Who’s ready to kick off this tour of Morocco? ME!

Here’s a look at the itinerary of our 15-day Moroccan Encompassed trip offered by Nomadic Tours:

Our trip begins and ends in Marrakech, but we won’t officially see this city until the final days of our tour. So we depart early and head to Casablanca along the coast.

Truth be told, I wasn’t entirely looking forward to Casablanca because two of my good friends were here in April with a different tour company and it was their least-favorite destination within Morocco. Taxis uniformly overcharge tourists by obscene amounts and they found the locals less welcoming than in other parts of the country. But their tour stayed overnight, and I’m grateful Nomadic Tours recognizes this is a 4-hour destination. Our van drops us off at the main stretch along the coast and we’re given a chunk of free time to walk around and take photos. Afterwards we’ll meet up to visit the largest mosque in Africa.

We walk along the coast, snapping photos of the roaring waves and beachside gathering spots, like swanky swimming pools and local sports clubs.

We see this a lot in Morocco — sharp pieces of glass sticking out of cement to prevent would-be criminals from breaking and entering. Sort of a cheap version of barbed wire fencing.

I’m exploring with these fun girls: Natalie from New Zealand and Tally, Ellen, and (the other) Natalie from Australia. They proudly show off their newly purchased hippie pants from the market in Marrakech.

We head towards the sea, a little intimidated by the massive crowds of locals enjoying the beach weather.

At this point I split off Karen, a nurse from Australia. She’s the mom of our group — literally, we call her Mom (ironic as my mother’s name is actually Karen) — and she’s an excellent photography buddy.

A sea of umbrellas:

There’s so much action on the water but no one seems to be bothered by the crowds; each group enjoys their space / activity.

Our group reconvenes and we stop at this overlook point to glimpse Hassan II Mosque across the way — it’s the largest of its kind in all of Africa.

The three Aussie musketeers mug for the camera, with the mosque floating behind them.

We drive to Hassan II Mosque and I immediately set forth photographing it from every angle. To be fair, it’s not everyday I see something of this magnitude and the mosque is breathtaking.

We buy tickets to take a tour of the mosque — I don’t hesitate to use my dilapidated student ID for a half-price discount — and get a closer look at the inside. During Ramadan, about 25,000 people worship inside plus another 80,000 people outside.

(I had fun playing around with these images during the editing process…)

Our local guide takes us underground to explore more of the mosque.

Here’s a group shot (only about half of these people are on our tour, as we combined with another group here):

And that wraps up four hours in Casablanca… which I think was the perfect amount of time to get a taste of this city and see highlights along the coast. Next we head to the capital city of Rabat for a fun evening and tour the next day.

Thanks to Nomadic Tours for discounting my tour in exchange for photography and blogging. Opinions are my own.