We finally got the hotel room, complete with cable television, hot showers, and a free voucher for the buffet lunch, which included veal, bow-tie pasta with a creamy sauce, salad bar, and a fruit platter, amongst other things. We took a nap, and then went down to check out and catch the shuttle back to the airport. Some Nigerian travelers who were in a similar situation as us were already on the bus. One of them was in the front-most seat, where on the ride to the hotel the baggage had sat. The driver, an Egyptian named Mohamed that Larissa and I had determined was "a nice guy," asked the Nigerian to please move to the back so that he could load the luggage up front. The Nigerian didn't like this, and with a sharp look to his two sycophants, they began to ridicule Mohamed. He, Mohamed, shook his head and Larissa and I threw him our spiritual support. We were not fans of the Nigerians.
When we got to the airport, the Nigerians beat us to the EgyptAir counter, where a representative was holding all our passports. The Egyptian, a large-nosed younger man with close cropped hair, was sitting in front of a computer. We assumed he was taking care of something for the Nigerians, so we didn't say anything. After a moment, the man looked up, saw us, and asked us where our transfer was. "Casablanca," we said. He picked up our passports, walked out of the office, and said, "Follow me." As we turned to be led past security and into the proper terminal, the Nigerians' eyes followed us in disbelief. Their jaws dropped. They had been totally ignored.
The flight to Casablanca was nice and uneventful. We landed at 11:40, twenty minutes before the last train to Tangier, where we needed to go to take the ferry into Tarifa, Spain. We got my bag from the claim, went through customs, and headed to the train platform at the base of the elevators. The conductor was walking towards us from the platform. "Come on, come on," he said, "we go now. You pay on the train."
"We don't have any cash," we said.
"Oh. Sorry. Tomorrow morning, then."
The next train, then, was at 7 am. It was midnight. We decided to sleep in the airport. The unheated airport. For the next seven hours. We piled on our clothes, huddled together on a leather bench in the check-in area, and shivered in our sleep.
The next morning, still cold, we got our tickets and boarded the train. Since the three-car train that leaves the airport only ever goes as far as the main Casablanca terminal, we had two hours to kill in the central part of town before our six-hour train ride to Tangier. It was a cold day, but the sun was bright, and silhouetted the clock tower of the station before us. We headed to a small cafe along the main road, and Larissa got a grilled cheese and egg sandwich, and I got a yogurt. We ordered orange juice, and the man squeezed it in front of us. When we finished eating, they brought us some complimentary tea, which Larissa used to warm up her nose. Then we walked down the street to a small park with tended lawns, clean benches, small trash cans, and palm trees. We like Morocco, we decided.
We spent the last thirty minutes waiting for our train to arrive at the station sitting between two women. The woman on our right just stared at us and the woman on the left covered her face with a shawl and stared at us. Although slightly warmed by the sun, Larissa was still shivering. The woman on the left offered her one of her gloves for two minutes, which Larissa accepted. Finally our train arrived and as we got ready to board, the glove-lender raised her hand as if expecting some change for her two-minute one-glove lending service. We both feigned ignorance, threw her some of our best innocent grins, and boarded the train.
A brief note on Moroccan winter dress/fashion: these people know how to battle the cold. The women wear brightly colored shawls, while the men wear hooded robes that look like Franciscan monks had their winter coats designed by Klansmen. They are dark or light brown, go all the way to the floor, and have hoods which remain remarkably pointy, even in the wind.
The train ride was nice. We slept for most of it. Morocco is in the middle of their rainy season, however, and through the windows of the train we could see the whole countryside, covered with a green velvet sheen. Herders with their meager flocks sat amongst their grazing sheep, cows wandered over the countryside, donkeys loaded with vegetables made their way to market.
We finally made it to the Tangier station about three in the afternoon. We took a taxi from the station to the port and bought tickets for the ferry which would take us to Tarifa. At the customs desk to get on the ferry, a man had hijacked all the disembarkation forms. To fill one out, you had to give your passport to one of his flunkies, who would then fill it out for you. At first we thought they were officials who did this for a living, but their jump suits said "Sanitation," not "Immigration." They were janitors, and when they were done, they held out their hands for a tip.
The thing is, though, that we'd spent all our Moroccan dirhams on the train, the taxi, and the ferry tickets. All we had left were one dirham coins, about 12 and-a-half cents. We held them out to the janitors, and in their Arabic accents they said, "One dirham? You give me one dirham?" They shook their heads in disgust and let us past.
And then we were on the ferry. A thirty-minute ride across the Strait of Gibraltar was all that was left of the journey to Spain. My parents, who had flown into Madrid on Saturday and rented a car, were waiting for us in Tarifa. Since we had no way of contacting them, and since they had been expecting us since the morning in case we'd gotten that midnight train, I was nervous as the sun set over the waters, the blue of day turning into the purple of twilight and finally into the inky black of night on the sea. But when we got off the boat, they were there. So excited to see us, they waved with all their hands.
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