Strangers in a Strange land

If you travel for extended periods of time, and are not used to being away from home for such a long time, you are subject to a form of homesickness that is inversely related to the familiarity of the culture you are traveling in. In '86 in India, I had a couple of days where I would have gladly hopped the next plane to South Carolina, were it that easy. In '89, after 3+ weeks of eating various forms of Southeast Asian food, Max and I nostalgically pigged out on hamburgers and fries in Bangkok. On this trip, although we didn't admit it to each other until we had arrived home, both of us wished we could just fly home from London and forget about Morocco. We were weary of the constant travel and all it entailed.

Fortunately, we kept on truckin', because Morocco was wonderful.

After 5 hours of sleep at our cheesy Heathrow Hotel, we hop a 5:30 bus to the airport and are delivered, like pre-packaged onboard breakfasts, to the lower bowels of the airport, an alleyway full of vendors' vans. We are directed through an industrial door to a sort of freight elevator that promises to take us to the departures level of Terminal 2. During the 2 floor trip in the elevator we have a pleasant chat with a Jamaican Brit and his two sons, who are on their way to Helsinki to start a new life.

Check-in is easier than we've encountered anywhere on the trip. But despite the fact that we booked this flight over 4 months prior to takeoff, we're in the back of the bus, me next to an over-upholstered Brit from the Midlands, sitting on her well-used personal cushion, and reading a romance novel (31 pages in 3 hours - where is Evelyn Woods when you really need her?) (an oblique reference, I'll admit). Breakfast is two lumps of fried potatoes accompanied by a garnish of jellified mushrooms and tomatos. Hands down, the worst airline meal I've ever not eaten. British Airways lost a lot of points on this flight.

Fez International Airport is new and fresh under a brilliantly blue cloudless sky. We take the green "Nothing to Declare" express line through customs, except the guy in front of us had something to declare, but didn't, and they caught him. We watched as they opened his luggage to discover scores of watches and other glittery doodads. Fortunately for him, they were so cheesy-cheap they allowed him to pass.

We were supposed to have been met by a rep from the Riad Arabesque, the small inn we were booked at in Fez, but there was no one. We eventually found some one who spoke English in the Customer Service counter (I'm not complaining - we were strangers in a strange land) and had him call the Arabesque to inquire about our ride. The Arabesque denied any responsibility for our transport, so our Customer Service Guy goes outside with us to try to persuade one of the waiting Taxi Guys to take us to Fez. It becomes obvious after a while that no one wants to take us to the Arabesque because no one knows where it is. If this were India, hundreds of Taxi Guys would swarm all over us and promise to take us to our hotel whether they had any clue where it was, or not.

Anyway, the guy who got the short straw loads us up and heads towards Fez. The ride is wonderful, with less people, less trash and less odor than India. We stop twice for directions, the Taxi Guy visibly leaking testosterone. Eventually, we arrive at the gate to the vehicle-free 900 year old walled Medina of Fez, and a couple of young guys appear from nowhere to help us schlep our bags to the Arabesque. The web site said it was 30 yards from the gate, but it's more like 300 yards. Maybe they meant metric yards.

We walk through 10 foot wide cobblestoned alleys and stop at a dark dead end side alley with a small sign announcing the Riad Arabesque. Riads are centuries-old mansions built within the walls of the Medina. They all have unpretentious exteriors with only a door in a wall as an entrance. Inside, it's a different story. Our Riad has a large wooden door and a bell. We're ushered in by a young man in a flowing white robe, past pictures of celebrities such as Jeremy Irons who have stayed here in the past.

The place is over the top in historic Moorish decor. We are seated in a central atrium and sip mint tea while being checked in. The atrium has 4 small anterooms which will be used for meals. I ask about the absence of the promised ride from the airport and am assured it was never promised. After I get home, I e-mail the promised ride e-mail back to the Riad Arabesque, but never get a response. I wreak revenge by trashing them in a review on Trip Advisor.

Our suite is wierdly different fom anything we've ever stayed in. It has stained glass windows looking onto the atrium, it has a dressing area, it has 16 foot ceilings, it has a stone tub big enough for three, it has an odorifous bathroom.

Dinner carries the wierd factor a step further. They pour water over your hands before you begin dining. We start with 9 salads, one of which is carrots flavored with cinnamon. Then we have a minced lamb dish served in layered pastry with seaoning and, of course, a powdered sugar topping. The last dish was some sort of meatball thing in a tomato sauce.

Tomorrow is our 19th anniversary.