Monday 31 October 2022

Flight to Marrakech

It’s my first time flying EasyJet for a while. I haven’t missed it. What I do miss (today) is the seat back entertainment, USB chargers and general sense that the plane was cleaned recently. However, they get us to Marrakech just a few minutes behind schedule.

Next it’s time to make our way through the airport. The queue at immigration is frightful. It takes an almost record time of 2 hours and 3 minutes (and that’s with hand luggage only!) Not that I was counting – that’s a lie, I counted a lot, comparing the time it took us to cover each of the 7 zigs and zags we had to negotiate to finally reach the front of the queue.

The only plus side is that I downloaded and completed Moroccan health forms at home, which enables us to beat most of the others on our flight to the arrivals hall. Otherwise the wait could have been a whole lot longer.

Finally, we make it out of the airport and are pleased and somewhat surprised to discover the driver we’d booked is still waiting patiently outside.

The driver takes us into town, but we are staying in the medina, so he cannot take us the whole way. We reach a petrol station near the Djeema el Fna and are dropped.

Djemaa el Fna

A man with a hand cart is waiting to walk us and our luggage the rest of the way to our accommodation.

By now it’s almost midnight and the main square, dating from 11th Century, is alive with music and dancing and vendors of food, drink and pretty much anything else you can think of.

There are people and motor bikes everywhere and we have no idea where we’re going, so we trot along behind our guide/porter, trying to not lose him whilst also trying to not get run over by the constant stream of bikes down narrower and narrower alleyways until finally we reach a wooden door.

Riad Lhena

We have made it to Riad Lhena, a traditional style house in the medina. We are tired, hungry and thirsty. We are offered water, tea and cakes while we check in. There are four cakes, all dipped in nuts. Now only one of us is hungry.

We are shown to our room which is basic but decorated in a traditional Moroccan style. It’s too late to venture out again, so we crash without dinner. As mentioned above, one of us has just eaten four cakes. One of us had a sandwich 10 hours ago and is less thrilled with the situation. But the alternative is heading into the medina alone after midnight, so I opt to go to bed hungry. I suspect I can live off my fat for one night…