Goree Island.
You could see it from the dining room windows on the ship. It felt like looking at a concentration camp or something similar.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I was glad to have free internet on board (when it worked) so I could touch base with the jackals a couple times a day. For one thing the impeachment hearings started the day after we left. I couldn’t believe the bad timing!
Steeplejack (phone)
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
But isn’t that the point of a cruise—to get away from it all?
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Steeplejack (phone):
True. And it helped. I was more serene for not following the news all day.
And I saw lots of places I’d never seen before.
BretH
Hope you were able to have some Thieboudienne while you visited Dakar.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@BretH: Before I googled that, I bet myself it was a brand of beer. But it was not. And I didn’t have any.
satby
Morocco is also on my bucket list! And now after reading more about Senegal and Dakar I’ll have to add them. Thanks Dorothy!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@satby:
Senegal could use the tourist traffic. They told us Dakar gets only something like 5 cruise ships a year, so they were very excited we were there. There’s a wildlife preserve (Bandia Reserve) a couple hours from Dakar, and there’s a lake that’s pink because of the algae, so there are potential attractions.
JPL
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Do you have the desire to go on a cruise that long again?
Dorothy A. Winsor
@JPL: I don’t crave it, but I could do it if the ports were interesting enough.
I’m ambivalent about cruises in general. They’re a comfier version of if-it’s-Tuesday-this-must-be-Belgium, and you don’t really get to know the ports or the countries the way you do it you travel on your own by public transportation. They insulate you with other Americans.
OTOH, they’re easy, and as I get older, the work of travel gets harder.
stinger
Thank you for sharing these, Dorothy! I’m especially like the close-up of the mosque wall — such geometric precision. Done by hand?
Dorothy A. Winsor
@stinger:
I think the mosque is pretty new, so maybe not. I’m not sure.
Amir Khalid
@stinger:
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
That geometrical precision has been a feature of Muslim architecture going back to the Golden Age; while the mosque itself may be recent, the style is very traditional.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Amir Khalid:
The mosque is beautifully located right on the Atlantic coast.
stinger
@Amir Khalid: I know — I’m just wondering if their methods have been modernized, or if it’s all still done by hand.
Anya
Did you go to Habbous? I liked it better than the old Medina. It’s amazing how many malls Casablanca has. I was disappointed by how mcDonalds and KFC ruined the waterfront (La Corniche). I still enjoyed my visit there.
Anya
@stinger: yes. It’s done by hand.
BretH
Yes, the traditional meal of Sénégal. Usually made with their version of cod called Thiof although I read that since I lived there the numbers have been in severe decline. Basically rice (ceeb) and fish (jën)…ceebu-jën…Thieboudienne ?
J R in WV
Was looking forward to an “On the Road” for this trip ever since you first told us about it. Not a bit surprised by the photos, wonderful scenery. Too bad about Casablanca, had high hopes for that old city, but after the revolutionary war against the French…
Thanks!
stinger
@Anya: Amazing! Thanks!
mali muso
Hope that you had a chance to eat some Poulet Yassa!
Most of the food that I really loved to eat while in Mali is of Senegalese origin. Thieboudienne and poulet yassa being some of the highlights. Also, tigadegena (known as mafe in Senegal) which is a peanut stew served over rice or other grain (millet, couscous, etc.) It was a little odd to see “peanut soup” on the menu at Mount Vernon and find it strongly resembled West African stew.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Anya:
We went to a Medina that was not the old one, but I’m not sure what it was called.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@mali muso:
That West African origin makes sense though once you remember who was doing the cooking. I never thought of it before.
Yarrow
Thank you so much for sharing the photos. Such a wonderful trip.
Is this different from a Baobab tree? The tree in the photo looks like a baobab tree but I’m interested in learning more.
BigJimSlade
@Yarrow: Yeah, I assumed it got spell-checked from baobab to balboa.
Felanius Kootea
@BretH: The origin of Jollof (Wolof) rice eaten all across West Africa is Senegal and Gambia. I love the original Thieboudienne (which I first tasted in Harlem) but Nigerians and Ghanaians now battle for the title of best jollof rice in West Africa. Anthony Bourdain had a great show in Senegal some years ago that featured Youssou N’Dour and talked about how Senegal had a unique form of Islam because the traditional societies were matrilineal.
Thanks Dorothy for the pictures. When I was growing up in Nigeria we would take road trips to Ghana through Benin and Togo but I’ve never gone further west than Ghana. Elmira and Cape Coast castles left me in tears. I’ve always wanted to visit Goree Island as well.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@BigJimSlade:
Curse you, spellcheck!
Mike in NC
In July and August we cruised the British Isles aboard Viking Jupiter.
Soprano2
We did a Viking river cruise in Europe in 2015. The upside is your hotel room travels with you, the food and personnel are top notch, and the excursions are for the most part excellent. The downside was spending one day in Amsterdam, one day in Vienna, and one day in Budapest. We could have spent several days in each city. Overall I found it a comfortable way to travel, especially as we get older. That looks like a fantastic trip, but I don’t think I could tolerate 24 days – I found 2 weeks to be too long!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Mike in NC:
That was our ship!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Mike in NC:
I was glad to go home.
Zinsky
@sab: Families were more than “complicated” back then alright – they were forced, either through rape or thru institutional racism, women were little more than chattel and all manner of human rights were violated.