The Marrakesh Express

This just annoyed me so I don’t blame anyone for ignoring it…I read this today. I thought Christ was all about love. It has nothing to do with Marrakesh (or Marrakech as some spell it).

Nicktor arrived around 11:30 and quickly helped me move a big pot. We had a cup of tea to recover then took off for Gatwick Airport in pouring rain and very scary winds. It was enough to make us want to leave the country…so we did.

Possibly the oddest thing that happened to us at the airport was the guy in front of us who, rather than remove his belt decided to strip down to his underpants and t-shirt in order to go through the detector. He was about to remove the t-shirt as well until the guard told him to keep it on. Talk about cheering a crowd up. The normal moroseness of a security queue was replaced with much jollity and cheering. Thank you, sir, whoever you are.

After a lovely Wetherspoons burger and possibly our final beer for a bit, we joined the queue for our small Easyjet plane. We figured a three hour flight would be fine. Sit back, relax with a few episodes of The Walking Dead, doze off…how wrong we were. Sitting in front of us and taking up about six rows, was a group of young, British males off to enjoy a stag weekend. They didn’t shut up the entire trip. They also drank their own alcohol and were generally obnoxious.

It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, I guess. Easyjet is very much a budget airline so it tends to attract the less couth among us. The attendants were very good, I have to say. They (sort of) kept order, though they did get a bit peeved when the lads kept pushing the hostess button. The last straw was when they stood up before the unfasten seatbelt sign went out.

At this point the steward told us all we weren’t moving off the plane until a security problem had been dealt with. Eventually (and it took quite a while) the offending guys were frogmarched from the plane, leaving the rest of us to finally leave. I do think it a bit rich that everyone who had suffered these morons for the entire trip then had to suffer waiting for ages before leaving it.

Anyway, enough of that. We walked onto the tarmac to a wonderful, almost balmy 20 degrees before heading for customs where we all gathered around, filling out the silly bits of paper you always have to fill out. Normally you get them on the plane, so you can fill them out in (relative) comfort but due to “…human error…” they didn’t have any.

Just the other side of customs is the baggage retrieval. The big television screen told us our bags would arrive on belt 3. Dutifully, we stood waiting for it to burst into action. It didn’t. In fact, the only belt with any action was number 7. Eventually we (and a few others) went up to belt 7 and found our bags. This is clearly something to remember in Marrakesh: ‘3’ may mean ‘7’.

Finally reaquainted with our possessions we stepped outside and joined the queue for the number 19 bus into the city. We fended off a fair few taxi drivers with Nicktor telling them that we were catching the bus because that’s what I liked to do. The bus was an excellent way to get to our hotel, which was just around the corner from the bus station. And it cost us very little. I highly recommend it.

We managed to get into our rooms (not the nicest I’ve ever stayed in and Mirnda would definitely want us to find somewhere else) then headed out for a stroll around the big square.

What an amazing place. Stall after stall of oranges, dried fruits and more oranges. We took a wander through a maze-like souk before, somehow, coming out in the exact same place as we went in. It was getting late and we hadn’t eaten since Gatwick so we allowed ourselves to be enticed into a square side cafe where I had chicken tagine (nice) and Nicktor had a bit of chicken and chips. The only drinks they made were fruit juice so I had an amazing banana juice.

View from dinner

Eventually we wandered back to the hotel where I mysteriously managed to get the wifi to work just before going to bed.

My first impressions of Marrakesh – I love it!
Nicktor’s first impressions of Marrakesh – he’s not so sure.