What Really Happened

Help! I am locked in a riad in Marrakech. My phone blew up in Madrid on the morning we left for Morocco. We were expecting a taxi to take us to the airport from our Airbnb at 7:30 and my sister set an alarm to wake us up. Something made me sit up in bed and go check my phone at around 5 AM. My phone was so hot, it burned my hand and the charging block was smoking. I unplugged the cord and put the phone in the refrigerator for a minute or two because I thought it was hot enough to explode. It was apparent that my phone shorted and was most decidedly dead. I was about to travel to a third world country without a phone and without a camera to take photos for my blog. I pride myself in taking my own photos for my travel blog and was so looking forward to photographing Marrakech.

Needless to say, I was a bit crazed. I was also sneezing. A lot.

The Madrid airport is humungous and with less than an hour to spare before our flight to Morocco, I found a phone store and bought the least expensive smart phone they sold, along with a sim card for $145. I am not going to lie. I don’t know the difference between WiFi and the internet, let alone what to do with a sim card. I would have to figure it out when we landed in Morocco.

In the meantime my sister Vicki realized that the taxi driver neglected to give her one of the bags that was put in the trunk of his cab. Ironically she packed three pair of sandals, an IPad and a full change of clothes in a bag she brought just in case her larger suitcase went missing. While she chased the cab down (to no avail) I was busy buying a phone. We said we’d meet at the Iberian gate. We had 45 minutes to spare and no communication. We both barely made it to plane but were glad to find one another just in the nick of time. We were being picked up at the airport in Morocco and did not want to miss our transport.

By the time we arrived in Marakkech, I was not feeling well and took a Covid test which was negative, though all of the symptoms I was experiencing felt like the ones I had the one time I did test positive for the virus. I wore a mask from Florida to Newark, Newark to Madrid and Madrid to Morocco. I swear I was the only one on all those flights wearing a mask. I was spraying my hands with lavender hand sanitizer every five minutes. I had the latest vaccine. What the hell?

I tested positive on Day two in Morocco. I had to stay in the riad. Alone.

It’s a good thing my room was like a Jeannie in a bottle

The girls were visiting a saffron farm in the morning and then onto the Anima Sculpture Garden in the afternoon and some fabulous place for dinner. When they arrived home that night, they pooled together whatever food they had in their rooms and I ate a yogurt with pumpkin seeds and a banana for dinner. They said the restaurant didn’t allow “take away.” I was not happy.

The next day, everyone was going deep into the souk to shop. Thank goodness I brought a novel to read and purposefully read it slowly because there was not much else to do. The riad had a library and I was thrilled to find a recent copy of Vanity Fair magazine only to discover it was written in French.

That night everyone went to another riad for a Tagine cooking lesson, which I hated to miss. I finished my novel and patiently waited for the girls to come back with some of their tagine. By 10 PM, I was too tired to stay awake any longer and missed another delicious meal. Sigh…

The phone I bought was called a Redmi phone, a cheap Chinese version of an Android. I managed to bring up Whatsapp, allowing me to keep in touch with my partner Patrick, my son Scott and my brother and his wife who were in Portugal.

I could not go on Facebook, check my email or see my bank account information. The phone fell three inches to the ground and the screen turned fuzzy. I took pictures with it anyway, pointing and shooting and hoping for the best. If I simply opened the phone it would dial either Scott or Patrick numerous times. It was very frustrating, especially since we were in a different time zone and they worried that I was trying to reach them.

I had plans to meet up with my friend’s daughter who lives in Madrid on our way home. I had no way to contact her since all of her information was on the phone that blew up. She also sent me recommendations for restaurants and places to visit in Madrid, which I could not access. I knew she and her mom would be wondering why they did not hear from me. There was not much I could do and I felt terrible about it.

I wrote the above under the pure frustration at having to isolate from the women with whom I was traveling and from our lovely hosts at the riad. I dined at a table for one with glass between me and the others. (Naturally they did not want to get sick on this extraordinary journey.)

