Arriving in Morocco

 Part 2

As we landed, mom reminded me that I have now been on 4 continents!  Yes I am in Africa. No, not THAT Africa. I'd have to drive for about 7 days to get Ebola (unless I already caught it on my layover in Texas).

 

Arriving to Marrakech Menara Airport 

We chose Marrakesh for our Moroccan adventure for two appealing reasons: 1) the Djemma el Fna – its main plaza full of food stalls, fortune tellers and snake charmers! 2) its fascinating, maze-like medina – the old, walled part of town where life continues much as it has for hundreds of years.  Naturally rather than a luxurious "touristy" hotel outside of the walls, I chose to get the real feel of Marrakesh and stay right inside the medina in a Riad - a traditional box-shaped, mostly windowless home with an interior courtyard.

A few tidbits about Morocco:  it is slightly larger than California and lies in Northern Africa.  The official language is Arabic, but French is also commonly spoken.  (Apparently I won't be speaking much, but I am happy to say my lunches learning French haven't been a complete waste.)  As Muslims, they have 5 daily city-wide calls to prayer.  Alcohol is not widely available in Morocco, which is of why we are only staying 3 nights.

After arriving an hour late, waiting an hour in customs nearly killed us - even though my notes warned "be prepared for lines". Someone needs to invent benches for customs. Thankfully I had the foresight to hire a driver and a porter - because otherwise we would still be lost, whimpering, and surely robbed at the old city gates. 

Our porter was quite protective of us. He made mom stand right next to him as we crossed through traffic. Then he made me move my backpack to my frontside, and he made mom zip up her bag. All common sense but we were overwhelmed at this point. He walked us through a maze to our riad, and then wouldn't leave until we tipped him - which I was trying to do but all I had was 200 dirham - about 10 times the amount I needed to give him. 

It was all we could do to muster up the strength to walk 3 minutes to the Jemaa El Fna to find dinner.  We ate on a patio looking out at all the goings-on. It was nice to be able to watch everything without actually being a part of the chaos!  I'm not sure how we managed, but somehow we survived the meal of chicken tangine and couscous without any alcohol.

Our first meal - dinner at Chez Chegrouni in Jemaa El Fna

 

Jemaa El Fna from the terrace of Chez Chegrouni

Well of course we got lost on our way back, which the riad manager appeared shocked to hear. It was only a few minor wrong steps, and thankfully I still knew how to read so could turn us back in the right direction. Then we slept for a very long time, and somehow missed the first call to prayer.