Driving back to Casablanca the quickest way meant driving about half way back to Marrakech to get onto the Agadir to Casablanca motorway. However, since much of that section of the Essaouira-Marrakech road is dual carriageway, it's still a pretty easy drive. We noted that about an hour out of Essaouira we saw the same argon tree with possibly the same four goats in it. (See previous post).
Once on the motorway it was a very easy drive all the way to the outskirts of Casablanca, with just a stop at a road house at lunch time to refuel the car and ourselves. Coming off the motorway was when we had to pay for the privilege of using it - and the bill was 96 dirhams ($14.20). Then it was just a fairly straightforward drive in through the outskirts of the city to our hotel to drop off our luggage before returning the car, stopping to top up with fuel along the way.
Or what we thought was our hotel. It turned out that when we checked out of the Atlas after out first night in Morocco and asked if we could book again for tonight and were told 'Yes', the chappy literally just meant that we could - not that he would or did. And now they were fully booked with no room for us. They did at least suggest we try the Basma which was only a block further up the road, so we drove on to that to try our luck. They did have a room but there was good news and bad news. The good news was that (unlike at the Atlas) breakfast was included. The bad news was that it was AU$161 for the night. But we were in no position to mess about because we had to get the car back and couldn't afford to waste more time shopping around. So we quickly checked in, dropped our luggage in our room and drove on to return the car.
It only took us about five minutes to reach the Hertz office and we decided to say nothing about the flat tyre we had replaced, and they didn't notice that the spare was new. They also didn't notice the unidentified (to me) bit of plastic that was hanging loose under the car near the back of the passenger's door. And since we hadn't done any other other damage to the car we received a clean bill of health. Well, almost. They then brought up the matter of a cleaning fee, something that I had seen mentioned in blogs about the nefarious practices of Moroccan car hire firms. I was all set to refuse this when he was able to demonstrate that the fine print of their hire contract now does specify that a car must be returned "in the same state of cleanliness" as when it was hired, and if it isn't a cleaning fee of 1,500 dirhams (AU$222) will be charged. It is standard practice to have to return a car with a full tank of fuel to match what you started with, but having now hired a car 12 times in 9 different countries around the world (plus lots of times in Australia) this is the first time I have ever heard of having to return a car as clean as when you started - and wanting to charge $222 to wash a car if you don't! I am still gobsmacked that it is legal for them to do that.
Anyway they did give us an alternative. If we could get it washed and back to them by the 5:00pm deadline they would wave the cleaning fee. So with more of less good directions to the nearest car wash we set off at 4:10pm in the crazy peak hour traffic with the clock running. The car wash was about 4-5 kms away and fortunately we actually found it. I think the guy who did the washing was looking to knock off for the day but the ever persuasive Laura was able to get his boss to agree to take on the job, for 30 dirhams. However with the clock still ticking we were anxious that they get started ASAP and also that they didn't worry about things like waxing or detailing. As long as all the dust was washed off and the car given a quick vacuum that was all we needed. In the end we gave the washing guy a 20 dirham tip for being quick when he hadn't wanted to do the job. However we now had only 15 minutes to get back, and with some of the streets on our route to the Hertz office being one-way we couldn't just return the way we'd come. In the end, despite an enforced detour and the crazy traffic we managed it with less than a minute to spare, so we were all good.
With that all sorted we decided to tackle a couple of other issues in preparation for tomorrow. The Royal Air Maroc office was close by so we went to see if we could confirm that our flight was still on schedule. We had to take a number, #69, when the current number being served was #53. Since the queue didn't seem to be moving all that quickly Laura waited for our number to come up while I dashed up to the train station to check on the times for trains to the airport in the morning. By the time I made it back to the RAM office nearly half an hour later they had only advanced to #57 so we decided to head back to our hotel and try the online check-in.
