Arrival in Marrakech

The time on my phone read 02:15. The taxi was coming at 3 and I awoke, dizzy and drained. I had been drugging myself up on Benylin and pain killers, flu plus and anaesthetic throat lozenges. I had been swigging from the bottle all day and now I was feeling really awful. We took a taxi from Bushey to Gatwick. I was drifitng in and out of sleep. We headed to the check in queue. Walking round the ropes, round and round I was taken back to the time I had over-indulged on a trip to Holland and was struggling to stand up at Passport control in Calais. Anyway, back to the present. I was dizzy, white, sweating and needed my freakin Benylin! I had to duck under the rope, run to the toilet and, well there ya go. Start as ya mean to go on!

Skip forward three hours and the plane is setting off. EasyJet, the pioneers of budget air travel. Always remember big ole Stelios on that programme talking about his company. What started off as a routine take off procedure turned into the biggest bloody shit storm of money making opportunities. The EasyJet flight crew should have been called the EasyJet Commercial Team. Every few minutes they were selling something. I remembered the words of one of the staff "We hope you have a relaxing flight!" How the fuck can  I relax when you're asking me if I want a drink, a snack, Hello or The Times, booze, fags, perfume, gadgets, more snacks, more drinks, lottery tickets then...a collection for UNICEF. The charity collection was almost delivered as an after-thought. I searched through the in-flight magazine for any mention of UNICEF. It was on a page towards the back after the posture pedic chair adverts and DIY Shagging. What a joke.

Anyway, we arrived in Marrakech and it was about 9.30. The heat wasn't so imposing, it being only 25c. It soon heated up when we paid 15 Euros to travel 3 miles in a taxi.

Doing the needful...

One can never fully prepare for the rigours of international travel; in my opinion, anyway. This is especially compounded when traveling to a country and especially a continent you have never ventured to before. As much as preparing for something such as this is important, as long as you can just “do the needful” (a suggestion when traveling to Bangladesh some years ago) then I am willing to open up my senses and mind to new experiences and “chance” some parts of my holiday.

I have read and heard so much about the city of Marrakech. I think I was first made aware of the magic of this Moroccan travel haven through The Apprentice and was amazed by the colour and diversity of the place. Then, when a good friend suggested earlier this year that he may embark on a trip and was wondering if I would accompany him, I thought why not? And now, seven months down the road I find myself writing up a list for my holiday there. With space a tricky thing to manage (one hold bag between three) I am trying to pack light and economical but this is to prove tricky as we near the trip departure day.

I think back, again, to when I traveled to Bangladesh in 2009. I was working for CAFOD at the time and the charity and its partners in Dhaka had “done the needful” and all I had to do was pack then turn up to Stansted on the day. I packed a rucksack full of items but I had only reached half of my 25 kilo limit. I had done the sensible thing and packed my lightest and worn my heaviest. I recall turning up at the house of a colleague and the look on his face sort of read is that it? Where is the rest of your stuff? That evening I experienced a different evening in London, relaxing in his garden whilst the evening Summer sun peaked through the tall trees and I treated myself to a few cheeky Continental beers prior to bed time. One thing I failed to mention, however, was that I’d left all of my toiletries in Ilkeston. That meant a trip to the Tesco Express to raid their stash of Diarolyte, Jungle Remedy, Ambre Solaire and Colgate. I thought best to exclude my usually obligatory Durex. Hope springs eternal and all that jazz!

When I got to Bangladesh I found that I used some things more than others (and would have had no use for the prophylactic anyway). So when I do leave for Morocco on Sunday morning I think I shall be entering over-prepared in the true British sense, but, as long as I have done the needful then I need not worry about anything else.