Tangerine...

Hotel Marco Polo, Tangier 11:46 pm, 7/22

Very strange day – long bus ride, then a sudden dash off the bus and into a taxi to the airport. Got there just at the right time – a few minutes before the counters opened and the scrum erupted. We cleverly watched the young woman in front of us and followed her forward (thus jumping several places in the queue).

Bit of an issue at check-in; they clerk couldn’t find our reservations – but eventually she did. We think they had transposed our first and last names? Then through security, which was freakishly easy – there was no line, so I didn’t think it was open. :) And then we were through. Easy peasy. Decent browsing at the airport, but we didn’t buy anything besides snacks. (I might splurge on a Pedrera beach towel when I get back, however…)

We kept laughing about the legs of – I’m not sure what they are? Pigs? Some sort of hoofed animal whose meat must be very tasty if you’d want to buy an entire large leg of it. We tried to imagine bringing that through US Customs. “Nothing to declare, sir… and could you please ask your dog to stop gnawing my suitcase?”

The plane was late. Was amused that everyone waited in line – which made us wonder if we had assigned seats (we did). But eventually we got on board and were surrounded by more children than I had ever seen on a plane. It made me wonder if maybe US flights had a limit? But the weirdest part was that the children were almost all creaming and no one was shushing them. Awesome! And one boy in particular was a nightmare. Thank heavens the flight was short.

Finally landed in Tangier an hour late. We got off the plane quickly, first passing through “health screening” (temperature checks) and then passport control. We joined a short queue at a window with two women who were studiously ignoring the person in front of them, who eventually picked up his things and walked to another window. No “we’re closed” or anything. So we joined another queue as well, and that was okay, until we were asked to go to a health check. Lots of questions about where we had been for 10 days, and whether we had been around anyone with the flu. It was only later that we learned that the UK now has the second most cases of swine flu, so I suppose it’s good that they were being extra careful.

So that done, we raced back through immigration and got our bags – then we made the semi grievous error of jumping in a grande taxi rather than a petit taxi. We also didn’t understand the driver. Did he say 150, then 750 (multiplying it by 5, the supposed number of passengers he can take?) We thought we were being done, but we also figured it would be worth it to make it to the train station on time.

But traffic was bad, and we arrived too late at the station to catch the 21:05 Marrakesh express. Wil handed the driver 800 DH, and the driver looked at us like we were insane. He promptly gave us back 650, and told us to be very careful, to hold on to our bags at all times, etc.

We raced into the station in the hopes that the train was delayed, etc., but no luck. Boo. But we were able to get couchettes for tomorrow night.

So back out of the station, and we attempted to get a petit taxi. I was worried about looking for a hotel at 9:30 pm, so I picked one from the book that wasn’t too far from several decent places and we aimed for that. We ended up here at the Marco Polo – nowhere near as nice as La Tangierine, but not as isolated either.

The driver took us here for 20 Dh. We got here, checked out our big triple room for a bit, and then went for a little walk. It’s an interesting town – swarms of people walking around at 10, 11 pm. Had pizza in a beachfront café with a very friendly waiter – almost Basil Fawlty/Manuel sort of way. Then a bit more walking and back to the hotel to cool down and rest. Tomorrow we explore Tangier.