12.10, the taxi arrives early but we reckon we're ready for it. Bike bags, panniers, holdalls and a baby fill most of the space so we're off. The trip to Manchester airport is spent frantically trying to telephone premium rate numbers to find out which terminal we need to be dropped at. Terminal 3, apparently, so our driver drops us at the concrete security barriers, takes his 15gdp and scarpers.
The next problem of the day, as it turns out, is that the airport doors aren't quite big enough to wheel a trolley with a stack of bike bags through, though a little help from a passer by averts a queue becoming a crisis behind us and we're another step closer to check in.
Check-in as it turns out was painless, Easyjet's cattle-shed approach doing the job nicely. All our bags ended up going through the baggage inspection/oversize channel and at last we were able to give Katie some attention, not that the ladies in the queue and the check in girls hadn't been making a fuss of her already, we had even been hurried through hand luggage check in process. The next two hours were spent wandering around trying to keep Katie amused, no easy task. It was worse when our departure gate was called, all Katie wanted to do was walk around, show off and getting under everyone's feet. surprisingly, no one minded. We boarded ahead of the masses and I spent the time left until the cabin doors closed hovering over a pair of seats, looking as much like the sort of person you wouldn't sit next to as possible. Eiither that worked or I smell as we had three seats to ourselves, we needed the space as the next 3 hours turned out to be a fine balancing act of baby wrestling and peacful baby sleep, not much sleep but we got her through it. A lollipop eased Katie's landing woes, partially, and we arrived to a 20 degree C Marrakesh. The Airport had had a facelift since our last visit and we were well impressed with the concaved latice ceiling that wrapped its way above us. Try to think of being inside a big white pork pie with baggage carousels for the filling and you are half way to imagining how tired I must have been to think that up!
Passing fairly speedily through the airport we plonked ourselves at the bus stop and waited for the number 19 which would take us into the centre of town for a mere 20 MAD each luggage was free and there was plenty of space available. Acting as like tour guides we confidently showed some of our fellow travellers to their hotel before reconciling ourselves to the fact we had no idea where we were due to stay. We employed a very reasonably priced porter with his trusty part carborad cart to tak us to Durb Dabachi and the Amour de Riad. Turns out our porter had less idea of where we were going than us but at least we had instructions we could read. After some debate with several clusters of locals we found our way to our riad. Our porter held out his hand for hi "un diram". I felt compelled to let the good man have 10MAD but he would have none of it insisting upon his "un". After seeking change for my 10MAD coin (almost a pound) I found out that our porter wanted 30 MAD and "un" was just a word he liked to use not an aproximation of the word for one in French. All that aside we got Katie into her Nomad travel cot and asleep by 10.30pm. She'd been hyper through over stimulation and lack of sleep as we'd aleardy walked throug some of Marakesh's most vibrant street life, the D'Jeema El Fnar packed with food sellers, snake charmers, tourists, pick pockets and the local hoi paloi. I wonder what she dreamt about.
Add other email accounts to Hotmail in 3 easy steps. Find out how.