Last days in Morocco

8–9 December: Casablanca
Our time at the Gite Nadia, on the outskirts of Casablanca, was spent relaxing, catching up on emails, getting washing done, having warm showers, eating regular meals, chatting to Jacques-o the parrot, and a couple of rounds of mini-golf. The weather was nice and sunny, and generally processing our time during our Intrepid tour of Morocco. It will take some time to fully take in everything we've seen and done, sometimes it has been a stretch to remember exactly what we saw or experienced where, when and how …
   On our last morning, the owner of the hotel drove us to the airport, via a back way, passing a huge property, a palace owned by a Saudi king - or something like that - didn't take us long to get to the airport. Checked our bags in, went thru all the formalities, waited, found a "fast food" court where there were heaps of smokers in the designated no smoking hall - which really pisses me off - had a bite to eat, then time to board the plane bound for Cairo. An Egypt Air flight, 3678 km, about 5.5 hours. Watched "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 2". We arrived on time, just before 9pm, but it seemed to take forever to taxi somewhere, it didn't stop at a gate but on the tarmac, and we had to board a bus to take us to the terminal, and people were being painfully slow boarding the bus, it was excruciating - we had a 35 minute turnover time and we were fast running out of that time!
   Finally arrived at the terminal, and we had to rush to find our departure gate, a long, fast walk to gate F9, and when we reached it, c5 mins after the flight was supposed to depart, saw that the gate was closed, asked a couple of uniformed guys if the flight had left, they said it was now departing from gate G3, so had to rush back to where we started and rush about the same long distance to G3, and we managed to get on the plane, all hot and sweaty and exhausted and I was especially irritated by all of this shemozzle! Bloody Egypt Air, and Sheryl was also worried our baggage wouldn't make it to Nairobi!
As it was, the plane sat for c15 mins after we'd arrived, so we cooled down and caught our breath. We were seated right at the back end of the plane, next to the crew kitchen and toilets area. This flight was almost the same distance as the one to Cairo, 3546 km, 5 hours duration. Were served a supper and eventually got to watch "Rise of the Planet of the Apes", and tried to get some sleep, but was very difficult as the seats wouldn't recline as much as all the others would, and people walking past us to and fro the toilet and galley, talking, etc. Tried to catch 40 winks, and wondered how we'd get on in Nairobi. Stay tuned …