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According to my pathetic map, I should have been close to the Royal Palace. But nothing in the bustling neighborhood of Mers Sultan in Casablanca, where the trams are removed beyond stores and coffee shops, seemed remotely palatial. I tried a street, then the next. Finally, I approached some teenagers with jeans and head scarves that fall to the diet out of a snack bar.

“I am looking for the palace,” I said in Rudimentary French, and pointed out my map. “He says he should be close to here.”

One of the girls looked at the wrinkled sheet of paper, and in a voice full of teenage contempt, he asked: “Don’t you have a phone? “

No, I had no phone. Or rather, I did it, but I wasn’t using it.

Except for buying the ticket from my plane, my plan was to explore Casablanca, a Moroccan city that I had never visited, without using the Internet. That meant that there were no online research, neither GPS, nor UBERS or Airbnbs, nor virtual dictionary and without meaningless displacement to avoid social discomfort.

At a time when we are increasingly feeling the need for digital detoxification, I am very aware of how Internet, for all its benefits, trips have also changed for worse. Not only does he play a key role in Abanseism, but he has also flattened the feeling of discovery. By allowing us to examine restaurant menus, visualize sites and compile lists of obligatory visits, the Internet tells us what we will experience before arriving.

I could have used a guide, but that seemed contrary to the spirit of effort. After all, my main objective was to see if I could restore the chance of exploring, and learn some retro travel lessons on the road.

Lesson 1: Get a good map

After flying to the Mohammed V airport in Casablanca, my first business order was to locate a map. I approached a woman sitting in what I took to be the information counter. “Of course I have a map,” she replied. “I have a phone.”

However, she directed me towards the train to the city center. When I arrived at Airy station, I understood how difficult a plan unplugged here. There were no signs of “You are here”, no place to save my luggage while I was oriented and there are no clear indications, at least not to this non -Arab reader, of which the direction led to the city center.

Still without maps, I chose an address and started walking. A boulevard lined with palm seemed a good bet, and soon it was in the middle of stores and restaurants. Beyond a door of what I took like the old Medina, I saw a hand painted sign: “Ryad 91. “

Lesson 2: Ask to see a room

I knew for trips before other Moroccan cities that “Ryad” or “Riad” means “Posada”. Soon, Mohammed, a tall man with glasses, welcomed me in the lobby adorned with cushions, and did not seem offended when I asked to see the only remaining room, a 360 dirhams bargain or around $ 37. It was simple and clean, but a little claustrophobic, with a window that opened to an inner courtyard. I took the room, deciding that I would look for something more spacious the next day.

Meanwhile, I asked Mohammed a map. “A minute,” he said, sitting on his computer and printing a Google. Around a dozen streets in him had names; The rest was a tangle of lines.

The good thing about ignorance is that it can turn everything into a discovery. And there was a lot that fascinated me throughout the sinuous alleys in Casablanca: elegant mining; Bakers pulling hot flat breads outdoors; The splash of street art, vivid against the wrapped walls that gave Casablanca his name.

My vagabundos began outside the door of the inn. Keeping the port to the right, wandered west, through the noisy food market, where sellers sold fat nuts of cars and leaf squares where men sat on low tables eating sandwiches of fried fish. Walking along built bastions when Portugal ruled the port, I saw a massive structure. I asked some children who immersed themselves in the ocean from a rocky beach what it was. “C’est the plus great mosquée du monde” was the answer.

Had I really encountered the world’s largest mosque? Unfortunately, my informants were not entirely reliable. He Hassan II Mosque It can have one of the world’s biggest mining, but it is not in itself the greatest. And as the tourist buses demonstrated around the corner, it is the main attraction of Casablanca.

I could see why the boys exaggerated; With a capacity for 25,000 people, the mosque is designed to amaze, and not only with its size. Each centimeter is covered with intricate crafts, from plaster to mosaics and disorders. In the accompanying museum, I knew it had taken 12,000 artisans to complete.

My walks brought more discoveries: streets of the center full of Art Deco buildings; contemporary Moroccan art in the elegant Villa des Artes; he Abdrahman Slaui Museum, with its Berber jewels and travel posters of the colonial era.

Traveling without expectations also makes it more observer of ordinary life. I loved finding a man in a square that sold coffee from a small pot, and the Housewares store where frantic women in Djellabas rushed to put in their hands the air fryers that had just come up for sale, some with three or four.

