Arrival images

Tis (below) is the light fixture on the ceiling of Sopatours in Marakesh. When I saw it and the tiles, the landscape, the metal work and the colors of the city, I knew I s smart to come here.






The sunset I saw from the bus was like an omen. I took it to mean all would be well and It felt good. As I have aged, a certain anxiety always exists for me as a solo traveler to foreign destinations.



The chicken store right across the street from my window. If they kill one, I am doomed. I love animals even more in my old age, hence the increasing aversion to fish and meat. On vacation, however, one has to adapt sometimes.



My fabulous room in my fabulous hotel.

Arrival

OK, we adapt in order to achieve the goal.... This is attempt number three to post an account of the London-Marakesh-Essaouira leg of the journey, but this one is being written at the dawn of a stunning sunny day and following about twelve hours of deep sleep.

So the London to Marakesh flight had be in the front row with a lovely young lawyer who is German by descent. She works for a bank and had come to Morocco to go go Casablanca. With someone lovely to speak with, the 3.5 hour trip went quickly. And it was so exciting to come down through the clouds and see the very foreign sienna landscape of Marakesh. I arrived at 12:30; at that point I had been awake for 24 hours.

Bags, check. Visa, check. Money—well, that was more difficult and I am still not sure what the dinar is worth. So I seriously overpaid the taxi to get to Sopatours, the government bus company, to catch a bus to Essaouira. The bus came (late), broke down, we changed busses, I met Jurgen, my seat mate, and off we went. I was so tired, I truly "fell" asleep. Falling asleep is not that, "Oh, I think I'll take a nap" kind of thing, where you close your eyes and off you go. This was waking up to a bump in the road and not even realizing that you had gone to sleep.

I dozed a couple of times, but the road was so bumpy, that I kept waking up, but at least I got some rest so that I could function on arrival in Essaouira. It was cloudy and about 20 degrees all day, but as we came over the ridge to descend into the town, the sky exploded in gold as the sun appeared in clearing skies.

A taxi to the hotel (Orsen Wells) and a quick check in. It is so weird arriving in a town alone in the dark with no map or idea of where you are or the lay of the land, but the single employee of this quiet little quaint hotel drew me a cursory map of how to find the beach where there would be restaurants for me to find. As it was now 6:30, it was too early to go to bed, so off I went.

And I scored. I ate on the beach by a bonfire that engulfed me in the smell of memories—I hardly ever smell woodsmoke any more. I had a fabulous dinner: beach, diet coke, terrific food, handsome waiter, warm summer-like night, luggage all arrived. Paradise.

It was interesting to be conscious of my reaction to the sudden change in culture, and I feel the consciousness is due to my age. I was 16 when I took my first international vacation, and that event marked a turning point in my life. On December 22 in 1964, I told my father that I was leaving the next day for Trinidad. I told him I was sick of Christmases in the facility where my mother lived, sick of school and sick of life in general. Traveling was for me all that it still is: escape plus the incredible stimulation of differentness. Yesterday, my mind kept trying to comprehend today in the context of all my past foreign experiences. "Oh, this reminds me of ...." as if that Kind of referencing has. Much meaning. I found myself wanting to stop doing that and allow here to be itself. But I was exhausted last night.

Today is absolutely stunning: clear and bright and out there is a strange city, a beach and as I leave ethics morning, I have no map or any idea of what I will do or where I will go. I love that. More later ....

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BAD Blogpress

From Marakesh...

Blog press is not working. I Googled the problem and know that I am not alone. Have written a long post twice in Blogpress and lost them both and crashed the app. It is 9:00 pm and I am in Essaouira. I have been up for 32 hours, with some shallow napping on the bus so I am going to go to bed and try posting about the trip tomorrow. All is ery, very good.


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London

Well, I could get used to executive class. Flying economy is going to be a drag after this experience. But it was weird being in Toronto where I have so many friends and not stopping there and now I feel the same way in London. My goodness Heathrow is one ugly airport; the bus ride from wherever I landed to here (terminal 1) was like a trip through a war zone.

