Leaving Marrakech

April 20, 2024

Back to Lisbon for one night

We woke to light rain in Marrakech on the morning of our journey back to Lisbon. We were so lucky with the weather! And I was lucky that this cold held off getting worse until today. I now clearly have a tight chest and hoarse voice.

Poor Leslie was sick overnight, seemingly from something she ate last night. She’s had a nasty cold/cough this week too, but this is separate. How ironic that it was from the fanciest restaurant we’ve eaten at the whole trip.

We’re all on a noonish flight to Lisbon except Betty, who booked a later flight and then stayed for a day to take a cooking class - what fun! She’ll join us in Lisbon tonight and then fly out to Toronto slightly ahead of us tomorrow. We taxied to the airport, then waited in the usual zillion lines before our 11:50 flight to Lisbon. I went carry-on to get here, but checked my back on the flights home. It’s not so concerning if my bag disappears when it’s full of dirty laundry.

It was not easy on poor Leslie to stand in the lineups, so she sat and waited as we snaked through the queues. A lovely Brazilian woman in line with us decided that it was wrong to make a sick person wait, so summoned a police officer to help Leslie cut two lines. Thinking back to the pandemic, I wondered if it was a good idea to point out that she was sick - maybe they’d forbid her from boarding. But it all worked out fine and we boarded right on time.

Leslie resting at the gate in Marrakech, letting us know how she was feeling. 🤢

There was an unmarked 747 on the tarmac (i.e., not an airline). Remember my tale that the Qataris paid for part of Morocco’s TGV train line in exchange for hunting lands? Yup, from the call sign on the plane, we learned that it was the Emir of Qatar’s private plane. Another passenger somehow knew that it had arrived with 2 passengers and 36 crew.

A private 747-8. And here I am worrying about my carbon footprint. Sheesh.

We had a short flight to Lisbon and metroed into the city with Aussie Erin, who had a long afternoon layover before a flight to London and then home from there.

We got settled into our hotel and then while Leslie rested, the rest of us immediately ate a custard tart at the patisserie across from our hotel. Priorities sorted, we walked up to the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum grounds. We didn’t go into the art galleries because of the late hour, but enjoyed walking around the very green park and seeing locals out for fresh air on a Saturday. It was nice to walk a bunch before tomorrow’s long travel day.

A nice cold beer refreshed us before we walked around aimlessly trying to decide what to eat. Four of us ended up at a ramen restaurant, including Leslie, who met us and ate her first food of the day. There were a few sprinkles this aft, but no pouring rain that we expected based on the very dark clouds.

We are back in the land of beer that can be drunk in public.

Lisbon looks like it has a good cycle track network.

I forgot that our Lisbon hotel is on a main road that is fairly noisy. The AC wasn’t working, so Wendy borrowed a fan so we could close the windows. The rest of the hotel features seemed like luxuries after Morocco. A bath mat! Hand towels! Wifi that works!

It was an early night before our return to Canada tomorrow. The afternoon storms were enough to delay Betty’s flight. She didn’t arrive until after I’d gone to bed.

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