Picture Day
I got up before my crew and headed out for an early morning walk to see some of Imlil without the utter madness it was yesterday.
There is a beautiful river that runs through town. I imagine at this time of year it is typically running harder but Rashid had said they did not get any snow this year at all. Normally they would have received up to 15 feet of snow on the mountain tops and a few feet in the village; there should still be snow in the shady spots right now he said, instead it was seventy degrees.
After breakfast, we had invited all of the children of the village to come for an instamatic picture if they’d like. The first to show up were two adorable boys – maybe 5 and 7 years old. The youngest one had on a Chicago Bulls sweatshirt and when I said basketball and pretended to dribble and shoot, he immediately imitated me – so cute!
One by one Jenny took their picture individually, then group shots (one for each child), then the ladies had their pictures individually, then together, then they asked if they could have one with me, then they said Billy should join in and finally they asked for one with Jenny. That was the only time I asked if I too could take a picture of them. I did not want to intrude on the fun they were all having getting the photos (and they were having so much fun) and certainly did not want them to think we used that as a way to get their photo.
Before leaving home, I had read there was no reason to buy your train tickets ahead of time so in the interest of having a small amount of flexibility I didn’t. But when I decided to go ahead and buy them yesterday, since we felt pretty certain of our plans today, I couldn’t buy any – they were all sold out. Turns out, today is the final day of the vacation and everyone who came to Marrakesh for vacation would be leaving today to go back to Casablanca- our destination this evening.
A bit panicked, I asked our car rental agency if we could drop the car in Casablanca and pay the drop fee. No problem, she said until 5 minutes later she said she was wrong, they had it contracted for this afternoon. But she was very nice and gave us an option of a private transfer, which I gladly took, as it really was our only choice but with one caveat- she had to tell the driver not to drive crazy like all the insane taxis we had passed.
Driving back through Imlil was already getting crazy – at one point three of us, all trying to go in different directions with a mule porter in the middle.
We made it to our meeting spot to drop The Camel off right on time. The Camel you ask? That was what we named our car, a Dacia Duster, because she could seemingly go days without needing fuel. In fact, we stopped to put fuel a second time only because we thought for sure the gas gauge must be broken. We drove 1226 miles and only burned 20 gallons of diesel!
Another highway drive (I am finally a passenger) and a few more sights: busses travel with both their engine cover and their passenger door open…
It took us about 3 1/2 hours to make the drive to Casablanca through flat lands that could easily stand in for Iowa farm country. Pulling into Casablanca felt like a world away from everywhere else in Morocco we have been. It’s huge- 1.5x the population size of Marrakesh, urban, busy and nondescript. I had read there is not much reason to visit Casablanca and frankly we wouldn’t have except this is where we are flying out of and Jenny really wanted to see the mosque here.
Dinner was a total disaster… unfortunate our last night in Morocco but I’m glad every other night has been somewhere on the spectrum from very good to fantastic.
Wandering Amerrickans 