Hello Morocco (Country 69). (Thursday, 10th October)
Day 216 (26 to go)
مرحبا بالمغرب
After a rough night at Gatwick we boarded a very early flight and soon I was out like a light... only to be woken by a glorious sun rise over Morocco.
It was nice to land at 8am and feel warm already. Any wishing this holiday was over - and I definitely have done that a few times in the last three days or so - evaporated in the dry sunshine of Marrakech.
Even a ridiculously long queue (I reckon it took about two hours to get through) to pass immigration didn't put us off. The problem was clear to us: it was only at the very last minute, when you were about to be interviewed by the border guard, that you were told to get your flight boarding pass out again and have the address of the hotel you were staying at ready. If they'd have made this clear at some point earlier, during the two hours of queuing, everyone would have been prepared. Instead pretty much every passenger going through the system fumbled and struggled to find the things they needed. The accumulation of these two extra minutes for each visitor must have slowed the whole thing down unnecessarily.
Anyway, once through we picked up some more cash ($10 aud = 60 Moroccan Diram) and booked a taxi to take us to our 90th accommodation: O'Loft. The taxi driver was great and proudly told us how Morocco will partly host the 2030 (centenary) World Cup.
It was a 15 minute or so ride to our very nice quiet hotel in the southern outskirts of Marrakech. We had Moroccan tea by the pool while we waited for our room to be made ready.
The temperature apparently reached the high 20s but it felt much cooler than that. I had a nice swim in my new trunks anyway. It's a very pleasant pool.
Then we ordered a dinner for later: Tagine beef with plums, and set off for a walk across a very busy main road to the nearby village of Lagouassem.
There, we stopped at a café for a tea and a coffee before popping into a shop to buy a bag of crisps and a bottle of water and then returning.
The dinner by the lit up pool was truly wonderful. I had a vegetable soup starter, Leb had a salad. Lovely, soft, freshly baked bread too. For afters we had a selection of Moroccan biscuits. I'm off the booze this week so I had a banana juice. Very nice.
Back in the room, I booked our buses for the next leg of our Moroccan adventure to the coast on Saturday.
In the world of football, I was pleased Tony Popovic got off to a wining start in Australia's Asia Championship qualifier against China. 3-1 was pretty emphatic. But I was shocked that England screwed up at home to Greece, losing 2-1. This puts their promotion back to tier A in serious jeopardy.
Anyway... we're truly back in holiday mood again now. Woohoo!!
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