Kathleen Ennen

  MAR 15-17, 2020 

Escaping in advance of the Moroccan border closure!

We departed from Fez on Sunday morning with a great deal of uncertainty for the hours ahead of us. We took the train from Fez to Casablanca.  It was weird to have others look at us and adjust their facemask, of which there are many, more than half of everyone has one, or cover their face with their scarf, as they think we are infected. I’m glad we were in Morocco for 16 days after leaving Italy and Morocco is in good shape.

There are some cases in Morocco but the government is being very proactive in closing borders. Closures from all ports (air and sea) started Friday, March 13. More and more country borders are being closed by Morocco to limit the importation of CV. This makes it harder for those leaving!!!

Some family members wanted us to return to the US but we felt uncertain about the virus there and decided instead to go to Portugal. We were comfortable with being in Portugal for months if necessary given the good infrastructure, the well-known healthcare system and that we were familiar with it and enjoyed it immensely during our visit in 2018.

We got to the Casablanca (CMN) airport Sunday afternoon, after learning Sunday morning that our evening flight to Lisbon had been cancelled.  There was a big crowd at CMN, a long queue just to get into the hall, and it was noisy and unruly. We approached the various airline desks to find alternatives. I went to Skyscanner on my phone and booked a flight from CMN to Istanbul on Wednesday 18 Mar. I had the booking confirmation and, given the ongoing border closures, went to the TunisAir desk to see if they expected to fly. After about an hour of a very pushy crowded wait of 40-50 people trying to get help at this desk I raised my hand and loudly asked if I could ask a question in English as there was lots of information being given in Arabic. I asked if my flight, booking in my hand, was going to go on Wednesday. The agent answered back – don’t know I will change your ticket to leave tonight…… I liked that idea and waited another 20 minutes to get to the head of the queue. We got the tickets for departure to Istanbul, via Tunis. At least we would be where, hopefully, there would be fewer border closures.

Our flight to Istanbul stopped in Tunis at 2am where we managed little rest until the next leg departed just before 8AM. Massage chairs in the airport were very uncomfortable but were better than a bench. We had hoped to book a flight out of Istanbul but didn’t get to IST in time for the connection. I forgot that we needed a visa for Turkey so lost valuable time at the On Arrival Visa Desk.

Once in IST on Monday afternoon, we assessed our status. I went to skyscanner again and booked IST to LIS for 0815 Tuesday morning. We decided to just get shuttled to a hotel via the hotel booking kiosk at the airport. At least we’d get there and back easily and have a night’s rest. There was an option to leave later in the evening, through Amsterdam on KLM, but the tickets were over a thousand dollars each….

We enjoyed a good night’s rest and returned at 0615 Tuesday morning. On first review of the departures board, we learned the 0815 flight was cancelled. We realized that the most expeditious thing to do was to buy a new ticket as the queue for a ticket change had over 75 people in it and it was likely the afternoon flight would fill up as we waited and people rearranged things.

We quickly went to a ticketing agent and paid up due to the commission, but we got it very quickly!!, to get onto an afternoon flight, It’s nonstop, to Lisbon on Turkish Airlines.  We got boarding passes and checked the luggage even though the flight was still 7 hours away.  We enjoy a long and relaxing visit to the Lounge with our Priority Pass.

Our flight to LIS was noneventful and we easily made our way by metro to the station where we can got the train to Lagos. It’s been a very long journey!!! We arrive in Lagos around 9pm, Tuesday March 17,  and find that cabs are scarce. Our very accommodating Airbnb host fetches us and takes us directly to our flat. So glad to be here!!! Its 60 hours since departing Fez on Sunday morning. I don’t know that we’ve ever taken such a long journey….

 

35 thoughts on “Covid-19 Travel – Morocco to Portugal – March 2020”

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