Vancouver to Toronto: 4 hours
Toronto layover: 2 hours, but in a great lounge
Toronto to London: 6 hours
London layover: 2 hours

Now I am waiting for my flight to Marakesh which is another four hours and then I have to find the bus depot to take a longish ride to Essaouira where I will finally be able to shower and crash.

It is almost 8:00 am here; midnight Vancouver time, and I had to rise at 4:00 am to catch may flight. No sleep so far. I can never sleep on a plane.

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Departure

Goodbye home....

Bless my internal clock that awoke me exactly at 4:00 am, just as I wanted. (I have never ever in 63 years been awakened by an alarm clock!) I had a leisurely hour to get out of the house and to the Canada Line for the quick and easy ride to the airport.

First "event" of note, seeing my bags marked as "priority" thanks to flying executive class (on points). My second "event" was getting swabbed—it's a slow day at 6:00 am. Why am I always swabbed? I suspect it is because I am a single male passenger. Third thing of note: checking in at the Maple Tree Lounge and enjoying all the "free" trappings while waiting to board my flight.

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Ultimate Day

Today has broken cool, crisp and clear. It is a beautiful "last day" in Vancouver before my departure. I am packed and ready and emotionally numb. I feel like I am about to step on whirling playground ride tomorrow morning because my itinerary is like no travel I have undertaken since 1969 when I undertook one of those too-much-too-fast tours of Europe at age twenty-one. Normally I am a slow traveller. When I went to India, I spent a month in Delhi alone and probably three weeks in Mumbai, but this trip is an African smorgasbord—a sampler that may serve to inspire a return in the future. When I first went to India, I remember thinking that  my month-long visit would be it—that my India itch would be scratched. But I could hardly wait to return when I got back home and I eventually spent another eight months there.

Another novelty about this trip is that it was put together by a travel agent. In the past, I have always done my own planning in the past or been part of a tour group (on two occasions), but this time Valerie, my travel agent, put everything together based on a talk we had one day about what I wanted to do and see. I have done squat in the way of research. Valerie chose all that I will be doing and all my destinations except Essaouira and Agadir, and I explicitly avoided doing any online research into the sites I will be seeing so that everything will enfold as more of an adventure. By avoiding reading about why Valerie chose all the various bush camps I will be in (nine of them), I expect an added sense of excitement and surprise when I get there and discover why we are there (be it a historic site, a people or animals).

When I took the two organized tours I once took, I read the itinerary in terms of understanding the route and what cities we would be visiting, but I purposely avoided reading about why the destinations were chosen and about what we would be doing. Once departed, I developed a passion for a particular pattern of travelling: I loved getting up early and getting right to the day's adventure. My ideal day was rich with stimulation until about 4:00 pm, at which time I loved getting back to the hotel to shower and clean clothes. Then I liked a nice leisurely ninety minutes of relaxation reading, sitting in a bar or café or chatting with fellow travellers before a nice dinner and bed. And the highlight of each evening was then discovering what the agenda was for the next day. It was an awesome way to go to sleep each night, dreaming of what the next would reveal.

Fabulous News

1. Day One of Malarone and not a shred of evidence of any side effects. This is a huge relief. Now I can get excited because the last unknown is diminishing. Two more days of testing, however, remain.
2. My friend Gilbert called last night from his mining camp in northern BC near the Yukon border. He lived in Tanzania for five years and often visited Stonetown in Zanzibar. He was THRILLED to hear about what hotel I had in Stonetown (Tembo House). At his suggestion, I have written for a reservation at the Emerson Green restaurant in Stonetown for Christmas dinner (photo above). He also gave me great tips about mosquitoes, tipping, swimming and many other things that could only come from living there.
3. My airline ticket home as been re-issued: Dar-es-Salaam—Istanbul; Istanbul—Chicago; Chicago—Toronto; Toronto—Vancouver. Brutal, but Business Class all the way and on points. Had I known this would be my routing, I would have stayed a while in Istanbul. Another place I long to see.