Casablanca was not preparing for tourists; He was too busy living his own life.

Lesson 4: Let go Fomo

I found my second hotel in a street in Villas covered in Bougainvillea. The rooms in The Dux (Around 2,200 Dirham), once a private home, leaned strongly in its origins of the age of jazz, with velvet -clad walls and at least one photo of Josephine Baker. When I stay there, in the midst of the furniture with inlays and the orange aroma soaps, I tried not to wonder if there was a more exquisite casablanca hotel and No found.

Traveling disconnecting means letting the fear of getting lost. The Internet can convince us that their best lists are objective truths and that any traveler who does not open his way through them has conformed less.

I had to fight a stab in the central market, where dozens of seafood stalls served fresh oysters and fish tagins. How to choose? I decided on Nadia’s due to local businessmen there. Were the juicy grilled sardines sprinkle with spicy queula sauce there the best in the market? They were the best I ate.

The same remained true for the perfectly spiced chicken Shawarma that I tried in the exclusive neighborhood of Racine, and the delicate gazelle horn pages in a bakery in the Gauthier neighborhood, places he had chosen because they were busy with local customers.

But that strategy did not work in my search for a sitting restaurant that serves traditional Moroccan food, since local diners often choose a different kitchen from what they get at home. Then when I entered Le Cuistot’s Tile dining room and listened to accents of Spanish Spanish, British English and New Jersey, had no great hope.

But my tfaya cuscous was spongy, tasty vegetables, and caramelized onions and almonds added correct sweetness and crunch. When Aziz Berrada, the chef and the owner, told me that his couscous was the best in Casablanca, I believed him.

If so, it was only one of his talents. Before Aziz became a chef, he told me that he had been a Hassan II photographer, the same monarch who had ordered the construction of the imposing mosque. When that monarch died, Aziz decided that it was time for a career change.

Lesson 5: Talk to people

My conversation with Aziz, which would not have happened if I had been buried in my phone while I had dinner, made me anxious to see the palace where I had worked. Then, on my last day, the Doge receptionist printed another Google map.

It was then that I lost myself. After not receiving the help of adolescents who drink soft drinks, I wandered through the blocks, and finally asked the instructions of an older man who pointed out the red flags in the distance: the palace.

Only it was not open to the public. Once, apparently.

Internet would have revealed this. However, while dealing with the understanding that it had spent hours to reach those impenetrable walls, I saw a street full of bookstores. At least, I thought, I could find a decent map.

And I did. But the street also led the stores that sell hand -woven carpets and copper tea games, a patio full of olive barrels and a warren of enchanted alleys that reminded me of Andalusia even before I found a small museum of Andallese instruments.

The skilled neighborhood almost looked like a set of Morocco, which is appropriate, since it was designed by the French in the 1920s and 1930s.

I learned this from a woman who appeared as Imane, when I stopped for mint tea in the Imperial Café. I was sitting near me, and it seemed to be a celebrity or the mayor, so frequent were the greetings of the passers -by. I asked him if he could talk to her about the neighborhood.

“Of course, honey,” he said in perfect English. “I love Americans. You are so spontaneous.”

Lesson 6: Stay open

Imane suggested that we transfer our conversation to a nearby place that promised that he would worship. I overcome my skepticism, thinking that I could get some local recommendations.

While we walked, Imane’s fast fire monologue left a small space to ask about her favorite restaurants. But I knew that he had once lived in the United States, selling real estate, working for a jewelry company and driving an uber.

Finally we reach a set of walls only marginally less imposing than those of the palace. The guard passed us through a carved door in a magnificent building, with walls of green and blue geometric tiles and intricate plaster work, and oranges dotted with orange. I still had no idea where I was (later I knew it was an ancient Palace of Justice and Residence for the Pasha, and is now used for cultural events). And the staff baffled me, including a bureaucrat with a stern face and a cleaning woman who greeted Imane with effuse.

WHO was Imane? A politician? A movie star?

Finally, I realized. “Are you an influencer?” I asked.

“I don’t like labels,” she replied.

I never learned Imane’s favorite restaurants. But she told me her mission of spreading the message that we are all connected. Finally, he took his phone to transmit, live, while we talked.

I had come to this path without my phone. I had lost and found my way, I discovered monuments and small jewels. He had developed a sense of the city as a place that still existed mainly for its residents, not for its visitors.

And there he was in the feed of social networks live from another person.

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