Catching Up: Wednesday - January 21, PART 2

Settling into our ryad, a traditional guest house, in the heart of the medina, the old walled city, of Marrakech, Morocco. While it was a long day of travel, besides the gate snafu this morning, things went very well.

We arrived in Casablanca following a brief stopover in Geneva. When we had booked the flight originally, we were supposed to go straight from Zurich to Casa (as Moroccans seemingly call the city), but a slew of last-minute cancellations (complete with confusing phone calls and emails from the airline, Royal Air Maroc) in the days leading up to the trip, resulted in a rebooking with the stopover. Seemingly, Royal Air Maroc rearranged their flights in order to service both Swiss cities to and from Casa with one plane; the flight we took started in Casa in the morning, travelled to Zurich where it dropped off some passengers and picked up others to go to Morocco, continued on to Geneva where it went through the same process, and finally came full-circle to Casa in the evening. It was no major inconvenience, and we ended up sitting on the plane as a massive contingent of yellow-clad cleaners vacuumed and picked up trash before loading.

Dinner was served on the flight from Geneva to Casa. I went with chicken (the other choice being beef) which was served in some sort of Moroccan sauce, with potatoes. While the plane was older (no in-flight entertainment, etc.) the seats were comfortable, the service good and there was much more leg room than on the Pegasus flight.

Once in Casa, we were able to quickly transfer to the domestic terminal, which didn’t involve a trip through customs or passport control, despite the fact that we had just entered a new country. A bit perplexed, we found ourselves in a tiny terminal which appeared as though it hadn’t changed all that much from the days of the French Protectorate (think the Casablanca of the movie), complete with cats sleeping on seats, and the acrid smell of stale cigarettes.

It wasn’t a long wait before we loaded a bus and were driven out to our waiting plane on the tarmac for the 25 minute flight to Marrakech. The flight was about half-full and an 

appropriately uneventful way to end the day of travel.

Upon arrival at the tiny Marrakech airport, all of us were funneled into a passport control line, which seemed exceedingly strange considering it was a domestic flight. Whatever the logic for the organization of passport controls, it turns out we hadn’t managed to sneak into the country, but merely only delayed the inevitable inquisition of just why we were coming to Morocco.

I was seemingly the last person of the night, and the passport control guard gave me an exceedingly hard time of the process (you really need all of my boarding passes from today?). By the time I made it to baggage claim, Tim had already grabbed my bag, and after a quick run through customs, we headed out to meet the driver that would take us to the ryad.

The trip from the airport to the ryad didn’t take more than twenty minutes, though in that time we learned a few valuable things. First, while there is nothing too strange about mains streets, they even have lane markings which is more than can be said for New Orleans, absolutely no one follows them. The chaos is compounded by bikes, mopeds, motorcycles, horse-drawn carriages, mule-drawn carts and any other vehicle imaginable sharing the road. Secondly, the trip took longer than normal as the first gate our driver attempted to use to enter the medina was block, as the King happened to be in town at the palace by that gate, entertaining the President of Côte d’Ivoire.

Once through another gate, the van began the delicate operation of navigating the old, twisty, narrow streets, shared by mostly pedestrians, horse and mule-drawn carts, pushcarts, mopeds and bikes. The driver took us as far as the width of the streets would allow, before we got out and walked the rest of the way.

The ryad was just another old door in a dirty blank wall towering over the alleyway no more than 4’-0” wide. But once inside the building was absolutely stunning, with rooms centered around a courtyard, done in centuries-old tile. The room was nice, a bit on the cool side, but overall quite charming. Tim said that homes in Morocco were often like this – glommy on the outside, but marvelous inside.

Once our bags were down, we ventured out about 10:30 to find dinner. I mean this not in a disparaging way, but to best illustrate for you what we encountered. The scene appeared much how one might conceptualize the prototypical third world country, complete with dark alleyways and people hawking all sorts of wares in the street. Many of the locals were wearing full robes with pointed hoods, known as djellaba (the “d” is silent), as it was fairly chilly outside. The scene reminded me of the Druids in Mel Brooks’s Spaceballs; and I wouldn’t be surprised if they were the inspiration, considering they stem from a fairly nomadic desert civilization. It was pretty clear Istanbul this was not.

Tim had been to the city before, so he navigated us to the main square where tons of venders and locals and tourists alike crowded the food stalls. After being accosted by a few food vendors (they really want you to eat at their place), we found our place on one of the benches at one of the stalls and ate dinner. I let Tim handle the ordering, and before I knew it we had a mix of sheep head (skin, cartilage, etc. still on), soup of chick peas and corn and other things we couldn’t identify, and bread laid out before us. The food was incredibly delicious, though I found it best to not too deeply analyze what you are eating, but instead just eat it if it tastes good, so that worked out.

To finish off, we had Moroccan tea, which is more hot, sweet mint water than tea. All of that, bottles of Coke for both of us, and a tip to the cook, came to 70 dirham, less than $8.00, and was a great introduction to Morocco.

We made it back to the ryad around midnight, exhausted from our day of travel, and looking forward to a very busy day in Marrakech.