Day 14 - On More Than Two Wheels
My expectation of a good breakfast was quickly let down - while it was a buffet, nothing about it was memorable, not even the setting. It was pitch dark at 7 am, I had to ask the waiter to turn on the light. My request for an omelet was turned down, it alone would have cost more, than an entire meal at other places. The juice was just some yellow sugar water. Oh well.
I checked out of the hotel and rode to town. On the way there, I was surprised to see children going to school, apparently, Saturday was a school day. One of the boys asked me if he could ride my bike - why not, I said.
A young guy on my bike - he actually did quite well, considering I was fully loaded and had my seat high up
I made a tour of the town, going to the main mosque, returned to the main square and rode around the medina. Here are the impressions.
Saturday morning in Marrakesh
Similar to my ride in Tiraspol (in Transnistria), I got into trouble with the authorities for taking a picture - just like in Fez, they were allergic to me photographing the royal palace. I stopped at a distance, snapped the camera, but they ordered me up to them and told me to delete the picture. I had made two, had deleted one, so here goes the forbidden candy...not sure why all this hassle...
The entrance to the royal palace - which I was not allowed to take a picture of
By now, I've definitely had enough of Marrakesh. I went to the bus station and asked when the very next bus would leave for Tangier, and I bought my third ticket for noon (the second was for 8 pm, the third for 2:30 am the following day). I still had some time, so I bought a liter-and-a-half bottle of freshly squeezed orange/mandarin juice for just 20 dirhams at the main square (it was yummy - BTW, not recently, I was at a autobahn restaurant in Austria, one small glass of juice cost Eur 5...). I went back to the bus station on the other side of town and after some haggling, I managed to get a refund for the 2:30 am bus - I did get back 200 of the 230 dirhams - but was unable to do the same for the 8 pm bus. For the trip, I found a supermarket, bought a few souvenirs and some food for the bus trip.
An older guy came to load my bike - after it was done, he demanded 80 dirhams. I refused, the bus driver told me it cost 50, he cashed that in, gave the guy a 10 - and that was it. Guess if I'd have given the guy a 20, we both would have been happier - but then who would have known? So I definitely overpaid for my trip, was in the possession of two tickets, lost 30 dirhams on the third ticket, about 30 on the bike - but in the grand scheme of things, it does not really matter - main thing was to get to Tangier.
Family waiting for their bus
The otherwise modern bus (with air-conditioning, but no Wifi or toilette) had two scheduled stops, one in Casablanca, the second in Rabat, the capital. It was crowded till the last seat and I ended up being cramped next to a rather large old lady. I switched seats with a on older guy at the very back - I preferred that seat, was less cramped. Someone was kind enough to give me Wifi through his phone (hotspot).
The scene before the bus left was quite lively. All kinds of salespeople came through the bus, selling everything from water, over to waffles, to electronic devices, there was also an unfortunate person with both arms missing begging for money. When we left (on time to the minute, mind you), a guy at the front stood up and started a sales pitch for some German medication, think it was some sort of a dental product. He did well, quite a few people bought his products.
I thought a lot of the German biker, how he told me he was not too impressed with the scenery on this side of the Atlas mountains - it was a very flat, rather boring landscape - I was glad not having had to bike it.
What I saw of Casablanca, a town of 3 million people we took 3 hours to reach, I did not really like, but then we were only in the outskirts. We stopped for some 20 minutes, I got some sandwich to go.
Traveling by bus
Luckily, lot of people exited in Casa, so I had a full row to myself. I got my sleeping bag, opened it and crawled inside - I even managed to sleep for a while. Rabat was not better than Casa, but then even Paris has less-than-pretty outskirts, so don't judge a book by its cover. Leaving from there was a horror - the bus driver, for some unknown reason, chose to take a very narrow passage, got stuck, then managed to scarp the side of the bus with a rickshaw, then we got stuck in very heavy weekend traffic, where the motorway was closed (maybe an accident?). We lost a full hour there and arrived to Tangier an hour behind schedule, at 9 pm.
I was glad to be outside the bus and similar to Marrakesh, I did not become best friends with Tangier either. First, as I was preparing my bike, a guy came up, quite aggressively and persistently trying to convince me to stay at a particular hotel - I dislike that. Then someone sent me on a goose chase, in the wrong direction. My plan was to take a boat that evening - which would have worked, had we not had the delay, but on the positive side, I had one extra night in Morocco.
Tangier is actually a pretty coastal city with a medina and a castle overlooking the sea, still, the people made me not like the city. I was riding uphill on a steep in the downtown/medina area and another guy started selling his hotel - he would just jog next to me. I ignored him, this made him even more persistent. Dear Moroccan sales pitchers - please accept when someone says no, when someone ignores you - it won't help if you offer something 20 times after I had said no, please. Please. Don't ruin this wonderful experience I've had in Morocco.
The hotel I picked was rather lousy, but I have to say it was a real refreshing sleep I'd had on the creaky bed. My room was on the first floor, the bathroom one floor below - but the water was hot, so no real complaints, except for the depressing atmosphere.
I went for a walk, the medina was actually quite nice - there was even a synagogue.
Water fountain in Tangier
Regarding Moroccan delicacies, I'd been intending to mention one thing, they love their snail soup. When it comes to food, I am not always too adventurous, so let us quote a blog from CNN. "Stalls selling steaming vats of snail soup are popular across the country. A bowl costs between MAD 5-10 ($0.59-1.18). First you pluck the snails from their shells with a toothpick before slurping the soup. Flavored with a concoction of around 15 different spices, Moroccans believe the broth is good for digestion and fever, so some drink it without snails."
Snail soup - which I did not try
The distance covered by bus that day was 575 km, here is the map.