Wednesday, February 18th, 2009: Rabat, Casablanca, and the Trip Home

Wednesday morning we left Rabat at 7 am on our way to Casa. Our plan was to catch a half-hour tour of the Hassan II Mosque at 9:30 before our flight at 12:30. We made the mosque tour after the hour-long train ride, but not all of us would end up making the flight. The tour, my first time in a mosque, was excellent. In mosques you cannot wear shoes but are given booties similar to those provide by TSA at airport security checkpoints. It took six years of work, day and night, for the building to be completed. It was made almost exclusively from Moroccan materials. For a more complete review than I could possibly provide, see the wikipedia entry here.

After we left the mosque, things got interesting. First, we couldn't find a cab large enough to take us to the airport. In Casa there are white cabs and red, "petit" cabs. The petit cabs can only operate within city limits and unfortunately for us, the large white cabs do not drive by the mosque. After waiting for several minutes, we decided to take cabs to the train station where we know white cabs look for fares. Since the five of us could not fit in one petit cab with all of our luggage, we split up.

Sean, Dan, and Andrew got in the first cab while Patrick and I got in a second cab which arrived several minutes later. When Pat and I arrived at the train station, the other three were not there. We waited for over five minutes, figured they had already left and got in a white cab. At this point it was around 10:40. On the way to the airport I checked the flight status using my blackberry, only to discover the flight was at 12:05, not 12:30.

Patrick and I arrived at 11:15, got checked in and through security. It turns out our compadres had somehow arrived at the train station after we did, had briefly waited and then departed. They arrived at the airport at 11:30 and were not allowed to check in by the Iberia air staff, despite the flight's posted delay of half an hour. They had to wait in Casablanca two days before catching another flight. The fee they had to pay, 125 euros, was more than we paid for our entire tickets. Bummer city.