That idea didn't work out so well. All attempts to do the online check-in resulted in the message "Unable to retrieve booking", which was seriously worrying since we had booked this flight online and not through an agent. Thus we dashed back to the RAM office to find out if there was something wrong. Only to find that they were now shut. However we could still see some staff inside and after knocking on a side door and explaining our problem they kindly let us in and four staff combined to check our booking. Thankfully we were told that our booking was all in order - it turned out that although we had booked with RAM it was a code share flight and Egypt Air was the actual carrier for this leg. The helpfulness of the RAM staff reinforced our previous experiences that Moroccans are lovely helpful people.
Feeling relieved we decided to continue on to the train station and get tickets for tomorrow's 9:08am train to the airport. There was no longer a queue as there had been when I was checking the timetable earlier so the tickets were secured in no time at all.
As we were out already we decided to do the walk to the big mosque that we had planned to do anyway, and since we were starting from the train station we would be able to have a look at the "Rick's Cafe" which had been purposely fitted out the represent the cafe in that famous Humphrey Bogart movie. We didn't actually go in though as the food and drink menu posted out the front confirmed that the prices had moved on from 1941. When we reached the mosque we were surprised to find that there were guys still swimming off the breakwater. After a stroll around the mosque in twilight we set off to retrace the walk through the night markets that we had done on our first night in Casablanca 16 days ago. We managed it mostly right but we were feeling pretty tired by the time we made it back to our hotel. I ended up getting us some eats from the little supermarket around the corner.
Despite it being the most expensive place we stayed in during our time in Morocco, the Basma Hotel provided our worst night's sleep. As well as the street noise to contend with, the bed came with only a bottom sheet and a doona that would have needed a super cooled air conditioner to have not resulted in making you cook under it. There were no blankets to use as an alternative. It's just as well that the hotel at least included a good buffet breakfast to partially compensate.
By now we were quite accustomed to the walk to the Port Station so making the 9:08 train was no problem. Still no air-con of course and the train filled up at a station 15 minutes out from Port. Although scheduled to take just over an hour there was a 10-15 minute delay while we waited for some "track maintenance" to be completed. Once at the airport, check-in was over quickly and even after a cappuccino and the usual immigration and security check formalities we still had time to hunt - unsuccessfully - for something in duty free to spend our remaining dirhams on. (The duty free stores only took hard currencies). We ended up having some fruit salad instead.
The good thing though was that our flight pulled back from the boarding gate right on time at 1:00pm as we bid farewell to Morocco after 16 wonderful days.
Once on the motorway it was a very easy drive all the way to the outskirts of Casablanca, with just a stop at a road house at lunch time to refuel the car and ourselves. Coming off the motorway was when we had to pay for the privilege of using it - and the bill was 96 dirhams ($14.20). Then it was just a fairly straightforward drive in through the outskirts of the city to our hotel to drop off our luggage before returning the car, stopping to top up with fuel along the way.
Or what we thought was our hotel. It turned out that when we checked out of the Atlas after out first night in Morocco and asked if we could book again for tonight and were told 'Yes', the chappy literally just meant that we could - not that he would or did. And now they were fully booked with no room for us. They did at least suggest we try the Basma which was only a block further up the road, so we drove on to that to try our luck. They did have a room but there was good news and bad news. The good news was that (unlike at the Atlas) breakfast was included. The bad news was that it was AU$161 for the night. But we were in no position to mess about because we had to get the car back and couldn't afford to waste more time shopping around. So we quickly checked in, dropped our luggage in our room and drove on to return the car.
