A Chronicle of Amy and Sean's World Travels

Trapped in Morocco (Also Known As The One Where the Volcanic Ash Cloud Strikes Again)

EDITED TO ADD: I wrote the first part of this post as we waited to leave Morocco, the first time, and the second part once we got out.

PART ONE:

As we prepare to leave Morocco after two weeks in the country, we both can’t help but feel excitement at leaving.

By the time we got to Fes, we didn’t care to see another medina, historic or not.  We were sick of the tagines that dominate every meal except breakfast.  Breakfast, too, was like groundhog day for 14 days straight: orange juice, tea, yogurt, Moroccan bread with apricot jam, possibly a crepe like pancake if you are lucky, a fried egg mislabeled omelet if you were not.  (Not bad, I know, but I’m American and I need variety).  Although we rarely stray from the local cuisine while travelling, we found ourselves eating pizza three times.  We had no desire to shop anymore because we had no desire to negotiate.  Most of all, we were sick of paying too much for things, but we were so tired we found ourselves giving in all too often.

Our last day started with a leak in the shower hose, which blasted water sideways in our faces, on the ceiling, and finally, when it really started to get out of control, on the loose wires on the bathroom light.  Mailing our purchases home involved a man who appeared to work for the post office offering friendly and much needed assistance, which quickly, of course, turned into a demand for hundreds of dirham.  Opting for the 7 dirham bus ride to the airport instead of the 120 dirham grand taxi (less than 1 USD versus 15 USD), a man was in the process of reaching into the side pocket in my backpack when Sean turned around, yelled sharply, and scared him away.  Out of the bus windows, we watched a fight between teenagers, and I spotted one of them wielding a large knife.  Luckily, that wasn’t our stop.  Now, we sit in Fez’s small airport, counting down the hours until we can board our plane.

Does this mean we didn’t like Morocco?  I don’t think that it does.  People who have travelled here before have raved about the country, and we can see why.  As I talked about in my last post, the country has beautiful landscapes.  Morocco has history, architecture, and vibrant colors.  It also has friendly people, such as the woman who came to our rescue when a “parking attendant” tried to gouge us for more money than we likely owed for parking on a public street, or the woman on the bus who would have conversed with us had we known French but confirmed that indeed, the bus was heading to the airport, or the man next to us at the café who insisted we share his chocolate bar.

I just think you need to be in the right frame of mind to deal with certain elements of travel, and we were not in that frame of mind.  I don’t feel we can give a trustworthy review of what it is like to travel through Morocco.  I only feel qualified to give a trustworthy review of what it is like to travel through Morocco when you are ill for most of the journey.  As with any travel, there are good things and bad things.  It’s just when you are sick, all of the bad things are magnified and the good things are dampened.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we got food poisoning while we were in Marrakesh.  Bad food poisoning. Not just unsettled stomachs or even traveler’s diarrhea. Possibly from eating at the bustling food stalls in the main square like Eva and Jeremy from Forks and Jets?  Possibly from a milkshake that we thought was safe, but perhaps contained ice or sour milk?   We are not sure what was the cause, we just know that we spent a horrid night paying the price.  From that night on, we have not felt right, culminating in another awful day we spent holed up in our hotel room in Meknes.  We barely saw Meknes, and gave Fes complete short shrift.

One also has to keep in mind that we are still getting our sea legs.  Morocco is the first time we have travelled through a truly foreign country, one where the people do not look like us or speak like us.  One where standards are much different than those in the United States.  Much of Morocco is more modern than what we initially experienced in Essaouira, particularly the cities we visited: Marrakesh, Ouarzazate, Meknes, Fes.  This is particularly the case in the ville nouvelles, which are the “suburbs” set up by the French during their rule by taxing the Moroccans living within the old, crumbly medina walls.  Much of Morocco is less modern than what we initially experienced in Essaouira.  In the villages, the only sign of modern life is often the guesthouses and the Coke for sale everywhere under the banner with a picture of a sultry Arabian woman.

While I was curled up on the bed in a ball with stomach pains in Meknes, being forced to listen to an hour long call to prayer blasting over the loud speakers from somewhere in town, Sean and I discussed our next destination.  It was supposed to be Egypt, then Jordan, then South Africa.  We knew Egypt was going to be quite foreign like Morocco.  We have heard that while the pyramids are amazing, you have no choice but to be subjected to very aggressive people in order to see them.  We realized that we were not up for that right now, and discussed other options.  That’s the beauty of travelling without firm plans.  We really liked Spain while we were there, and cut it short to go to Paris.  When we saw a cheap flight to Madrid from Fes, we knew that’s where we wanted to go next.  When we found a cheap car rental, we put our plan into action.  We plan to drive in a circle from Madrid for 11 days, to Valencia, along the coast, to Seville, to Lisbon, Portugal, then back to Madrid.  We will need to watch to keep it cheap, because Morocco really blew our budget unexpectedly.  After Spain, our itinerary will be similar, just in a different order.  Stay tuned for Spain part dos…

PART TWO:

So I wrote Part One of this post as we waited at Fes’s small airport for hours for our flight.  The airport was much smaller than we anticipated, given Fes’s size and stature in the country, and not well marked.  We finally figured out which of the long lines was the one for Ryan Air to start the check in process for our flight to Madrid.  At some point, we realized we were the only ones with larger bags.  Sean went to figure out why.  When he returned, he did not look happy.  They are saying it is cancelled, he said, incredulously.  It was true.  Ryan Air cancelled our flight.  Our way out!  We read an article later that night about how the volcanic ash cloud grounded most of Ryan Air’s flights.  That would have been nice to know earlier.  We had no access to television and very little access to the internet for days.  After we found out it was cancelled, we waited for an hour and a half to get our money back.  We didn’t know what we were waiting for, exactly, and we couldn’t understand any of the gossip circulating through the line.  I call it a line, but that is a misnomer.  People of various nationalities felt the need to push in front of others, and Moroccans got to jump to the head of the line.

When we finally returned to Fes, taking the grand taxi this time, it was too late to attempt to catch a train or bus out of town.  I would have paid any amount of money to take a flight to anywhere, but there were no more flights leaving that day.  We went to three hotels in Fes before we found one with space for the night.  Walking around, with our heavy packs, surrounded by cars and people walking around in a free for all, I said, I never have wanted to leave a place so badly in my entire life. I wasn’t being melodramatic.  I meant it.  I felt trapped, and I didn’t like it.  A cancelled flight shouldn’t be a big deal to people with no schedule, but there couldn’t have been a worse time for us to have our flight to be cancelled.

We caught a 6 hour long train to Tangier at 6:50 the next morning, and took a 45 minute long ferry to Tarifa, Spain – the closest access point back to Europe.  It was overcast, rainy and dreary in Tangier, but the sun was shining and birds were chirping in Tarifa.  We found a hostal with a comfortable bed and light, airy room.  Tarifa looks like a fun, eclectic windsurfing and kitesurfing town.  I think we’ll stay another night.

4 Responses to “Trapped in Morocco (Also Known As The One Where the Volcanic Ash Cloud Strikes Again)”

  1. Robyn24 says:

    Ugggg…. Sorry for your entrapment! So glad you’re back in Spain. Looking forward to wonderful food posts again! Amy, I’m really thinking your career change should be to journalism! (included with your own photography!) Hope the stomach thing works itself out and you have less hasseling to deal with!

  2. Mom.Joan says:

    So glad you’re out of Morocco ~ they may have pretty pottery, but Spain has better wine & food & seems safer. Hope you both are feeling better. Tarifa sounds like a more fun time & less stress. Enjoy! Loved the camel pictures & the shadows in the desert.

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