I slept in all the way until 8:30, which, barring our lost sick day, was the latest we had slept the entire trip. Greeted with another continental breakfast, we were getting tired of the hearth breads; I would have killed for scrambled eggs and hash browns.

I packed up my stuff, including a duffel bag with a bunch of things to check, keeping my backpack pretty light.

Clare had an appointment for a hammam (bath) and massage, so Barry and I went to walk around the medina one last time. I needed to cash some traveller's checks, and wanted to get a patch cable so I could plug my ipod into Ibrahim's radio.

It was 11 am on a Saturday, so the scooters hadn't yet reached full force; the sewer cleaners near the hotel were certainly trying to pick up the slack on the odor front.

I went into every shop that looked like it sold electronics, and mimed out what I wanted with my ipod. The home electronics shop was right out, and the guy at the computer store didn't speak English, but vaguely mimed out the location of a shop. The cell phone stall didn't have any, but I hit pay dirt at the next shop, a general electronics repair shop. For only 15 dirhams ($2) I got a 3' stereo patch cable.

Next were the traveller's checks. I had bought $150 worth as an emergency backup; now that it was the end of the trip I figured that I might as well use them. Being Saturday, the banks were closed, which complicated affairs. I tried a Western Union, but the clerk looked at them like Monopoly money, suggesting that I try one of the tourist hotels by the square.

We made our way over to the square, looking at the wares on display for any last minute souvenirs. Barry took pictures and video as we walked along, his compact camera being much more subtle than my SLR with its giant lens. Going through the square, we saw a young man selling a tacky plastic train set featuring George W Bush chasing Osama bin Laden on a tank. He wanted some insane number of dirhams to buy it, and 10 dirhams (a buck and a half) to take a picture of it. He kept yelling after us as we walked away, shouting some crude English.

We crossed the square over to the hotel area, stopping to look at the display some snake charmers were putting on. Again, there was a price for even taking pictures, and calling after us as we walked away.

Eventually, I spied a hotel with an exchange sign, so I went in to cash the cheques. No issues here, with $150 netting 1050 dirhams or so, a decent enough rate. On the way out, I asked where we could get a beer, and they pointed to the restaurant in the hotel.

I called Barry in from the street, we got a couple of bottles and sat for a while. The beer, "Speciale" was brewed in Marrakech, and tasted vaguely like Rolling Rock.

We got back to the hotel just as Clare was finishing up her massage. Pulling our bags out of storage, we bid the hotel owners and staff fond farewell and hiked up to meet Ibrahim, who again would be our driver, taking us to Casablanca with his uncle sitting in the third row seat.

On the way out of town, we stopped at a large "fixed price" souvenir shop. Aside from being packed to the rafters with the same goods and tourists we'd seen in the markets, the prices were pretty high and not as fixed as we were led to believe. I got a little carved wooden cat, Clare got Dennis a futbol jersey, and Barry got Aiko a colorful handbag for the climbing gym.

Back in the car, I plugged my ipod into Ibrahim's radio and queued up The Duhks as we rolled out of town. The trip was pretty uneventful, with the toll highway smooth and engineered to Western standards. The rain started shortly out of town, and kept up through to Casablanca.

We were all pretty beat, and not feeling very talkative, so we rode along and listened to the music. After the Duhks, I played KT Tunstall; Ibrahim liked both pretty well, but he liked Mates of State's more upbeat tone, and went off the hook when They Might Be Giants played, dancing in his seat and tapping to the music.

Pulling into Casablanca, we drove by the Mohammed V mosque again; a little earlier this time, it was fully lit and very pretty, but it was dark and rainy, so we just stopped the car for a minute to take some pictures.

After asking a passing taxi, Ibrahim found the hotel and promised to return at 7am to pick us up and take us to the airport.

Clare had booked our last night at the Sheraton Towers, a luxury hotel in the downtown district. The lobby reception directed us to a "special reception" on the 12th floor, where we found coffee and hors'd'veurs as we were checked in.

After dropping our bags off, we went back downstairs to get dinner. The hotel had three restaurants; we quickly eliminated the Morrocan one, leaving an expensive Japanese restaurant and the generic hotel restaurant. We opted for the latter, inexpensive option.

The waitstaff was polite, perhaps excessively so, and service was generally good. Clare ordered a lemonade but got a Fanta, and I decided to try the "Casablanca" beer, a lager with no distinctive flavor.

Barry ordered spaghetti, confusing the waiter by asking for a puttanesca sauce with no meat, when there was a margarita option right below it. Clare ordered a green salad, a lox plate, and a pizza. Hankering for some American food, I ordered a hamburger with Swiss cheese and french fries. Later the waiter came out, apologized and said that they had no Swiss. The first cheese he listed was a Gruyiere, and I told him to go with that.

The food was served in large portions, but wasn't very good. My burger was thick and tall, and served well done; they used and odd cut of meat for the burger, and it was pretty grainy. The fries were pale, unsalted, and fared poorly against the strong french ketchup. There was an inedible attempt at cole slaw, shredded carrots in a heavy cream/butter dressing, and some picked carrots that were impressively spicy.

As we ate, I got a call from Mohammed, Barry's coworker's brother, who said he'd be at the hotel in 30 minutes with a "little" bag to bring to his sister. Barry went out to meet him, and came back in with a rolling suitcase packed full of food, weighing nearly 30 pounds.

After dinner I went back up to the "premier" lounge to use the computers; wifi in the room was 160 dirhams ($20) for 24 hours, but we could use the computers for free. They used a funky AZERTY keyboard layout, but it was nice to chat with Jiji for a bit.

Shower, shave and shit, some last packing, and then bed time.

I was sure looking forward to being home.