It only took us about five minutes to reach the Hertz office and we decided to say nothing about the flat tyre we had replaced, and they didn't notice that the spare was new. They also didn't notice the unidentified (to me) bit of plastic that was hanging loose under the car near the back of the passenger's door. And since we hadn't done any other other damage to the car we received a clean bill of health. Well, almost. They then brought up the matter of a cleaning fee, something that I had seen mentioned in blogs about the nefarious practices of Moroccan car hire firms. I was all set to refuse this when he was able to demonstrate that the fine print of their hire contract now does specify that a car must be returned "in the same state of cleanliness" as when it was hired, and if it isn't a cleaning fee of 1,500 dirhams (AU$222) will be charged. It is standard practice to have to return a car with a full tank of fuel to match what you started with, but having now hired a car 12 times in 9 different countries around the world (plus lots of times in Australia) this is the first time I have ever heard of having to return a car as clean as when you started - and wanting to charge $222 to wash a car if you don't! I am still gobsmacked that it is legal for them to do that.
Anyway they did give us an alternative. If we could get it washed and back to them by the 5:00pm deadline they would wave the cleaning fee. So with more of less good directions to the nearest car wash we set off at 4:10pm in the crazy peak hour traffic with the clock running. The car wash was about 4-5 kms away and fortunately we actually found it. I think the guy who did the washing was looking to knock off for the day but the ever persuasive Laura was able to get his boss to agree to take on the job, for 30 dirhams. However with the clock still ticking we were anxious that they get started ASAP and also that they didn't worry about things like waxing or detailing. As long as all the dust was washed off and the car given a quick vacuum that was all we needed. In the end we gave the washing guy a 20 dirham tip for being quick when he hadn't wanted to do the job. However we now had only 15 minutes to get back, and with some of the streets on our route to the Hertz office being one-way we couldn't just return the way we'd come. In the end, despite an enforced detour and the crazy traffic we managed it with less than a minute to spare, so we were all good.
With that all sorted we decided to tackle a couple of other issues in preparation for tomorrow. The Royal Air Maroc office was close by so we went to see if we could confirm that our flight was still on schedule. We had to take a number, #69, when the current number being served was #53. Since the queue didn't seem to be moving all that quickly Laura waited for our number to come up while I dashed up to the train station to check on the times for trains to the airport in the morning. By the time I made it back to the RAM office nearly half an hour later they had only advanced to #57 so we decided to head back to our hotel and try the online check-in.
That idea didn't work out so well. All attempts to do the online check-in resulted in the message "Unable to retrieve booking", which was seriously worrying since we had booked this flight online and not through an agent. Thus we dashed back to the RAM office to find out if there was something wrong. Only to find that they were now shut. However we could still see some staff inside and after knocking on a side door and explaining our problem they kindly let us in and four staff combined to check our booking. Thankfully we were told that our booking was all in order - it turned out that although we had booked with RAM it was a code share flight and Egypt Air was the actual carrier for this leg. The helpfulness of the RAM staff reinforced our previous experiences that Moroccans are lovely helpful people.
Feeling relieved we decided to continue on to the train station and get tickets for tomorrow's 9:08am train to the airport. There was no longer a queue as there had been when I was checking the timetable earlier so the tickets were secured in no time at all.
 |
| The mosque by night. |
 |
| Rick's Cafe. |
Despite it being the most expensive place we stayed in during our time in Morocco, the Basma Hotel provided our worst night's sleep. As well as the street noise to contend with, the bed came with only a bottom sheet and a doona that would have needed a super cooled air conditioner to have not resulted in making you cook under it. There were no blankets to use as an alternative. It's just as well that the hotel at least included a good buffet breakfast to partially compensate.
By now we were quite accustomed to the walk to the Port Station so making the 9:08 train was no problem. Still no air-con of course and the train filled up at a station 15 minutes out from Port. Although scheduled to take just over an hour there was a 10-15 minute delay while we waited for some "track maintenance" to be completed. Once at the airport, check-in was over quickly and even after a cappuccino and the usual immigration and security check formalities we still had time to hunt - unsuccessfully - for something in duty free to spend our remaining dirhams on. (The duty free stores only took hard currencies). We ended up having some fruit salad instead.
The good thing though was that our flight pulled back from the boarding gate right on time at 1:00pm as we bid farewell to Morocco after 16 wonderful days.
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