Days 353-356, 31 May-3 June 2015, Marrakech - Final Thoughts... and Au Revoir, Adios, Goodbye! We are safe & sound at the airport departure gate with an hour to go until boarding. Quite reasonable by Hardie standards. It was good to get here relatively early - no queues to check-in/security/emigration. Well a tiny queue... Two older (than us) French women who've apparently not travelled since 9/11 and were carrying all manner of liquids, sharp objects, scissors etc. After the single security bloke had an item by item look through it all, he let them keep it. They then moved on to the bit where you present your completed Departure Card... "Oh what? Us? Really?" - so stood at the official's desk and filled them out. Not a problem today with no queues (other than these two), but wouldn't be impressed if we were in a line of hundreds. Anyway - the voyage continues. Off to Barcelona this afternoon, night in a posh hotel (now defined as one where you get wifi in your room!) then onwards to chilly, misty, lovely Ireland tomorrow - Leaving 38+ degrees today and heading for a fine, warm Irish day on Thursday at 15 degrees. Suspect the coats will be the first items out of the bags at Dublin airport. Last few days in Marrakech have gone by quickly. Packing after 5 weeks in one spot was, as always, like watching The Big Bang in reverse... until we are back down to our two checked bags, both knocking right on the door of 23kg, two cabin bags (quite full) and a couple of cheese and egg sammies snaffled via the breakfast table. We were fortunate to meet two lovely English people at the riad who have been great company over the last week and it was fun to show them our haunts. They generously shared their 48 hour Big Red Hop-on/Hop-off bus tickets with us, so we spent Monday afternoon on the top deck of a double decker, with the rag-top down, doing a couple of laps of Marrakech. Since it's been 5 weeks since we've been in a vehicle of any sort, just travelling via combustion engine vs. Shanks's Pony was hugely entertaining. Also looking down from above onto the "roofs" of some of the dodgier quarters of Marrakech. Jolly lucky it almost never rains here. Unlike some buses, getting off wasn't particularly attractive - a bit warm at 38 degrees and with buses 30 minutes apart, there was nothing we needed to see that badly. We've said our fond farewells to the Juice Man - bye bye fresh peach/strawberry/papaya juices for 50 euros cents... bye bye Vanilla Slices for 50 cents... nice knowin' ya. Farewells to our restaurant, Chez Abdelhay... 31 days lunching at the same restaurant has to be some kind of weird record surely. Farewell to the 5 dirham (50 cents), omelette/sandwich guy. No where else could we both have a mandarin juice, mint tea and a massive egg/potato/onion sandwich and have to pay only €1.40 between us. We ate our last supper at the Riad last night. Over your rude sounds of disbelief (as what we had would have would have cost €20), let me just say it was a freebie for such long-stay guests. They have an extensive menu does our riad. But hardly ever does food enter or leave the kitchen. Hmmm. All was explained. The dish of the day was chicken tagine... nah... not in the mood. Or 3 different types of pizza. Now the 2nd coming of Christ, Muhammad and Moses is more likely than actual pizza being cooked in the kitchen... And yet... out came our two pizzas. Straight out a freezer-pizza box and into the oven. Ah-hah! The secret is out. Actually quite happy with our free pizzas. Much less chance of bad things happening with minimal human involvement. Funnily enough, the manager bloke had not mentioned to the 2nd in charge lady that the dinner was gratis...So as we tried to leave this morning she ran towards us, arms outstretched... ahh - fond farewell, going to miss us? Nope - "You need to pay for dinner!" All sorted with a phonecall, but still funny - I'm 99% sure it comes out of her pay if guests leave with bills outstanding. Our driver en route to the airport was absolutely bamboozled that we'd been here, in Marrakech, for 5 weeks. Just quietly, so are we.