Escape from Tangier
I’ll fill in the gaps in a later session, but suffice to say the trip home was a real joy. I had to take a taxi from my hotel at 4:30 am to get to the airport for my 6 am flight to Casablanca. I actually arrived at my hotel at 4:35 am, having just left a disco by the beach (again, more on this later). When the taxi dropped me off at the hotel there was a cab waiting for me, and several hotel employees outside, all waiting for me and wondering where the hell I was. I ran up to my room, threw the loose ends into my bags, ran downstairs and checked out. The guy at the desk said they were wondering whether to call me. I said I was unavoidably delayed, but all was well. I hopped into the cab, and we left only 17 minutes behind schedule. Fortunately there was no traffic at that hour, and we arrived at the airport about 5:05. The guy at the hotel told me that the taxi ride to the airport would cost 150 Dirhams. When I got out of the taxi, I gave the driver a 200 Dirham note and as I was donning my backpack, he got in the car—I presumed to get my change. Instead he started the car and took off… So that left me with about two dollars in change left in my pocket. Then, I had a passport panic. While I was in the cab, I kept digging through my backpack, and couldn’t find the thing anywhere. I was certain I had put it in my pack, and obviously didn’t see it lying around the hotel room when I tore through to get my stuff. I figured if it wasn’t in my backpack, it had to be in my pants in my suitcase, but my confidence factor was extremely low. I actually felt myself beginning to worry that I had managed to leave it in the hotel. Not good. Keep in mind that I had gone straight from six hours of drinking beer in Tangier discos to the hotel, grabbed my stuff (which I had 96% packed earlier), and hopped in a taxi—so my state of mind and ability to focus at that time was a bit more than suspect. I got into the middle of the lobby and started tearing through my bags. I couldn’t find it. I was feeling a level of anxiety that I hadn’t experienced in a long time… I decided to take one more pass through my backpack. And, in a nook at the bottom, as tucked away as it could have been, I finally found it. One crisis down. I then went to check in, expecting to hear that my bag was overweight (which it was, and I knew that going in) and I was going to have to pay $200 extra. The woman didn’t say anything about that and tagged it through, but she did say she couldn’t check me in for my Air France flights, and I was going to have to get my bag in Casablanca and check in all over again. Not the end of the world. As I entered the terminal, I was directed through passport control, which seemed a little odd since I was taking a domestic flight and would have to check in again, but I figured I would play by their rules (in the movies, this would be considered a moment of foreshadowing, like when there is a cut to an image of a body of water, and you know later on an body will be floating in it). Anyhow, the passport guy stamped me on my way, I went through security and arrived at the gate a few minutes before boarding—at 5:30 am. At this point I hadn’t slept all night, and was still feeling the effects of the mini Heinekens. In other words, I was a little foggy. I boarded, took my seat, and basically slept the whole 40 minute flight. I bobbed in and out a few times, but was pretty much out for the duration. We arrived on time in Casablanca, and this is where it all started getting fun. I got off the plane and went to the connecting flight desk in the transfer area. I told them I needed to get my bag and check in again—that I wasn’t making a straight connection inside the terminal. The agent looked at my passport and saw that I had been stamped out of the country in Tangier. He said this might cause a problem (gee, you think?)… He also said he could not issue me a boarding pass or do anything else helpful for me there, and we also discovered one other potential snag—my baggage claim tag was gone. In my frantic, slightly buzzed scurrying around the airport in Tangier, it flew the coop. But, I wasn’t too worried about that since I never end up needing those things and airport officials never check when you pick up your bag anyhow. But, just to heighten the drama, the rep. told me he could not look up the number in the computer system. Mr. Helpful instructed me to go through passport control, then to baggage claim, and then to the Air France counter in the main terminal to check in for the next leg. I followed the instructions, and when I reached the passport desk, I told the agent I had to claim my bag and re check it. He asked where I was coming from and I told him Tangier, and waived me through without even looking at my passport. I figured I was all set at that point. When I reached the stairs to the baggage area, the agent there looked at my passport and said I couldn’t go through because it had been stamped. He told me to go to the supervisor’s office to get the stamp annulled. So, I did (go to the supervisor’s office), and the supervisor told me I had to go back to the flight connection desk and have a representative come back with me to go through and get my bag—or have them issue me a boarding pass so I could go through to baggage claim. So, I hauled my stuff back down the hall (that would be my backpack loaded with electronics, and the cheap tote bag I bought to carry the 20-plus pounds of tagines I bought), around the corner, down the other hall, and around the other corner to the desk, and told the connection guy that someone had to come up with me. He said that was not possible, and started to lecture me about all the problems with my situation and how I was a bad person and all that. I (somewhat uncharacteristically) politely explained that I had just been doing what everyone was telling me to along the way, and that I just needed a solution. His supervisor was standing there, and echoed my sentiments. Magically, they were suddenly able to print me a boarding pass, although they still could not access my baggage claim number. I went back upstairs to passport control, this time hoping I would have everything necessary to go get my bag. Or not… The supervisor told me that now all I had to do was go to an Air France counter at the gate area and tell them to get my bag and that everything would be fine. I wasn’t sold on that, but figured I had no other choice. I went back down the hall, around the corner, down the other hall, past the connection desks, up the stairs and to the security screening area for connecting passengers. I went through and then went to the gate to see if I could find an Air France rep. to get this all resolved. I walked to the end of the terminal, hauling my tagines. There were no Air France people in sight. I wandered to a few other gates, and could not find any Air France people. In the meantime, I noticed signs for a hotel in the terminal and the signs said showers. At this point I was gross and funky from being out all night at sultry, smokey discos, and sweaty from running back and forth