Morocco – day one
Friday, 2nd June, 2006
15.40 to Casablanca
Alastair and I are off, at last. The vegetarian food on GB airways is rank. Eugh! A dry and crunchy couscous sheltering under a soggy piece of pitta is crammed in next to gravelly hummus and a few remnants of what appear to be red pepper. The Australian woman who has just been to Egypt tells me that I must order the �Asian Vegetarian’ option next time – a serviceable curry and rice.
Casablanca
We have about 5 hours to kill before our Royal Air Maroc flight to Fez, and airports are not much fun so we get on the train to Casablanca itself. The journey takes 45 minutes, we drink a couple of caf?© au laits under the huge awning of the caf?© next to the station. Creamy and delicious. Men come in with wooden boxes offering to polish our shoes, then we’re offered socks by another wandering salesman. We get the train back to the airport.
10.30 to Fez
I am sitting next to a 23 year old French Moroccan who lives in Lyon. Alastair and I try our dodgy French and he tries his creaky English. We talk about Fez, he says the town has changed a lot in the last five years: especially since the Tsunami there has been an explosion in sex tourism and many more prostitutes.
Fez Airport
We’re at the back of the queue to go through passport control again. An old man wearing slacks, a blazer and a sort of wicker cap that looks a bit like a woven hamburger. He turns to Al and said �parlez vous Francais?� and something incomprehensible… I was worried he was going to start gabbering to us in French. �No…English� we replied glumly. �Oh, Hull, I’m from Hull� he said in a strange Northern accent, I notice a patch of stray stubble on the side of his face.
�I’m Polish. I fought in Monte Casino, then after the war I went to England. Hull� He said the locals in Hull were hostile at first, accusing him of taking their jobs. Now he lived in Aix-en-Provence, in the southern French sunshine and went on holidays with �Fram… yes, Fram.� He seemed to be on his own; he said he was 85 and his daughter was worried about travelling on his own.
The queue seemed interminable. The man behind had a guitar case, he was with five or six other’s with instruments. I asked him what sort of music he played. �We’re a Mariachi band from Lebanon.� It seemed a strange concept, so he explained �When we were in Jordan, customs asked us why we played Mariachi, �Because we like it’ we replied. Then they asked �Why don’t you play Arabic music?’ �Because we don’t like it’ we replied. I think that’s why they kept us another hour or so.�
Our Polish friend was still talking, about British politicians, the Queen, the linseed oil factory he had worked in in Hull, and cheap holidays to the Algarve. �Where’s your wife� I said, �She died 10 years ago… yes.� We continued to talk to the Lebanese about the ease of getting to the ski slopes from Beirut, they’re only 20 minutes away apparently. He also said that the trouble with Lebanon was half the country is Christian and the other half Muslim, and Britain should watch out in case they have riots like France last year. �Let’s hope not� I said, �Inchallah� said our Lebanese friend.
At last we went through the passport control, and found a bus to take us through the dark to our hotel. Arriving at 3.00 a.m. we found they did not have our Internet booking, none the less, they still let us stay in a spare �suite’ using an additional camp-bed.