Moving on to our next house swap

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On Thurs, after our hammam adventure, we got picked up by Latifa, and then she and Rashid came back to our place for dinner. We were a bit challenged in terms of ingredient selection, but I think we managed pretty well. We had bought a camembert cheese in Marrekesh, so we had cheese, a fresh baguette and grapes to munch on first, then a vegetable soup that turned out really well, a mediocre pasta bake (whuch we made too much of and ended up carting along to our next spot) and an Oreo cheese cake for dessert. It was a really nice visit with them, and our goodbye, as we won't see them again on our journey.
Yesterday was a lowkey day. The days before were on the go all day and all evening, so we just wanted to have a slow pace. I went for a swim in the pool, relaxed in the sun a bit, and read my book. We did a load of laundry, but not til mid afternoon, so we left it on the drying rack, but today it's still not dry, so we need to travel with damp clothes.
Yesterday afternoon, we took a long beach walk. The same 2 dogs came and joined us. We stayed for the sunset, then stopped at a little restaurant overlooking the beach.
Today we got an early start for our journey to our next house swap, at Moulay Bousselham. I did a quick run to the bakery for pain au chocolat (most of the food has been a little bland here, but they have French bakeries, which are so good! And cheap- about $0.50US for a chocolate crossant, $0.20 for a baguette). Then at 8:20, we were out by the road to catch a shared taxi to the train station.
We've both packed light, but it's still cumbersome, plus an extra bag along with some food, and we tried to get in/out of the taxi as quickly as we could. We unloaded by the train station, and as the taxi pulled away, Monica said 'my phone'. She said it quietly, not 100% sure at first, and took a quick look by her purse as the taxi drove further away. 'I left my phone in the taxi!' she exclaimed, and I tried in vain to catch the driver's attention as he disappeared from view. I tried calling her phone, so he might hear it, but Monica said she thought the volume was off.
I told Monica she needed to hop in another taxi and go look for him (as they have a shared taxi route, there's usually a spot that they go to wait for the next batch of people to the beach area). She hesitated, not sure if he might notice it and come back to us, but I said I'd stay with the bags and urged her on, handing over some small bills she could use for the fare. She flagged another driver, explained the situation and headed off. There were just 10 min til our train.
5 min to our train I started thinking about alternatives in case we needed to stay longer. 3 min til the train. I was just about to call Latifa to see if she had suggestions, when Monica appeared, beaming with happiness and waving her phone. She paid the driver, with a generous tip, and we hoisted up our bags and started running to the station.
We caught our train and collapsed with relief in our seats. We had an 1 1/4 drive, then had to change trains, so I figured that was enough time to pull our my damp clothes, to try to prevent them from stinking. Monica's kept festering away in her bag. An hour later, I packed them back up again, and we disembarked.
We couldn't see a display board of the trains to find the platform for our next one, so we hauled all our stuff up a flight of stairs to ask one of the workers. He motioned us to track 4, so we went down the steps. The sign didn't look like the one we needed. We glanced up and the worker motioned that we should go to the neighbouring track, #5 (same platform). We shifted over a few feet and looked at that sign, and train that would be arriving in a couple minutes. That didn't look right either. 'Maybe it'll come after that train?' I commented to Monica. I asked if she could read the sign from the next platform over, as her vision is better than mine. It looked like that platform and the train time and number that we were looking for. We went up the big set of stairs with all our stuff, and back down to get to the next platform. Yep, that one looked right. It showed the intermediate stops, and ours was listed. We were about to board, when another passenger got our attention, and pointed up to the worker, who was signalling no, and pointing tl the other track. We were pretty sure we had found the right spot, as the time, train number and destination were all showing, but we showed our tickets to the other passenger to double check, and he agreed. We ignored the worker and boarded the train.
I took out my clothes to air out again for an hour. Monica opted to have hers mouldering in her bag the whole voyage.
We heard our stop called, a confirmation that we had made the right choice. We got off, and then set about to find a grand taxi (shared taxi) to Moulay Bousselham. Latifa had told us it would be a little walk to their departure spot. We asked around- someone wanted to take us in a moto taxi, but if it wasn't far, we preferred walking. We started down the street, and then asked again. A few teenage boys pointed down the next road, then decided to show us the way. It ended being about a 15 min walk.
We hopped in the taxi, which waited a few min until full (6 passengers, as they have a middle row of seats as well as the back row), and headed out, about a 1 hour drive.
From there, we followed google maps to the directions for the apartment, but got a bit turned around and walked a bit longer than needed with all our bags. Finally we arrived! Latifa's friend was there waiting to let us in.
The apartment has 2 bedrooms, bathroom, kitcheb, living area. It's ground floor with a little patio in front, and is about a 5 min walk to the beach.
We unpacked, put our still damp clothes on the drying rack, Monica's definitely more odorous than mine 😊 We had lunch of reheated pasta bake.
Later in the day, we took a little walk, and picked up a few things at the grocery store.

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