We left Riad LaCroix Berbere reluctantly, especially as they had made R French Toast for breakfast this morning! But our driver arrived to take us to the airport, and off we went.
The traffic was incredibly quiet as we were driving. Obviously 9.30am is still the middle of the night for Marrakech!
The airport was quiet, too, and we had to wait 10 mins for our checkin to open. Since we’d paid for Speedy Boarding on EasyJet, we had only one person ahead of us in the queue. Our bags were perfectly weighted – 20.1kg for me and 18.9 for R, so we did the perfect amount of shopping! (or “souking”, as the girl behind the counter told us).
The Marrakech airport is quite small, with 8 departure gates, and none of them have skybridges: it’s a walk out to climb the stairs to board!
Again, our small investment in Speedy Boarding paid off – we were the second in the queue to board, and snagged the front row on the right hand side, with noone sitting in the third seat. R was able to stretch out in the middle seat, and we hah easy access to our hand luggage and the loo.
I’ve heard some horror stories about EasyJet, but they were great on this trip. We left and arrived almost exactly on time, our luggage arrived in a timely manner, the staff were pleasant and they had enough food (granted, we only asked for a packet of chips and some water). Although there were gusty winds enough to make for a bumpy approach to Gatwick, the landing itself was really smooth.
The airport itself was pretty painless. A long walk, then a short queue for the non-EU/UK residents (although it moved a lot more slowly than the residents’ queue!) and a 20 questions game from the passport control lady (Why wasn’t I staying with family if I say I have family here? I have family here but it’s only my first trip to the UK? Hmm…) Locating the car rental place was a bit more challenging, and of course it started to rain while we were waiting, so we got very wet trying to find our car in the incredibly early darkness. 4.30pm and it was pitch black!
We met my cousin Robbie there as he’s travelling with us for Christmas. He’s been doing a course in Germany and is wandering around visiting friends now, so we met up for the Christmas weekend!
The car is a medium-sized VW, brand new and full of magical devices such as the windscreen wipers coming on automatically when it showered, and lights that turned on and off with a sensor. Wow.
The drive was thankfully pretty uneventful, after I worked out some of the incomprehensible road signs. The GPS is making life much easier. The big even was hitting Sainsbury’s once we reached Plymouth, and finding a Mecca of gluten free goodies – Christmas cake, English muffins, even bagels! I’ll have one of each, please!
We reached Aunty Judy’s place around 10.30pm, and were greeted at the gate by the security men with “So you’re the Australians then! Go on through.”
It was lovely to see Aunty Judy again – it’s been about a year and a half since she was last in Australia I think, and she’s such a wonderful lady! (If you’re reading this, I hope you’re blushing!
Christmas is well and truly a shock over here! Every radio channel is playing Christmas carols, and every shop we drove past has decorations. After Morocco where it was a non-event, things are very different!
Two Weeks Away 