My trip started in Vancouver.
I am a strong beleiver when it comes to arriving at the airport ahead of the requested time to avoid any stressful madness, but even though I walked into the British Airways check-in area 2.5 hours before the flight departure, I was met by a rather humongous line up of mostly good hearted volunteers, traveling off to Nigeria & Uganda (via London) to help set up schools and provide other social services.
These young souls were very inspiring, and their enthusiasm quite quickly caught onto me. Although I was already quite excited about setting off for my 5-week adventure.
However, my first hurdle began in London. I had only one hour to transfer to another terminal 40 minutes away and catch my connecting flight to Marrakech. My patience was being tested just by sitting in the airport bus, waiting for the shift in the gear to start moving, but all in all, the transfer was going quite well, and I actually regained my hope. Until yet another custom check in.
The newly implemented British law demanded only one piece of carry on (and woman’s purse counts as one) and required all liquid bottles, creams, perfumes…etc in a sealed ziplock bag. I realized I might have a slight problem. My camera bag was simply not going to fit into my carry on laptop bag and there was not enough time to check it in. Thankfully on the way out the door my last, but smart packing thought was to grab few Ziplock bags, and they surely came handy.
The seriously looking woman of authority, after seeing the overflowing mountain of my "one-bag attempt", refused my plea and has sent me away to check in one of my pieces. At which point the situation was getting desperately stressful, leaving me only 18 minutes till departure. I collected all my belongings and returned to the previous area, where I carefully repacked every inch of the usable space. I have slightly improved the spilling overflow by taking my laptop and it’s accessories in my hand, which was allowed as per the onlooking officer. Going for the second appeal, I returned back to the custom’s territory. The luck was on my side since the unpleasant female was not present and rather a good looking young black man took her position instead. He waved me through with a smile, and without a hesitation scanned all my stuff, including shoes, belt, bracelet & a jacket… Halfway dressed I sprinted through the masses outside of the Duty Free to the boarding area, even though the monitor clearly displayed in red letters “Gate closed”.
I was 2 minutes short of departure and lucky again. They let me through. Door closed behind me and we set off to Marrakech with a short stop at the Casablanca’s tarmec…
To no surprise, my luggage did not meet me in Marrakech upon the arrival and since the “lost luggage theme” seems to be happening quite frequently along my travels, I decided to pay no attention nor to worry. It was delivered to me the next day, unlike the previous incident with Continental airlines, when it took 2 months before I saw the familiar clothing again…
