Well, three’s a charm. After two previous attempts to get to Morocco, we finally made it. We had several hurdles to jump through, though: parking at the park and ride, the air traffic controller slow down, the nor’easter that hit Boston just as we were taking off, and the short connection time in Paris. We kept holding our breath but every step of the way was like a perfect ten in a synchronized swimming routine.
We arrived in Casablanca just in time to experience their rush-hour. With a population of 4 million, traffic is a bit worse than Grantham. It took close to an hour to get from the airport to our hotel in the city center.
About all we had left in us after a very long day and a half of travel was enough strength to shower and eat dinner in the hotel (the only restaurant in Casablanca open before 7pm). Our first tagine (defined by the OED as a “North African stew of spiced meat and/or vegetables prepared by slow cooking in a shallow earthenware cooking dish with a tall, conical lid”)was pretty good, though our only comparison was the Moroccan restaurant in the Morocco pavilion at EPCOT. I’m a certain that by the end of the trip we will have many more to compare.
Our guide, Mohammed, met us at the end of dinner. He had hoped to join us, but his travel from Marrakech by train was not as well-oiled as ours from the U.S. After intros and a bit of small talk, we begged our leave and headed to bed.
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