On the way home!

I started this on the plane yesterday, and now I am home!

And how do I do this? It's now a week later and I've still not finished!

Hmm, I left off with the wonderful day in Essaouira. If you ever get a chance to visit there, go for it! We had an early start the next morning for the drive to Casablanca. This was Saturday, and it was market day in several of the towns we visitied. I would have loved to have stopped for an hour or two, but all I could do was snap some photos from the bus. The road was so crowded that the bus had to inch along.

An amazing thing had happened. Morocco had just had 3 days of rain, and everything turned green and flowers started blooming! There were long stretches of a bright yellow flower that turned out to be Bermuda buttercup. Someone described the color as "highlighter yellow." Unfortunately, it's a non-native species.

Oh, I almost forgot. We watched the movie Casablanca as we drove to Casablanca! It was fun, but the movie has no relationship at all to the city. It was filmed in the studio in California, and the city that was the stopping point for world war 2 refugees was Tangier. We did drive by "Rick's Cafe" in Casablanca, but it doesn't have anything to do with the movie other than the name. It's is a different part of town, it looks totally different on the outside, and I was told that the interior doesn't look like the interior in the movie. Someone definitely cashed in.

When we got to Casablanca, we did a bus tour (that included a drive by of Rick's), visiting an interesting cathedral, walking along the promenade by the shore, and visiting the Hassan II Mosque. The mosque is a recent build, and is the largest mosque in Africa (and the 7th largest in the world). This is the only mosque in Morocco that is open to non-Muslims, but we didn't have tickets or time, so we just photographed from a distance.

Hassan II Mosque

After the bus tour, it was off to the hotel. We had a farewell dinner in the evening, but in the meantime, I had to pack! Since I had a 8 AM flight to Paris (along with about 16 others), I had to be on the bus to the airport at 4:45 AM, which meant packing had to precede dinner, especially if I wanted to enjoy a glass of wine.

Packing was...interesting. I hadn't bought too many gifts/souvenirs, but I did have the damned rocks. Packing got complicated with 40 pounds of fossils. To make a long story short, I decided to put the big ammonite in my carry on bag with a bunch of clothes and check it. The rest of the fossils went in my suitcase. I had bought a bunch of small (cheap) tagines, and I pretty much decided to heck with it, and just tossed them in the suitcase with minimal wrapping and hoped for the best. (They all made it intact, as did the rocks.)

So, here I am with 2 suitcases instead of 1, and one of them probably over the 50 pound limit. Now, if you fly business class on Air France, the weight limit changes to 70 pounds! So, I upgraded my Casablanca-Paris flight to business class for about €250. At least this meant I wouldn't have to pay an overweight bag fee, and as it turned out, it also gave me a second checked bag free! (And my fossil-loving friend reimbursed me for the upgrade fee—it was still less than what shipping would have been, by far!)

I got everything in and locked the cases. I decided I'd just carry a small backpack, and I stuffed just minimal things in it—everything else got checked. I'm very cavalier that way on my return flights. On the way out for a trip, I'm paranoid that I'll get to my destination and not have my camera or a power adapter or something else essential. On the way home? Not so much. I even figured that I wouldn't open the bags till I got home, so I put clean underwear and a toothbrush in my carryon. (Other essentials? iPad, charging cables, 1 camera, meds, and my passport.)

Dinner was nice! I opted for steak, since I hadn't eaten any beef on the trip. We had a nice dinner and made a list of everyone's contact information, and everyone took pictures of the list with their cell phones.

A few friends came to my room and we drank a little more wine before saying goodbye. (Two of them were lucky and didn't have to catch the bus till 8 AM!). All too soon, it was 4 AM and I dragged myself to the bus. The last thing I saw as I got on was the smiling face of our wonderful tour guide, Abdelkader. He was such a lovely man!

Upgrading to business class was fun! I got to skip the big line, found out that I wouldn't have to pay for my second bag, got to go through a very short security line instead of the regular one, and then got breakfast on real dishes! And lots of coffee! Oh, and I finally saw the Eiffel Tower, as I landed in Paris. It's that tiny vertical structure in the second picture. And that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

The airport in Paris was a bit of a pain, as it was a long hike from the first gate and I had to go through security again and there was a long line. But I made it to the gate in good time. The flight to Raleigh was a staggering 9.5 hours, apparently because of headwinds. But they must have let up, because we actually arrived a little early.

In Raleigh, I got to use my Global Entry for the first time. Yep, 60 seconds to re-enter the country! Pretty cool, and no lines! Of course, then I had to wait for my luggage, so I didn't get out of the airport any faster. But it was still cool! My friend Charlie picked me and my heavy bags up, and we headed to dinner. I was feeling fine, but faded during the dinner. Charlie said he could see me start to flag. Then, I totally distinguished myself when we got to the house, by tripping as I got out of Charlie's car and gouging my chin with my own fingernail. I still don't know how I did it, but a week later, it's finally healing.

