Up at 4:00am. We have a habit of picking early morning flights. Although we got an extra hour of sleep as a result of the "fall back" daylight savings. Thankfully. Our "night before" scrambling was much less this time. Jess and I have been known to stay up well into the morning getting things prepared before a trip. We were better this time but still up quite late to get everything ready for our vacation to Morocco. Pre-trip preparations were less than usual because it's a short flight (only 2.5 hours) and we will only be there for 6 days. Pretty simple from a logistical point of view. Passport, underwear, iPad, toothbrush? Check!
This is the first trip in Spain where we've driven to the airport and left our rental car. I did a dry-run to the airport Saturday so we wouldn't be completely clueless and stressed out in the morning darkness. It went pretty well, only one hiccup which was the main gate to the long term parking was blocked off. After circling a few times (and yelling out the car window to a police officer in horrible Spanglish) we finally got it figured out and parked the car.
We are well known for having more luggage than we can physically move (thanks to those of you that repeatedly help us by picking us up and dropping us off; it really makes a huge difference). Not this time. Welcome to RyanAir! RyanAir is a European budget airline (think Southwest, but more strict). Their fares are pretty cheap throughout Europe, but everything costs extra, and I do mean everything. If you do not read the fine print and follow the rules then they charge you for everything. Luckily for me my travel agent excels at reading the fine print and following the rules. Therefore, because of RyanAir's extreme baggage rules, we packed light.
As we were waiting to check in I saw a Moroccan family trying to shove their too-large carry on suitcase into the metal box that checks the size of the baggage. Of course it wouldn't fit and they were holding up the line. Apparently their travel agent didn't stay up late the night before with a ruler and scale agonizing over the weight and dimensions of the various suit case options. I don't stress about this since Jess stresses enough for both of us. My only contribution to the entire process is to weight myself, then weigh myself with the bag. Depending on how late it is at the time, the resulting math can be quite complicated. Sometimes I even get to convert between pounds and kilos. But don't worry, there's an app for that!
Back to the Moroccan family: These are the same people who attempted to board with the passengers that paid extra to purchase an assigned seat. If you don't have an assigned seat then you must wait in line to get the best available (I think Southwest does something similar). They we're reprimanded by the gate checking lady. I felt bad. Sort of.
A few other interesting tidbits about flying RyanAir:
- we flew a Boeing 737/800
- The seats don't recline. I'm serious. What a wasted up-sell opportunity. They could have little locks on the recliner mechanism on each seat and sell the recliner option while they try to sell you coffee and crappy pre-made sandwiches. I think i should be in sales.
- RyanAir is the world's most on-time airline. Apparently one of the benefits of having people scramble to get an unassigned seat is that there is no screwing around during the boarding process. It's like a Black Friday sale at Walmart and the doors just opened. If you're a child or elderly, stay away from the sales items or you might just get trampled. The same mindset is apparent in the people that board the RyanAir flights. The doors to the plane closed early and we pushed way from the gate early.
- No free water, no peanuts, no movies, no in-flight anything. You sit there and they move you from point A to point B. I did notice that the toilet was still free. Suckers.
Through a stroke of luck (or genius planning), when Jess reserved the seats on our flight, the kids were not allowed to sit in an exit row so Jess and I were in 1B and 1C, and the kids were in the row behind us. I don't think Jess and I have sat alone on a flight like that since our honeymoon. And it felt basically the same, accept Truman was kicking the back of the seat during takeoff. Either way the kids did great during the flight; all three were glued to their iPads.
We landed in Marrakech early and leisurely handled the immigration process. The Marrakech airport is your typical small, warm climate airport. You get off the airplane and walk more-or-less uncontrolled along the runway to the only airport building. It's not quite as picturesque as Maui, nor as quaint as Bohal, Philippines, but it's still a nice little setup.
It turns out that we shouldn't have approached the immigration process so leisurely because immediately after our plane landed, so did ten others. A hallmark of a poorly run country is a poorly run immigration check-in process. There's a reason Morocco isn't setting global policy in the G20 Summit sessions. I haven't endured such a cluster of an immigration check-in since Bangkok during peak landing time. In fact, we were in line for immigration longer than we were on the airplane. I'm not going to complain because the kids are old enough to be entertained by their iPads, and we hadn't just suffered through a terrible overnight flying ordeal but still, come on, get it together! It's not like the same volume of passengers don't land at the same time every freaking day. Don't act surprised when it happens. I've met Boy Scouts more prepared.
We eventually get though the theme park-frenzied line and make our way up to the counter. The guy checking us in couldn't have been more than 25. He was basically a Wells Fargo data entry guy, in a military-style uniform, that happened to have ex-passenger foreigners standing awkwardly in front of him. He took our passports and "disembarking forms" and entered the information into the computer. He didn't look at us, check the pictures, or ask us any questions at all. We could've been Ike and Tina Turner, Barney, the Lone Ranger, and Hannah Montana entering Morocco. Either way we finally got though the process, got our bags, and changed out some money before the first kid had to go to the bathroom.
We met our shuttle driver out by the arrivals gate. He was a nice guy who drove a large Hyundai shuttle van. Once you leave the Marrakech airport grounds, you drive on normal roads until you reach the "Medina" which is the main city (with actual city walls). From there until the we reached the hotel, it was Pac-Man style driving around donkey carts, motor scooters and pedestrians. There were many taxis around, all of the same early 1990s, Mercedes-Benz sedan, diesel variety.
The city itself is dominated by a single color: salmon. The dirt is salmon, the walls of the buildings are made from brick that is the same salmon color. Everywhere you look you see the same salmon color and a few dots of green trees. The dryness is also distinctly noticeable. The Sahara desert is farther to the south, over a string of mountains called the Atlas Mountains, but even with this divider, the dryness is stark. We were told it only rains a handful of times per year. The soil is red, and rocky. Things grow in it but I don't quite understand how. The city itself, has access to water via wells, and a few canals/aqueducts from the mountains.
The commute from the airport to the hotel took around 20 minutes, but it was impossible to tell how much distance we covered during that time because, once we entered the city walls I don't think we drove straight for more than 100 yards. Finally our driver parks the van in a bricked courtyard and I look back at Jess with a "Where the hell is the hotel?" look on my face. We quickly found out because the hotel, or Riad, was down a few narrow alleyways. Behind a small black door (about 4 feet tall), labelled #66, was the entrance to the hotel. We ducked inside and walk into the Riad courtyard.
The Riad itself is three stories tall, with four large rental rooms, and rooftop terrace, a small kitchen, and a room for the owner. Jess and I (and Truman) have a room, and then the kids have their own separate room down the hallway. The "hallway" looks out into the central courtyard below. The courtyard is well-designed, since it stays cool from the sun, and quiet from the outside noise of downtown Marrakech.
We were given Moroccan tea by the hotel manager, and then a French-style breakfast (basically bread, jam, and coffee). I asked for a fried egg because I'm needy.
