DESTINATION – LISBON

WEATHER: A pleasant 30C Marrakech – A pleasant 29C in Lisbon

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Getting my backpack through another check-in

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Saying good-bye to my roomy

BUYS OF THE DAY: Spending my very last dirhams on my god-daughters at the airport

WORD OF THE DAY: Shookerun for the last time

It’s time to leave Morocco. 

I was piggy backing on Susan’s transfer this morning.  I hadn’t booked one as it was cheaper to catch a taxi, but as Susan and I are now on the same flight from Marrakech to Lisbon, I thought I would try my luck going with her, hoping the car, or whatever they were picking her up in was also going to be big enough for me.  So you can imagine my elation when a 15 seater van pulled up out the front of the hotel.  We acted cool as cucumbers and the driver didn’t even bat an eye lid.  So I now owed Susan some money to help pay – no ride is truly free.  We got picked up at 9am for the 20 minute drive to the airport.  Marrakech airport looks quite new and is certainly more modern that what I expected.  We got to the airport 3 hours early, so our check-in counter wasn’t open yet, so we did some last minute shopping to spend our last dirhams and I have to say the airport prices for the souvenirs seemed quite reasonable.  We then pulled up some chairs and killed some time reading.  I bought one more pre-paid credit for my Moroccan number and shot out some last minute messages before leaving Africa.

Check-in opened and it was time to run the gauntlet again with the weight of my bag.  TAP only permit you to have 20kg, but I was secretly daring them to pull me up so I could let them know I was one of the people they cancelled yesterday, but to my delight anyway my bag was placed on the scales and it came in at 21.6KG!!!  I have also forgone the smaller backpack that zips onto the front of the big one, as the zip broke last week, so I guess this has also helped in the weight department.  I literally cannot squeeze another thing in that bag, so I am confident now more than ever that I am going to be around that weight from now on.  Add that to having no side bag now, I feel like a traveller with a weight lifted, literally.  It feels so liberating now only having the 2 bags; and it did have to take this long so I knew what I would and wouldn’t need.  The check-in chick seemed a little green, she had to ask her counterpart several times about what she was doing, so Susan and I made it quite clear that I was stopping in Lisbon and she was continuing through to Paris.  The bags were tagged right, so she got there in the end.  I’m not saying anything, as she let my bag through. 

We had to fill in a departure card before we even got to the screening process.  Not sure why they need that when we filled in the same card as we arrived into Casablanca, maybe they match them up somehow, oh well who are we to argue with the system.  We got through the first security check point with the wave of a hand – not sure the purpose of that one to get us to the next screen check.  We got a pretty good pat down (and I am talking of the boob and wawa variety- I was most shocked as I wasn’t expecting it) and then my handbag got the third degree check.  From fanning my diary and my book, to opening my purse and my travel wallet, looking inside my iPod wallet and checking all my pockets in my bag!!  They weren’t as thorough with Susan, so I either looked dodgy or I was the random check person!  Either way, I made it through after they also checked my backpack briefly as well – maybe I did look shifty?  Immigration was a breeze and we passed through to the other side.       

Once we got our gate, we stood in line to show our boarding passes and they had 2 staff members checking the size of all the hand luggage going through.  Susan was a bit panicked as she had one of those stripy bags filled with all her breakables in it plus her backpack.  The lady, as we went through got distracted, so we squeezed through thinking how smart we were to have given them the slip. Well it was a bus transfer to the plane and as we sat in the bus, waiting for the other passengers, the 2 staff members came on the bus to double check all the hand luggage again.  I am starting to get the picture that we are possibly getting onto a small plane.  Well we had nowhere to run this time and Susan got nabbed and her bag had to go under the plane but it was going to be a gate collection, so it wasn’t going to hit the conveyor belt.  We wrote all over the tag that it was fragile and when we got dropped at the plane, they then took those bags to store them.  We could finally see what all the fuss was about, as it was an Embraer 145 which in layman terms means a jet.  It was pretty cool, I felt a bit like a rock star!  The seating configuration is 1 x 2 seats and there were only overhead lockers on the 2 seater side.  My backpack fit in just, but I would hate to think if I had of had my side bag, where the hell that would have gone!  The flight was only 1 hour and 20 minutes and we got served a Hagan Daz ice cream and I was able to catch up on some journal entries, as they had gone down the wayside during the last week.  As long as the journal or the blog is up to date I can work out the other.  Susan and I weren’t seated together, I was in 7A and she was in 17A, so once we landed, and Susan got her ‘breakable’ bag back, we got bussed to Lisbon’s terminal.  This is where we said our goodbyes, as this was where I was stopping and Susan was a transit passenger, but then I saw her again after about 5 minutes and she joined my queue for immigration.  Even if you are a transit passenger through Lisbon, if you are not travelling on a connecting TAP flight you have to go through immigration and re-check in with the new airline you are travelling with.  What a pain!!!  But the good news for Susan was her bag was checked all the way through – so hopefully she made her connection on time with Air France.  Gonna miss you buddy!!!