The next morning, I woke at 4:30 AM. My body said it was still on Morocco time: it was 10:30 AM! I dozed till 6, then had coffee with Charlie. I had to remember how to use my key fob, but it came back to me and I got my car started. I headed back to Virginia, about a 4 hour drive, so not too bad. The dogs were very happy to see me, and I think Jake was too.

Postscript: miscellaneous, future plans, and note to self about packing!

Odds and ends (just a few things about the trip)

Waste. I don't even want to think about the amount of plastic waste our group generated in the 16 days we were on the road. We got 2 bottles of water apiece each day, plus a couple in each hotel room. Just from the water we got on the bus: 25 x 2 x 16 = 800 bottles. If we had an unopened bottle, sometimes one or two of us would decline a bottle, but we used almost all of it! And the hotel water wasn't just for drinking—we had to use it to brush our teeth too.

Money. Using the ATM was easy, but it gave me only large bills. Surprisingly, it was really hard to get smaller bills and change, and that was a pain. I had taken some US cash, and I did use that. I also took a bunch of $1 bills for hotel tips and that worked out great.

Using US dollars. One really curious thing about Morocco is that if you bring US cash to use or exchange, you've got to bring new (date- and condition-wise) or the money exchange will not take them. I think the bills had to be newer tha 2013, and the bills could not have any marks on them, like ink or writing. I had read that in the guide books, and had the Truist bank teller searching through all of her $20 bills to find the most pristine bills in her drawer. (She was very cool about it.) Some members of our group had "old" dollars rejected by an exchange office.)

What's next?

Traveling with this group made me want to go everywhere! They were so well traveled. I think that between them they had been to every country in the world, though I could be wrong. Plus the whole thing is just addictive! I adore seeing new places and trying new things.

My next trip will be domestic. I bought a rooftop tent, a iKamper SkyCamp 3.0 Mini. My next project is to get it on the car and do a couple of overnights to get used to it. Then in April, I'm heading to Texas. I've got a week reservation at Big Bend National Park, right near the Rio Grande. It should be prime birding season there. I'll write more about that trip and the tent soon.

I've told a friend that I'll go back to Iceland with her this summer, probably in July or August. It will be a brief trip, probably 5 days, and we are currently discussing details.

My next international venture is up in the air, but I'm pretty sure that I'm going to Bhutan and Nepal in September, again with Gate 1. My friends Steven and Ken from the Morocco trip are doing the Nepal one, and I asked if they minded if I signed up too. (They were fine with it.) I enjoyed traveling with them, but I did promise them that I would not be a third wheel.

And that will take care of this year, most likely.

I'll do at least 2 more posts about Morocco, the cats and the tagines. Right now, I'm busy working on my Morocco photos. I've gotten up to the day in the desert, so I think I'm over halfway through. My hope is to finish them by March 3rd. Here's the link to the album, if you're interested.

Stop reading here unless you really want details about what I took and what I recommend.

Lessons

Bring less stuff. I brought much less than I took to Iceland/Norway, but still too much.

Medications. I took less with me than I took to Iceland/Norway and it was a mistake! I got a nasty cold, and was saved by a fellow traveler who gave me a card of DayQuil and NyQuil. I'm adding that to my kit, along with some other cold/flu meds. Again, I didn't use any of my first aid stuff (except the mini trauma shears when someone asked me for scissors), but I'll keep taking those along.

Water bottle/travel cup. This is totally dependent on where you are going. If it's somewhere like Morocco where you will not be drinking the water, leave the water bottle at home. You'll be using bottled water exclusively—I did not use my Yeti bottle a single time. But, in Iceland/Norway, I used both my water bottle and a travel cup for hot liquids almost every day.

Electronics/chargers/etc. I found an excellent product, an universal travel adapter, and it worked great! It has multiple plug types, and has both USB and USB-C connections. I still took a couple of basic converters as backups (this is the one for Europe/Morocco), as they are very small, and they actually came in very handy, as another couple had forgotten theirs, so they used mine for the whole trip. I did bring backup charging cables for everything, and will keep doing that (one set in my bag with me, one stashed in my suitcase). I'm going to continue to bring my iPad and of course my iPhone, but the Kindle will stay home. I can use my phone if I have time to read. Oh, one more thing—a battery backup. It's sort of heavy, but vital. I used it on the bus a couple of times and, of course, on the plane. (Planes all seem to have USB chargers now, but not the USB-C I need for my iPad.)

