Arriving at the Etihad counter I was greated with an enornous queue to check-in, snaking it’s way out of the roped area. One common theme holding up the line was people overpacking and going over the weight limit. One guy must have spent 15 minues repacking his suitcase, staying at the counter so no-one else could use it. In another instance, one woman had to sit on her overstuffed suitcase to get it to close, and that was after removing a heap of cloths!

I had a bad feeling about this flight, but I was pleasently suprised to find Sydney International Airport had finished the renovations since I’d last been here in November, and the airport is actually really good now. Shops and cafes were everywhere, unlike last year when everything was boarded up and there was only one place to get any food or drink. So an overpriced chicken burger later I was up in the air.

To my disappointment, I was seated in the middle seat of three, but as fortune would have it I was siting with some interesting people. To my right was a guy heading to Dublin for a wedding. The thing was it was a suprise, no one knew that he was coming (we did joke about the lack of catering for him). And to my left, a Perth girl who teaches English in Hungary. So we synchronised our toilet routine and it was looking to be a painless flight… until the crying started.

Serveral rows down a kid, maybe two years old, started freaking out. And for the bulk of the 14 hour flight this kid just wailed, and wailed non stop. I’m not even physically sure how any living creature could this. Do babies have special throats that can’t go sore? Lungs with an endless source of air? I’m sure if an adult attempted this you’d loose your voice after the first half hour. But there we had it, wailing for about 12 hours straight meaning little to no sleep for the rest of us.

A sleep deprived zombie state of me entered Abu Dhabi airport and waited 3 hours for the connecting flight to Casabalanca, which gernally involved walking around so I wouldn’t fall asleep and miss the flight. When we boarded the flight I became acutely aware of how many children where in the same section as me. I couldn’t happen again, right? Right?

Then the wailing began. This time, just to make it more interesting, there were two. Once one of these little shits started wailing, the one a few rows back would answer the sirens call and join in. The big difference to the other flight was this time around the parents were telling them off for crying and telling them to stop. Which would work for a while, then their voice engines would spark up again and the choir of hell would belt out their next track.

So of the 6 hour flight, I’d say they only cried half the time. But there were two of them, so I guess that’s mathematically worse. We did manage to make the flight 1.5 hours early, there was that as a silver lining I suppose.

The passport control line at Casablanca was crazy long. Then part the way through waiting, in the closed off citizen passport control section, the yelling began. And it got louder and louder. These guys were bellowing at each other, I could hear staplers angrily being stamped into action. They must have been at it for a good 20mins (time stood still waiting in this line). Evenually two men came out the other side with their bags and passports. I have no idea what was going on, but I can say for certain I’ve never heard two (or was it three?) people yell at each like that before (and at border control no less!). But I would soon get the feeling this would be the norm in Morocco.

So now we come to the second display their toursim board would frown upon. Leaving the airport I headed to the taxi rank. Here there was more yelling. Two men were yelling at each other in some heated arguement. As I approached I was pointed to the next taxi in the rank and, of course, it’s owned by one of the guys that was in the yelling match. Oh lucky me. 

I get in, show him the address and we go to leave, but he doesn’t leave straight away. Stopping the Mercades, he sticks his head out the window and starts yelling at the other guy again. The other guy just turns his back and says nothing. My driver tries a few times more with no acknowledgment, so he pulls his head in and we take off down the road.

As we sped down the road towards Casablanca at 130/kmh (I looked at the speedo), he turns to me with a big smile – “Bonjour!”

Welcome to Morocco.