The good thing of waiting in an immigration queue is that by the time you come out your bags are generally on the baggage carousel waiting for you.  This was the case here; so I grabbed a free trolley and headed out into the throng of waiting people.  I was unable to print a copy of my Lisbon vouchers as I had the last minute changes and printers were a little hard to come by in Marrakech, so I had them downloaded on my iPod to get all the information and hoped that I wasn’t asked for them.  I didn’t need the new e-ticket for the flight, but I hate not having some form of printout as I have always travelled with vouchers.  I made my pick-up time for 2.30pm, so I had 20 minutes to wait, and my instructions were to stand near the information desks.  I did this till 2.40pm and I was thinking of calling them when I saw a guy in a suit with a sign that had my name on it.  Thank goodness.  I got a Mercedes transfer all to myself for the 20 minute drive to my hotel, it was like a chauffeur drive and I felt pretty important again for the second time that day.  The driver did ask for my voucher, but he didn’t seem to upset when I told him I didn’t have a copy of it – so that’s 2 out of 2 okay without vouchers.

My hotel the Aviz, has recently been renovated and is a classic hotel that once had guests such as Frank Sinatra, Maria Callas and Ava Gardner.  It was especially popular from the 1930’s through to the 1960’s.  It is a quaint hotel and will do me superbly for my 3 nights in Lisbon.  Once I had checked in, ( no voucher required, that’s 3 out of 3) I collected a map, got directions to the city, asked about Wi-Fi and food options, I dropped my bag to my room and headed straight out to have a look around.  The city of Lisbon looks pretty amazing, with tree lined streets, lots of flower beds and beautiful buildings, the sun high in the sky and the temperature 15C cooler than what I am used to it was a lovely afternoon to go for a stroll.  It took me around 20 minutes to walk to the main pedestrian street, where my first port of call was to get my UK sim card topped up, as I have lost my Aussie sim card somewhere and my Moroc one won’t going to last too long now being out of the country.  So I found the Vodafone store and there system was down to top up credits for other countries, so I purchased a Portugal sim card, which is free, and put 10EUR on it and got an additional 5EUR for free!!  So my number has changed again till my credit runs out and is +00351 91 644 0550 and then back on the UK number next week and then I guess I will be buying an African sim for my 3 months there, but I will need to check what the best options will be for that when I get to London.

I spent the next 3 hours walking around the beautiful city, before getting back to the hotel at 7pm and then chillaxing, blogging and uploading pictures.  I am happy to say I have one more folder left from Morocco to upload and then the fun starts all again for Portugal. 

I have a full day tour booked tomorrow that goes for 10.5 hours, so that is a massive day and I get out of the city to Fatima, Obidos, Nazare, Batalha and Alcobac.  So no time like the present, especially when I am now a day shorter here, due to the flight cancellation.

So welcome back to Europe for the next 11 nights.  It is good to be back.

Oh I forgot to tell you – my knee has improved no end and my massive scab fell of 2 days ago and it has been the first time I have been able to bend my knee in nearly 3 weeks with no pain.  I am going to have a massive scar there though and at the moment it is itchy as hell.  My elbow has also healed nicely and so has my bruise on my other leg.  The only thing giving me some grief is my toe, which has a blood blister under the nail, but this is nothing compared to everything else in the big scheme of things.  So I am just about all mended from my Greek escapades…….