Cameras. Now this is a hard one for me. I usually travel with 2 Panasonic LUMIX G9 camera bodies and at least 3 lenses. One of the lenses is a 100–400 mm, which is my birding lens, and other I usually use is a 12–60 mm, which is really versatile for everything from street photography to landscapes. One of the advantages is that these cameras and lenses are all waterproof and dust proof. My other camera is a bridge camera (Panasonic LUMIX FZ1000 II), which I have grown to love. It's got a long lens, good megapixels, and it's easy to use, but this camera is not waterproof. I used it and my iPhone 14 camera almost exclusively on this trip. But I think it would kill me to travel without a backup camera! I'm leaning toward taking just the point-and-shoot on escorted tours (maybe with a G9/12-60 combo in my bag in case of malfunction or bad weather) and taking my long lens camera only on more bird oriented trips. (I know I'll take it to Texas in April, for sure!) Talk about first-world problems!

Daypack/carryon. On the way out, I carried a small (non-technical) backpack and a small wheeled Osprey bag (that can convert to a backpack as needed). I'm always more paranoid on the way to a destination. On the way back (i.e., right now, since I'm still in the air), I checked the wheeled Osprey (remember all the rocks I'm bringing home?) and I carried only my 20 L Osprey day pack, no carryon at all. And the backpack isn't even full! It's just got the basics: camera, meds, passport, iPad, etc. And I loved it, not having to haul anything through the enormous airport in Paris. I just hope I can remember this.

Clothing. This goes along with "bring less stuff" but more specific.

• I think I've got pants figured out for any temperature. Thanks you REI! My Iceland favorites served me well in the cooler, rainier weather at the end of the trip in Morocco. I was just going to say that in a perfect world, they'd make these in another color than asphalt gray, and low and behold, they have. Unfortunately, the new colors are taupe and a weird green, and not black or navy. I'll check them out when I go by REI tomorrow though.

• For lighter weight pants, I adore the Afro Trails/REI Trail Pants that I bought in black and "gray fin" (which is a light tan). They have zipper pockets everywhere and washed and dried easily. I really want a pair in papaya (which are really bright orange), just because it is such a happy color and the zippers are all black and stand out. I'll decide tomorrow when I'm there. My hiking buddy may disown me when I start wearing them, but they'll be great for hunting season.

• Those, plus a single pair of leggings for the flying days should do it. Oh, and a Smartwool baselayer for underneath. It won't take up much room and there were at least 2 days on this trip when I would have worn them.

• For tops, I pretty much lived in my Smartwool thermal base layer crewnecks. I took 3 with me, and they worked well and washed easily. One cold day I just doubled up on them, though I could take a lighter base layer too. I'm not as sure on the lighter weight shirts. I took a couple of short sleeved Columbia sun-protection shirts, but wore only the long sleeved one I brought. Of course, it was really wasn't short-sleeve weather most of the time I was there. When I go somewhere that is hot, I'll have to rethink this one.

• Shoes. This, I've got down. One pair of Keen sneakers and one pair of hiking/walking shoes, depending on where I'm going. For Iceland, it will be waterproof hiking boots. For this trip, it was non-waterproof Keen hiking shoes. There was only one day when my feet got really wet. I took sandals again this trip and never put them on, so they are off the list.

• Socks, etc. Wool all the way! Smartwool/Darned Tough Vermont for everything. One pair of ankle high and 2-3 crew. Probably could get by with 2. Easy to wash Duluth Trading Buck Naked underwear and a couple of camisoles and I'm all set.

• Outerwear. Versatile fleece lined water and wind resistant jacket for flying and every day. I found the perfect one and then found it on sale on the JC Penny's website. (It was available elsewhere for more money, but I paid under $40 with shipping.) And, here's a laugh: another woman in our group was wearing the exact same jacket! I hope it holds up for years! I also took a longer length REI black rain coat and a puffy jacket and vest (which pack down really small). If I were going to somewhere with more rain (Iceland, for example), I would also take good rain pants. Oh, I took a good OR sun hat, and wore a VT ball cap the whole trip. If it had been summer, maybe I would have worn the sun hat more. For rainy/colder, I took a Smartwool beanie and an OR brimmed GoreTex hat. I wore the beanie on this trip a couple of times. For gloves, I took some stretchy fleece Cuddl Duds that I love, and Mountain Hardware GoreTex for heavier duty. For Icelandic type weather, I would add glove liners.

• I took a sarong and a bathing suit, neither of which I used, but they'll stay on the list.

• Baselayers. This would be for colder weather trips, but I would take several of the lightweight Smartwool tops and bottoms. They pack down to nothing and can be layered. They do dry quickly, so maybe only one of each, not two.

• I tried modular packing this time, and I'm sold! It made it so much easier to pull out one module and know it had shirts in it, instead of digging through a pile of clothes in the suitcase. My approach was a module for each type of item, so I had one for pants, socks, underwear, shirts, and rain/cold gear. I know that some people arrange by outfits, but that would never work for me.