Poor Vicki had slept right next to me in Madrid and then sat next to me on the plane to Morocco. The only other time I had Covid, I had traveled through Morocco and brought it home to her and to the rest of my family!

Day three I willed myself better. I took a Covid test and it was negative. I wore an N-95 mask and wrapped a scarf around my head. I was ready to shop in the souks. By the time I got back to the riad, I was sweating, my heart was beating fast and I had to get back in my bed. I was able to get some beautiful photos and buy a few souvenirs though, so I was happy. I hope I did not spread the virus to anyone.

I was feeling a tad guilty because I was in Morocco on my son’s 45th birthday. Granted, he is not a child, but he was in Florida alone with no one to celebrate. He called me to tell me that his father’s wife had passed away. On his birthday. Yikes. I wondered what else could go wrong. I couldn’t even call his father to offer my support.

By Day five, my sister was not feeling well and tested positive for Covid. She did not have the vaccine and her symptoms were much worse than mine. She was determined to buy a lamp for the foyer of her new apartment. I’ll be damned if she didn’t brave the souks to get one. Turns out, if someone is wearing a mask, it’s probably because they are sick. A word to the wise.

Vicki and I flew back to Madrid after 8 days in Morocco. We were cold and we were tired. It was much colder in Spain than Morocco and we did not have enough warm clothes. When we arrived at the Airbnb we were told that our booking was cancelled because of non-payment. I thought it would be automatically paid for but I was wrong. If my phone worked, I would have been notified.

We were tired, sick and needed a place to stay.

We were in the lobby trying to figure out where to go and were surrounded by the heads of dead animals. It was unnerving. We paid 30 Euro to get from the airport to the “hostel” and now we weren’t sure where to go. It was cold and raining on top of everything else.

Apparently hotel rooms are scarce in Madrid. We ended up in a shoe-box sized room elsewhere for $135 Euros. It had two twin sized beds and a clean shower. Vicki moaned in her sleep and woke up at one point and said she could not breathe. Luckily she survived the night. I put her in a taxi to get to the airport in the morning. She was leaving for home five days before me.

The best meal I had in Madrid was in a bar outside of the room where Vicki and I stayed on her last night in Madrid. We walked in the cold rain a short distance from our room into a local spot recommended by our host. We were greeted by a very nice man who could not have treated us better. He suggested a dish of roasted peppers, Spanish omelette and meatballs in red sauce. A strange combination, but he insisted we would like it. It hit the spot and kept us warm. There was a couple from San Francisco sitting near us who offered us Sangria that the waiter made table side. It was delicious. Neither my sister nor I drink much and it went right to our heads.

I decided to spend some more time in Spain and met up with Patrick at the airport and we headed to a hotel on the outskirts of Madrid in a neighborhood called Mostoles. I wondered if it was possible for me to pass on the virus to Patrick simply by being in close proximity to my sister. I didn’t have to wonder long because he came down with a fever after two days. He too had the vaccine and recovered quickly. This time we locked ourselves in our hotel room for three days. The neighborhood we were staying in was residential with plenty of grocery stores and restaurants. We were a bit taken aback when we found out the restaurants opened at 8:30 PM. We are usually getting for bed around then and had to adjust to eating later. It made me feel so… American.

I lit a candle for Diane Schabel in this little church in Mostoles

We took a train into town and found a beautiful park

This guy made us custom leather bags for $35. Look how happy everyone is. Except Vicki up on the balcony because she was sick.

Sometimes you get to a point when you just want to be home in your own bed. That was me after five days in Madrid.

When I fly internationally I try to fly into Newark and spend a few days with my family. This time I flew straight back to Florida and was never more glad to walk through my front door. It was a long strange trip.

Would I do it again? Probably. I really liked Marrakesh. And traveling with my sister is always an adventure.

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They’re Taking Me To Marrakesh!

TRAVEL WITH RASTAJULE