The Lifeline

Morocco, 2016

Heading to the Casa Voyageurs station in Casablanca, I stopped at an ATM to grab some cash. The standalone machine summarily made breakfast of my card. My credit union Visa had been flagged for fraud the night before, and Amex doesn’t operate in Morocco. This was in the days before I carried two stocked wallets for international travel. I had under a hundred bucks in my pocket and 50 euros hidden in my suitcase. For some reason, Linda was depending on my cards.

Luckily, our hotel and airfare were already paid. I just needed cash to keep eating and moving.

For now, we had to get on that paid-for train to Tangier - four hours packed into a six-seater compartment. There was some air conditioning. We made it to Tangier and checked into the Royal Tulip, a short walk from the train station. An oasis of elegance for a couple with no working cards. I was sweating the check-in process, but we made it.

I called Amex anyway, from the hotel phone with its nicotine-yellow cord. An hour later, they sent me to a convenience store, two blocks away, stacked high with cases of near-beer.

The man behind the counter checked my passport, then pulled a stack of dirhams from a drawer and counted them like bread. The equivalent of two thousand dollars. My lifeline. Weeks later, the emergency cash infusion simply appeared on my bill.

Outside, the air smelled of cumin, diesel, and the harbor. The money smelled the same. And, we could afford dinner.

Getting to Morocco hadn’t been straightforward; our two-hour Paris layover became an overnight detour, link But at least we’d made it.