This was sadly our last day in Morocco. Originally our tour ended in Marrakech but Mohamed had agreed on a business basis to drive us the 250 kilometer trip to Casablanca where we would fly out later in the day to Rome. Our Alitalia flight would land us in Rome later than we had wanted to but with the cancellation of our Tunis Air flight, we had no option other than to re-book with another airline. At least our flights were confirmed!

Our first task for the day however was to find the FedEx office in Marrakech so that we could deposit our fossils for their freight to Australia. It seemed like a bit of a grind - and more so for Mohamed - but on the bright side we did get to see more of Marrakech. Umm, well - in fact a hell of a lot more....

It was not a great start. Mohammed arrived at our riad sick with a heavy cold and like us, had no idea where to find the FedEx office. Our drive took us through the main streets of Marrakech with views to the enormous 77 meter spire of the famous Koutoubia Mosque, the largest mosque in Morocco. The city was again frenetic with huge traffic jams and what seemed like literally thousands of tourists flooding the already congested streets. To add the the chaos, the traffic was further disrupted by the many horse drawn tourist carriages and poor little ponies and donkeys carting produce to the markets.

To our dismay we passed a number of fast food outlets such as KFC, McDonalds and Pizza Hut and other American chain food outlets such as Starbucks. Alan commented sarcastically that it was a wonder there were no McTagines. Where was our much sought after exotic and romantic Marrakech?

We finally found the FedEx address, only to find the office had moved to another premises and no-one was sure where it was. After a lot of phone calls to our fossil selling agent in Erfoud, Mohamed was finally on the right track. We would not have blamed him in the least if he become fed up with the exercise as after all, it was all for our private purchase. But he was amazingly good natured about it all and spent no end of trouble in finding the place.

I sat in the car waiting outside the FedEx office while Mohamed and Alan organised the freight. Over an hour later they emerged looking exhausted. Apparently the staff could not calculate the amount it would cost to freight it to Australia. Mohamed told us later that it had cost the staggering sum of in excess of AU $400 - which fortunately had been included in our purchase price.

Our trip to Casablanca was on a good highway and surprisingly fast. The countryside was mostly rural with the occasional village and light industrial area. Yellow plots of harvested cereal crops enclosed in Prickly Pear hedges, flocks of sheep and goats, pistachio orchards, olive groves and the ubiquitous bee hives flanked steep rock encrusted hills. The blur of small villages crammed with red and ochre cement block buildings were just forgotten abstract paintings as we sped toward Casablanca.

Mohamed was good at picking eating places. We stopped for lunch at a road house which also included an outside garden area. To our delight we were able to buy some sandwiches - it is amazing what you miss when you are away from home. Our sandwiches were very short lived however as a mother cat and her kittens immediately descended on us. We are truly hopeless animal tragics although she and her kittens looked in good condition, needless to say they got the "lions share" of our lunch.

Our farewell to Mohamed in the car park of Casablanca Mohamed V International Airport was predictably short and sharp. It always is with any guide and I am continually astounded how such a rapidly formed and intense, but short relationship can end so abruptly. Mohamed looked embarrassed with our thanks. And we truly wished him well. Although he had very much been his own person, Mohamed was able to provide us with a wonderful tour, especially to the remote parts of the Moroccan Sahara which he so dearly loved and about which he was so knowledgeable. It is not every tour that we have found a destination that is so special, it is almost spiritual. We had found such special havens in northern Pakistan and far west China - and now we had found them at Merzouga and Ouzina in Morocco. These were unique and fabulous destinations and ones we would never have had a chance of finding ourselves.


We arrived early at Casablanca Airport and had plenty of time to sit and relax in the the Alitalia Business Lounge. We are always surprised with the vastly different standards of business lounges in airports throughout the world. To our amazement we have often found some of the best lounges in the least likely places. The much maligned Pakistan International Airlines (aka Pakistan In'Shallah Airlines) in Dubai and the China Eastern Airlines Lounge in Delhi were some of the more memorably fine lounges. Others have been woeful.

The Alitalia lounge in the Casablanca Mohamed V International Airport was in the latter category. There was nothing much to eat at all other than the three half bitten, sad looking pastries and a few dry sticky cakes. A waiter sitting watching the television and chomping the last of the cakes, was quite huffy when we asked him if he had any tonic water and replied with a curt "No!". Alan shook his head saying that his gin with orange juice was drinkable but only just...

While sitting in the lounge, I noticed that Alan's shoe had something stuck to the sole. On examination it was the most fascinating thorn covered seed pod we had ever seen. And we had seen some beauties during our travels in the deserts of Tibet. Perfectly suited for embedding itself into whatever foot, shoe or hoof it came into contact with, the thorny beast was almost impossible to remove from Alan's shoe. It came within inches of making the flight to Rome and was a great example of how noxious weeds can be so readily transported from one country to another.

I had always imagined that Alitalia would have a smart and slick airline. After all, they are a very sophisticated people with a penchant for fine clothing and good food...

Our Alitalia flight attendants however looked like they had been through the wringer. Perhaps they had been on too many shifts? Our Business Class attendant's hair was unusually dirty and unkempt and her clothes looked like they hadn't seen an iron for years. Not that it mattered particularly. We were just surprised. But when it came to service and food, it did matter. Our meal of dried up canneloni was literally inedible and there was no gin - or anything else much to drink either. The attendant, probably trying to cheer us up, poured us a glass each of Limoncello which was unbelievably sickly sweet. We gave up. An enjoyable flight was not meant to be but at least we were on our way to Rome...

We arrived in Rome to be picked up by our hotel driver. The process was friendly, smooth and efficient and in no time we had arrived at our Relais 6 Hotel, on the outskirts of Rome city. We heaved a sigh of relief as we entered our lovely Terrace Apartment room. This was more like it!