Morocco was never a plan, until it was! We have a running list of places we’d like to travel to, and had zeroed in on Africa this time. Yes, that’s not really zeroing in, but you get the idea. Our choice of vacation spot and our timing didn’t match, and Morocco became the wildcard! There is a connection though, but that I shall get to in the end.
We took Etihad’s night flight to Abu Dhabi, but not before eating some lousy Chinese at BIAL! Something surreal happened at Abu Dhabi – right next to the gate for our flight to Casablanca was one for Cochin, of all the places in the world! After confusing fellow Malayalis by speaking to D in Keralese, and boarding a flight to Casablanca, I realised that I had massively underestimated the flying time for the second leg – it was almost 10 hours! But sleep and in-flight entertainment meant I had no reason to complain. The Big Short was a fascinating watch – what performances, and what a tale! Also managed to watch Creed – a lot of it at 2x though.
Day 1
Immigration at Casablanca was a breeze. I had been a little worried because the visa (at roughly Rs.7000 pp) had our middle names only as an initial, unlike our passports. But except for one idiot, who whacked D’s Reynolds pen, the experience was smooth. Free WiFi helped! 🙂 A bit about Casablanca. My romantic notion of that place, courtesy a song and a movie, had been shattered during the planning stage thanks to our tour operator and the internet. Apparently, it’s now just a big cosmopolitan city like any other! (more…)
