After being in transit for over 22 hours with three flights, my brother and I finally touched down in Casablanca, Morocco at eleven in the morning. Aside from nearly being ripped off by a porter the moment we exited the airport, everything else about Morocco has been friendly so far. At the airport the immigration officer saw that I was born in Japan and greeted me in Japanese, "Konnichiwa! First time in Morocco?"
This entire trip is a literal race against time, since we're planning (hopefully) to circle around nine towns and cities during our 6 and a half days here. So, without wasting another minute my brother and I searched tried our best to decipher the French and Arabic signs and found the train station. 45 minutes later we were on the ONCF train bound for Casa Voyageurs station, Casablanca.
After arriving at the station, we took a Moroccan "Petit Taxi" (Small Taxi) to the bus station, where we successfully booked our bus tickets for later on in the trip, after negotiating prices through a mixture of English, French and Arabic. From the bus station we walked toward the Old Medina (Old City) of Casablanca, a congested part of central Casablanca full of markets, vendors and beggars. One of the beggars surprised us when we passed by when he shouted out "youkoso, youkoso!" (meaning "welcome, welcome!" in Japanese). Everyone seemed to know we were Japanese or East Asian, which I would have never expected.
For lunch we stopped by at Café Ramses, where we had traditional Moroccan chicken and beef Tagine. We also ordered thé à la menthe (Moroccan mint tea) which is famous for its strong mint taste and excessive use of sugar.
After lunch we walked another half hour to the Hassan II Mosque, which is one of the largest mosques in the world. The mosque is characterized by its massive minaret, and was built right on Casablanca's shoreline. We then took a petit taxi back to Casa Voyageurs station to board a train to Marrakech, where we will rest for the night. This is when the day got crazy. We arrived at the station at 4:00pm and bought our tickets for the 4:50pm Marrakech-bound train (a four hour train ride). At 4:50, there was no train in sight. We waited and waited, and as the sun set we continued to wait with hundreds of other frustrated passengers for the Marrakech train. The train finally arrived at 6:15pm, and hour and a half late, and when we tried to enter the economy class cabin, all the cabins were packed--all seats and aisles were taken, and every square inch of the floor was taken up by tired and angry passengers. My brother and I ran to the front of the train to the first class cabin, where we paid an extra 60 dirhams (roughly 4 dollars) each on the spot, and we made it on the train. Despite being exhausted from an entire day of travel, waiting nearly two hours on the platform and not getting more than a couple naps since we left Michigan, we were nevertheless glad that we were on our way to Marrakech, and that we would make it to our hotel and meet our tour guide in time. Or so we had hoped.
We ended up arriving in Marrakech at around 11pm, 3 hours late, because our train lost power and the entire train just went pitch black. We were stuck for a while just a couple miles north of Marrakech. When we finally met with our guide, he drove us to our hotel, or so we thought. He accidentally brought us to the Riad du Bonheur hostel instead of the Riad Bonheur hostel. So we got back in the car and drive another 15 minutes to Riad Bonheur. Unfortunately, the owner said we were "too late" and he had already canceled our booking and locked up the hostel. In the end, the guide found us a pricier but better hostel, Riad La Lune de Marrakech, and at 1am, after nearly 40 hours of sleepless travel, we could rest our heads.
annaxmalina
germansingergirl
gummygunk
izzy806