My Morocco!

The Casablanca-to-Marrakech train system works beautifully. In my imagination on overdrive I expected to be packed into a cargo car with farmers and goats. Instead, it was safe, clean and efficient with no real difference between first and second class except for price.

The terracotta-colored countryside was impressive. And funny to watch donkeys and oxen trotting down Morocco's new, modern highways....

After the three-hour train ride to Marrakech, we were awestruck during the drive from the train station to the hotel. There were wide-paved streets lined with palms, and Vegas style hotels. After dingy Casablanca and the cobblestone streets of Sicily, we felt a surge of joy at something American-esque...



...that fled quickly when then the luxury van stopped and deposited us at what looked like a beat down village entrance - a narrow dusty alleyway with chickens on carts and donkeys standing about. Our luggage was placed in a homemade wooden wheel barrow and we were instructed to follow the toothless Moroccan - and keep up! - as he hustled his way through a labyrinth of musty and narrow passages and alleys, merchants and mayhem.

We were practically jogging to keep up with the toothless man with the wheelbarrow.



At this point, Rob was about to FREAK.

I didn't know what to be more scared of - where we were being led to or what Rob would do when we got there. Everyone looked like Bin Laden's brother, and I tried to assure him this was going to be fine.



After what seemed like an eternity in the maze of corridors, we stopped in front of a totally spooky doorway that looked like it was built for a short ogre or a really tall dwarf....and out pops a Frenchman welcoming us to the Riad Magellan. Through the doorway was a breathtaking home - complete with a trickling courtyard fountain full of floating rose petals.

We had arrived!