Unfortunately we were woken at 2:00am by an elderly mother in Melbourne who decided to touch all kinds of buttons on her iPad one lunchtime as she munched away. Not once, you understand, but three times my phone rang in the middle of the night. ‘Don’t know what those button are all for’ we were told. ‘Did I ring you? Sorry, didn’t mean to’. Then the Imam starts at around 5:00am, so all in all …..
Today was the last day of our Iberian itinerary, and was designated as our PCR test day. We need a negative PCR result to be able to get into the USA tomorrow. The USA currently has had 80 million cases and 976,000 deaths, and the number of daily cases is still around 30,000. Only 65% of the population is fully vaccinated, but they still require fully vaccinated and boosted visitors to have a PCR test conducted the day before you fly in case they bring the virus. Seems innocuous enough, but have you ever tried to find a COVID clinic in Morocco who will deliver results via email in the approved English format, complete with required QR code, on the same day? And what’s more, work out which little hole in the wall they work from on the other side of the city, which bus goes somewhere near it, and complete the transaction in French. The first clinic I contacted via their website yesterday didn’t respond. The second one we arrived at this morning no longer exists. A kind and very helpful pharmacist sent us walking up the road to a third clinic she assured us was good and actually open. Oh, and when we finally found it successfully, they would only accept cash, and I was sent out into the roadworks to try and find a hole in the wall, which took over 30 minutes. Anyway, we can assure the lower 48 that they have nothing to fear from us disembarking. We paid over $100 to keep you all safe.
A quiet afternoon checking that there were no last minute changes to the US rules or paperwork, then we went out for a final Moroccan dinner at a Trip Advisor recommended restaurant in Hamous, a traditional neighbourhood where we started our walking tour, and about 20 minutes walk away. We were the only patrons for the whole of the evening, and since the whole meal was planned around what we could afford with the last Dirhams in our pockets (as left over Moroccan money is a bit useless), they didn’t make much on the evening. The dearth of tourists must be hitting them hard.
Our PCR test results came through as promised, and gave us a clean bill of health, so we are all good to fly across the Atlantic tomorrow afternoon.