From Morocco to Malaga

Today is our final day in Morocco, and it does not consist of much except for a travel day.

They had breakfast for us early this morning at 7:00 AM.  This Riad is a little funny, when we first checked in we asked for the lock for the door, he then told us to just slide the door lock over and it is lucked.  OK, but anyone can then slide the door lock back the other way and it is unlocked right?  There was a safe in the room so we put some stuff in there and moved on.  It was a joke a few times though when we came back to the Riad and I would ask Andre for the key to go back to the room, no key needed!  The Riad is locked from the outside, so you need a key to get into the Riad, and there were always staff wandering around, and at this point we pretty much just have suitcases full of stinky clothes, I wish someone had broken in and stolen them!

Just close the door and it is "locked"

Shoes used as decorations in many places in this Riad

Here is the link to the Riad we stayed at in Marrakesh, http://www.riadadore.com/home.html

We were not originally booked here, but our agent had us moved here as our original Riad either sold or was closed.

A man arrives with a cart at the Riad to take our luggage back out to where the car can pick us up.  We had a nice surprise when we ran into Hassan coming up to meet us, he would be our driver again today to take us back to the airport.  Andre gave the cart guy about a $3.00 tip, and the cart guy said it was not enough.  Andre told him to go away that we know that the Riad is paying his as well.  This is the part I will not miss about Morocco, seems like everyone is wanting you to give them more and more money, when we first arrived at this Riad they told us not to tip the guys that helped us with the luggage that they had looked after it.  It isn't too bad, but it is a little tiring trying to figure out who is just being nice, and who is being nice to get a tip.

Luggage being taken to the car

Uneventful drive back to the airport.  I am not sure if Hassan still likes us as we did not tip him today, if we had known he would be our driver again our tip from the other day was sufficient to cover today, so we're not sure if he came today just to get more.  A little awkward, and I know we have much more than he does, but enough is enough.  He did fine with the kickbacks we got shopping with him as well I am sure.

We saw about 10 army helicopters on the way back to the airport

We are now back in Spain staying in Malaga overnight and catching our plane home via Paris and Toronto tomorrow.  I found a hotel online that was directly in a train station, so no need to worry about taking taxis or anything.  Problem was I wasn't positive about which station to get out at, so we just got out where everyone else was getting off, and lucked out as we were right, another reminder no Amazing Race for us.

It is rainy here, but we will venture out shortly for some supper, and a nice glass or 2 of red wine. 

Andre took me to some of the main sites in Malaga, he had taken a bus here one day while we were in Nerja earlier so knew his way around pretty well.  The rose garden was especially beautiful, so much has opened up in the last couple of weeks. 

Beautiful street in Malaga, so different that what we have just left in Morocco today

Hundreds of bleachers were set up for the Easter procession

Cathedral

Roman Amphitheater

Beautiful rose gardens

Square in front of Picassos house

There must have been a huge Easter procession here earlier today, they were in the process of taking down the bleachers that ran for blocks, I wish we would have been here earlier to see it.  We did spend a little time in the Cathedral for the service, but it is hard to sit through when you understand nothing at all.

We found a nice little tapa bar for supper.  We had a great time watching the staff,y ou can tell how well they all worked together.  It is just a small place that mostly had fried food.  No tickets for the kitchen here, the waiters just called out their order to the open kitchen.  Same with drink orders, just called out to the bartender.  We had some fantastic fried little fish like sardines, some baby squid, and some delicious cheese for desert I guess.  We had a glass wine each, then decided to get a .5 litre of Sangria, which came in a big monster glass with 2 straws and a bunch of decorations in it, definitely not what we expected, good for a laugh.  I think it came from the bar across the street as we didn’t see it being made in our bar.

Our last dinner in Spain

 Back to our hotel at around 10PM, a very long day ahead of us tomorrow, but it will be good to be home.

Would we go back to Morocco, it would be nice to see another part, but it is not like the love we both had for Tanzania or Galapagos, but it isn't in the same price range either!  If we were in Europe again and could get cheap flights from a larger airport we would definitely look into it again. We were a little lazy with this trip and used an agent to book everything for us.  We did not want to rent a car, and we wanted to cover quite a bit of territory, so I sent our likes to a couple of agents and we eventually went with this operator, Epic Morocco   http://www.epicmorocco.co.uk/

 Would we go back to Spain, in a heartbeat, we would even revisit Nerja we enjoyed it so much.

Our vacation time is now all booked up through to April next year, so it will be at least another 2 years before such a trip again.  Back to work, we still have lots of trips on the bucket list, don't think we'll ever be able to retire!

Here are the carpets and cushions that we bought in Morocco.  The carpets are suppose to be over 50 years old.  Not sure about that part but we like them and that is what counts.

Our Berber carpets