across the airport with my backpack and my 30-pound tote-bag. I went down to the hotel area and approached the woman at the desk. I asked for a shower, and she told me it was five Euros, which at that point was a bargain. I handed her my visa card, and she said they only took cash. So, shot down once again, I went back up to the terminal to find an ATM. I couldn’t find one, and also reached the conclusion that I was not happy about my bag situation. I decided I was going to go back and find a way to get to baggage claim. I went back out through security, and down the stairs, around the corner, up the hall, around the other corner and up the walkway to the passport hall, figuring that I would convince them to stamp me back into the country so I could go to baggage claim and physically take my bag to an Air France counter. The hall was empty, but one agent was in his office. I explained the situation, and he told me to wait five minutes for his boss. 25 minutes later, the boss came, and said he could not let me go through. I asked why they couldn’t simply stamp me in again, and let me go on my way. He said that was not possible, although perhaps that was a cue I wasn’t picking up on—if I had slipped him a 100 Dirham note, he probably would have let me through. This time he said he would send a passport agent with me to the connection desk to get one of the people there to escort me to baggage claim and take care of my bag. So, I down the hallways again to the connection desk—this time with a hulking immigration police officer. We got to the connection desk and he explained that one of them had to come with me to get my bag—given the size and look of this guy, I wouldn’t have said no. But, they said that was not possible. After more incredulousness, and frustration, the woman at the desk punched away on her keyboard and said the found the baggage claim number and was entering a message in the system to the baggage people to take my bag and check it in to Paris. She said it was not possible to check it in all the way to DC, so I Paris I would have to go through immigration, baggage claim, customs, and then check in at the Air France counter. At that point, I would be happy if they could pull that off, but I figured the odds were less than 50% I was going to see my suitcase again. However, seemed like I had finally run out of road after two hours of quite literal back-and-forth trying to resolve this. So that crisis seemingly in hand (or so far out of hand it was pointless to think about it anymore), as I turned to go back up the stairs to the terminal, the shoulder strap on my $10 tote bag broke. Amazingly, it simultaneously tore off the bag at both ends like someone had flipped a switch. The bag hit the floor, and I decided I didn’t even want to bother to see if anything happened to the tagines. This time, I was in line with a group of people who had come in on a flight from Accra, and they were getting the full rundown. Since I was in line with them, I got the guilt by association treatment, a full pat-down, heavy scrutiny of my passport, and the hairy eyeball. Eventually they let me through, and my next task was to find an ATM so I could take a shower. I walked around and couldn’t find one, and then asked a woman who was handing out promotional flyers where I could get cash. She told me there were no ATMs in the terminal, and I was out of luck. Pissed, but undaunted, I went about finding a solution. I went to one of the gist stores and asked if I could buy something and pay extra on my credit card and get cash back. He said no. Fine, I don’t like the answer from dad, I’ll go ask mom…. I went to the restaurant in the terminal and asked them if I could make a charge and get cash, and after a brief pause they said yes. I think they smelled how badly I needed a shower and figured it was for the good of humanity to help me out. They ran my card, gave me the cash, and I was on my way to the shower with a Jack Nicholson “Five Easy Pieces” grin feeling proud of myself for outsmarting the system. I paid the fee, took a shower, put on fresh clothes, and went back to the restaurant to spend the remaining cash on a cheese sandwich. Finally, they called our flight, and I boarded, only to find I had been stuck with a window seat. Fortunately it was not a full flight, and even better the captain announced that we had a massive tail wind and would get in in 2:25 hours rather than the expected 3. I half dozed through the uneventful flight, and when I got off the plane in Paris, I prepared myself, for the likelihood I was not going to see my bag. I went through immigration without a hitch, explaining that I had to go claim and recheck my bag. I went to the baggage carousel, and probably waited longer then I really had to in order to declare the time of death, but when I was the only one left, and ten minutes later there was still no sign of my bag, I wandered to the Air France baggage services office. I have to say the woman there was wonderful, very pleasant, and did everything she could to help. Ultimately, she said that my bag definitely did not leave Casablanca, and she couldn’t find evidence of its status in Casa. She punched in a claim, took all my info, gave me all the receipts, contact info and explanations I would need to follow up and sent me on my way. At that point I had just enough time to go through passport control, security and get to the gate to try to beg for an aisle seat. It turns out that when the Air Maroc agent in Casablanca printed out my boarding passes, he didn’t give me my originally assigned aisle seats. And of course, the flight was full, so I had no choice. I boarded the plane hungry and thirsty having had not time to pick up anything to eat or drink before boarding and cramming myself into seat 36A on the Air France 777. The 747 had a lot more room than this plane. Anyhow, on takeoff, as soon as we left the runway, I felt water dripping on me. I looked up to see water leaking out of the light fixture above me. I figured that was probably a bad thing—water in an electrical fixture in an airplane. I gestured to the flight attendant, and she said it was from the air conditioning and seemed completely non-nonplussed. The flight was largely uneventful, but long 7:45… Of course about half way into the flight my laptop battery was running on fumes, so I put work aside and decided to watch a movie. I put on Hancock, since it was the best of the bad options. About 20 minutes into the film, my video screen froze and stopped working—for the rest of the flight. One flight attendant tried to reboot my system, but no luck. It seemed like the perfect extra touch to cap off such a pleasant trip home. The only upside was that I didn’t have to wait at baggage claim when I got back to Dulles. But I did get a funny look from the customs agent who thought I wasn’t carrying enough luggage. I told him I was carrying everything that made the flight with me. Two days after I got home, by suitcase arrived—unscathed and with everything still inside. So, it all worked out in the end, but can’t say any of the trip home was fun…
