Well, we made it! We are sitting in our hotel room in downtown Casablanca and Humphrey Bogart is nowhere to be found. I realize that the movie, Casablanca, was a Hollywood construct and in no way reflected the actual place even then. However, the words “sultry and sexy” had taken root in a back corner of my mind and so far, I cannot say I have seen either of them.
But really we have not seen that much. After deplaning we walked way too far through the airport to try to find “just the right phone company” to get SIM cards. We are traveling with MaryLou and Dave Driedger and in compliance with the request by our tour company we have come with backpacks. (Rudy didn’t get the memo and has his wheeled carry-on suitcase and it may turn out that he is the smart one.) By the time we had traversed a section of the airport us backpackers were struggling. Dave’s hip was giving him trouble, MaryLou was sweating in her raincoat, and I was remembering the South American backpacking trip with Ana, Miriam, and Paul. (My hips were aching, my pants were being pushed down off my butt by the hip belt to expose my plumber’s crack, and I was leaning dangerously backwards because of the weight of the pack.) Rudy, however, was walking briskly and happily at least 25 metres ahead of the three of us, merrily pulling his suitcase. Grrrr!
We eventually did get the phone cards, obtained tickets for the train and hopped on board for a 40-minute commute to our hotel. Well, not quite to our hotel. We ordered an Uber at the last train station as we didn’t want to (or couldn’t, because of the baggage load) walk to our hotel. As it was, it seemed an eternity before the Uber car pulled up and we probably could have crawled to the hotel by that time anyway.
Check-in at our hotel wasn’t until 3:00PM and so we had an hour to kill. We parked our luggage at the hotel desk and went for a walk to get some refreshments. It seemed as though every restaurant we passed had a row of chairs lined up along the sidewalk where men sat wiling away the afternoon sipping their little coffees and teas and smoking cigarettes. No women. Only men. And so we too sat ourselves down at a couple of empty tables, despite the fact that MaryLou and I felt quite out of place at the male-dominated cafe. It was moderately satisfying (Dave and I each had a delicious cafe-au-lait with multiple sugar cubes. MaryLou’s sugary mint tea was also good. But Rudy’s Americano, which was more like a small glass of strong Nescafe — was a bust.) However, things looked up for Rudy with the second-hand smoke. He TOTALLY enjoyed it. (Rudy would concur with John Prine’s sang, “When I get to heaven….I’m gonna smoke a cigarette that’s nine miles long.”) As for the rest of us, we could have passed on the experience. To top it all off and to add insult to injury, I had a bird poop on my head. It was time to head back to the hotel and check in.
After a bit of a rest in our rooms, we ventured out to get supper. We passed up on some delicious-looking street food (hope to be back tomorrow to check it out). Instead, we opted to sit down at an outdoor cafe. With the help of the waiter and our handy Google Translate app, we ordered a Moroccan salad (tomatoes, onions, and olives), French fries, baguette sandwiches with chicken skewers, tomatoes, and olives and a plate of kofta (meatballs) and sides. Yum. It was a good first meal.
Tonight we are off to bed early due to lack of sleep and a very long day. We are seven hours ahead of Manitoba time.
