Thursday, February 8, 2024

Today was our last morning in Morocco!

Our day started this morning at an airbnb apartment in Marrakech. Andi used the food delivery app, Glovo, to order us some breakfast — chocolate waffles and crepes for the kids, almond croissants for he and I, plus an egg omelet to share. It was much louder in our apartment complex last night with the upstairs neighbors making noise into the early morning hours. Fortunately, we were all able to get some sleep and I was feeling a little better this morning. Andi worked on his computer until Noon while the kids and I did some school work, and I packed our bags to get ready for the airport.

Mustafa, the owner of Bahba Luxury Camp and our driver from the Sahara Desert, offered to take our family to the airport today since he was still in Marrakech. That was so nice of him to do. He arrived at our airbnb apartment at Noon, and together we made the quick 10-minute drive to the airport. Mustafa refused to take any payment for the ride; our gift to the family, he said.

At 2:00pm, we boarded Binter Airlines to travel to the Canary Islands off the western coast of Morocco. It was a quick one-hour flight to reach the main island of Grand Canaria, then another 45-minute flight to reach the island of Lanzarote. It’s been a long time since we flew on an airplane with propellors! Our airplane was small, which we expected given that Binter Airlines is a regional carrier flying mostly to the Canary Islands and some European hubs. This is one of the reasons why packing so lightly for this trip was important, knowing we’d be flying on several connector aircrafts. But even with small-sized carry-ons, our bags barely fit in the overhead luggage compartment. Andi and I were both frantically unpacking our bags in the aisle of the plane to make them flat enough to squeeze into the storage area overhead. The flight attendant was quite rude, so she was of no help. Space was tight, but we made it. Phew! To the Canary Islands, we go!

It’s always interesting to fly different airlines to see how they do things. I wasn’t expecting any snacks or beverages on this plane ride given that it was such a short flight, so we were all surprised to receive sandwiches, chocolate wafer cookies, and juice. Tory and Aden also got suckers when they boarded the plane, colored pencils, and a coloring sheet. “I like this airline!” Tory said.

Unfortunately, our flight was late to take-off and land in Grand Canaria. Once we landed, we needed to go through customs (since we traveled from Morocco to Spain) before boarding our connecting flight to the island of Lanzarote, and the airport was an absolute zoo! There were hundreds of people waiting to have their passports checked and by the sound of their shouting, it was obvious that they’d been there for a while.

A few of us from the Marrakech flight had tight connections to Lanzarote, so an airport worker squeezed us toward the front of the customs line. This did not make the people who’d been waiting for hours very happy. One lady shouted to the worker, “We’ve paid just the same as these people, and have every right to stand here! “Another woman said, “I don’t care if they have connecting flights or not, I’m not moving.”

Yikes. Not the warm welcome to the Canaries we’d expected.

Aden was flabbergasted by the ladies shouting at people in line. I reminded the kids that it doesn’t do any good to be angry in those situations; it only makes you look like a fool. The best thing to do is to stay calm and organized, and be on the look-out for Plan B. By now, it was 4:50pm and our flight departed to Lanzarote at 5:30pm. Andi was sure we were going to miss our connection, so he called Binter Airlines and tried his best to re-book us onto the next flight. Unfortunately, he didn’t have any luck doing so.

Thanks to the airport worker who butted us to the front part of the line, we were able to get through passport control in 25 minutes — much faster than the rest of those people who’d been waiting in line for hours. But once were were through that mess, we then had to check in for our domestic flight to Lanzarote and go through security again. “This is why we don’t check bags, kids!” Andi said as we ran to the domestic side of the airport. “If we wouldn’t have had our bags with us, we wouldn’t have a chance to make this flight!”

The four of us navigated our way to the domestic check-in desk, and then onto security. There was a long line of people waiting at security, too, but we caught a lucky break and were able to go through the shorter “kids & family” line. We had ten minutes until our flight to Lanzarote was scheduled to leave, so the four of us ran as fast as we could through the airport to get to our boarding gate. While we ran, a ziploc baggie with cough medicine I had in my bag flew out of my pack and broke all over the floor, spraying sticky medicine all over my pants. Ugh!

When we reached our gate, the agent said the door to our flight had been closed. We missed our connection. However, there was another flight to Lanzarote that had been delayed earlier this afternoon and was now leaving in 20 minutes. We talked to a nice man at the Binter Airlines Help Desk who re-booked the four of us onto that flight. Hooray! We were going to make it to Lanzarote tonight after all.

Forty-five minutes later, we were on a plane headed to the Canary Island of Lanzarote. I cannot believe we made it. What a hectic afternoon of traveling.

Smiles all around after we landed in Lanzarote and were on the airline bus headed to the arrivals terminal.

We will be visiting the island of Lanzarote for the next eight days, so Andi rented us a car to use while we’re here. From the arrivals terminal, the four of us navigated our way to the Hertz Rental Car kiosk inside the airport. At the counter, the Hertz employee informed Andi that he needed an international driver’s license to legally drive a car in Spain; a document he did not have. Nowhere on the rental website did it say we needed an international driver’s license to rent a car here. This was the first we’d heard of it.

Andi was frustrated. It seemed like this travel day was one hiccup after another. The four of us sat down at a table in one of the airport restaurants to re-group. I suggested we take a taxi to our airbnb rental and figure this issue out tomorrow, but Andi was determined to get a rental car now. He applied for an international driver’s license online and paid $30 to expedite the document. The online website kept stalling, so it took several tries to complete. Thirty minutes later, he had a PDF copy of his international driver’s license on his phone and was able to rent a car from Hertz.

Once we located our rental car outside the airport, the next task was to buy groceries. Right about now, I was missing all the hotels we stayed at in Morocco who served us such delicious food without us being in charge! Andi and I worked together to navigate our rental car to a grocery store in the neighborhood of our airbnb. It’s not easy arriving to a new city in the dark having zero idea where we are, or how the traffic flows. But, we found it and parked our rental car in the supermercado parking lot.

This was a nice grocery store with lots of fresh and packaged food options. We each picked out something we wanted to eat for dinner, and grabbed other groceries like noodles, spaghetti sauce, cereal, milk, fruit, yogurt, and bread.

Can you imagine putting one of these animal legs in your grocery cart and carrying it home?

Andi rented us a really nice house across the street from Playa Honda between the towns of Arrecife and Puerto del Carmen. It was dark outside when we arrived there, but we could hear the sounds of the ocean waves hitting the beach within steps of our front door.

This airbnb has three bedrooms, one bathroom, a kitchen and a living room. Tory and Aden are thrilled to each have their own bedrooms! As convenient as it was to stay in hotels and have meals prepared for us, I think it’ll be nice to have our own house this week and be able to eat whatever and whenever we like.