In Morocco

Self portrait, I know it's awful


I arrived in Casablanca at 7pm and then went to pick up my bag from the baggage carousel. On the way down the escalator I was given a free Moroccan sim card for my phone, oh how I love free stuff. I knew it wasn’t a good sign when the luggage on my luggage carousel was from a flight that arrived over an hour ago and people were still waiting. So I stood there and waited and waited and then waited some more. After sitting on the plane for 7 hours, I thought my legs wanted to be stretched and stand, but not for that long. It took almost 2 hours to get my bag and it was no where near the end of the bags coming off for my flight.

I could either take the train to Casablanca proper or I could take a taxi. I checked the train time and I would have to wait 45 more minutes for the next train, so I opted for the taxi. I asked at an information booth inside how much I should expect to pay for the cab and was told it should cost 250 MAD, 1 USD equals 8 MAD. I went outside and walked to the front of the cab stand. I showed the driver where I wanted to go and he said okay, and put my bag in the trunk. I kept asking him “How much?” and he kept ignoring me. He got in the cab and waited for me to get in, I know better than to get in without getting a price first and so I stood outside and he quoted me 300 MAD. I told him there was a sign saying 230 and he came down to 250, what I expected to pay and I agreed. Once in the car he started talking about Hotel Casablanca. I told him that I already had paid for the other hotel, that I had shown him, and wanted to go there instead. Of course I had not paid for the other hotel but I know that drivers like to take people to hotels that offer them a commission. I also knew that the hotel he wanted to take me to was 4 times the price of the one I wanted. He drove me to the hotel that he wanted and I began to yell at him. He told me the hotel I wanted no longer exists and I should go to the Hotel Casablanca, where he brought me. I told him that my hotel did exist, I had spoken to them earlier and showed him where it was on the map. This was another lie, I had not called the hotel and I didn’t know for sure that it still existed, but I felt that he was lying to me and so I insisted. “There is no hotel there” he said. I went to the front desk of Hotel Casablanca and explained what was happening to the man at the front desk and I showed him the map. He told the taxi driver where it was and told him to take me there. I got back in the taxi and now the driver was insisting that I pay him more. I got irate, I had specifically shown him the name of the hotel and the address and discussed the price before I had gotten in the car, I explained this to him again, but he didn’t care. I got back out of the cab with my stuff and told him I was writing down his license plate number and I was going to call the police and the bureau of tourism. He shouted at me and then drove off. Oh, how I love being ripped off. With the help of Hotel Casablanca, I keep mentioning the name because the clerk was extremely helpful, I was able to get another cab to take me to the hotel that I wanted. For dinner I ate a snickers and drank a bottle of water and then I went to sleep, I hadn’t really slept in almost 2 days. When I laid down in the bed, I was shocked, it was a real American style mattress. All of the mattresses in India and Nepal had been very thin without springs.

The people of Morocco speak Arabic and French. I took French for 2 years in high school and for 2 years in college, but I’m not very good, I never was. The people all speak so quickly and with an accent that is unlike France French. As the day has progressed, I have started to remember more French and I am sure I will be back to my terribly low, incomprehensive levels of the past very soon.


I woke up early today and took a cab to the Train station. For breakfast I had a cereal flavored yogurt drink. It was awful it tasted like oatmeal water mixed with yogurt and with some oatmeal chunks in it. Apparently Julie really likes it, I’m not quite sure why. The train was late which meant that more people than usual were going to be on the train. When it arrived people ran to crowd around the doors, as people got off the train other people crowded on. By the time I made it on the train there were no seats left so I had to stand in the hallway with my luggage. At the next stop people got up from their seats and I was able to locate a seat. As people would leave the compartment, those of us that were staying would move around to get the best seats. There are 4 seats on each side that face each other. In my opinion this is a list of the worst to best seats: the two middle seats on each side, the end seats by the door, the end seats by the window. When the guy who was sitting at the end seat by the window got up at a stop I quickly took his seat. After 15 minutes he came back, he had apparently gone to stretch his legs or go to the bathroom. I apologized and offered his seat back to him, but he allowed me to keep it. Then we talked for a little while and found out that we were both going to the same station and he assured me he would let me know when to get off. There isn’t a map, or a listing that I could find that listed the stops of the train, so I had no idea which station was next and from the window it was hard to tell the name of the station we were parked at. When we arrived in Fes, he let me know and I made it off the train. Without his help, I would have had to stand in the hallway and asked people what city we stopped at every time.

On the train ride to Fes, I talked to Julie on the phone and she told me that I would need to take a shared taxi from Fes to Ifrane, where she is staying. Shared cabs are cabs that cram 4 people in the back and 2 in the front with the driver, but at a drastically reduced price. In Fes I went on a small walk to have some lunch and I had a cheeseburger with fried egg on it, it was better than it sounds, except for the bits of shell that I found occasionally. I went back to the train station to find a cab and the first driver told me that the shared cabs were on strike and a single person was 300 MAD. I ignored him and kept walking, I met another cab driver who said the same thing and showed me a piece of paper supposedly from the government saying that the rate was in fact 300 MAD. The paper looked like he had made it on a printer at home and so I ignored him also. I tried to call Julie to get more information on the shared cabs but my phone wasn’t working. A man from Belgium started to talk to me and told me that there were shared cabs and that he and his friends would take me to the place to get one. I hoped in his car and he drove me 5 minutes across town to the shared taxi stand. Then his friends spoke to the drivers for me and told me to wait in the shade for the next available one. When a cab pulled up to go to Ifrane, one of the guys who had helped me ran towards the cab and jumped inside. As the seats are limited the first people to sit down get seats. He was getting me a seat! I came over to the cab and he relinquished his seat to me. I cannot believe the lengths these guys went to help me, a stranger. It is so amazing when strangers help each other.

Once I got to Ifrane, I spent the afternoon looking for a reasonably priced hotel room but could not find one. Julie is staying in an all girls dorm, and I am obviously not allowed there. She tried to get me a space in the guys dorm, but there is a conference in town and as a result all of those spaces are also taken. Julie got me the number for several hotels and I called them. The first one did not have anyone who spoke English, so I moved on to the others, they were either all booked up or too expensive. I asked the expensive hotels who was cheaper and they gave me the name of the first hotel that I had tried that only spoke French. I called and spoke with the man but he was asking me questions that I couldn’t understand, so I told him I would call him back. I walked around the market area looking for people I thought would speak English. I found a couple and approached them. “Do you speak English?” I asked. “A little they replied”. “Do you speak French?” “Oui” they replied. I explained to them that I wanted to know if the French only speaking hotel had any rooms and if so how much they were. They called and talked to the hotel for me and there was a room available and it was in my price range.

I went to the shared taxi stand and showed them where I wanted to go. They didn’t know where it was. A woman was walking by and overheard, she was going to the same town, 16 KM away and told me she would get me in the right shared cab. When a cab pulled up going to the town, we ran and jumped in the cab. As I said earlier they hold 6 passengers and there were 10 of us trying to get seats. The lady who was helping me and her family all got seats as well as I. The fare was 7 ½ MAD. The woman paid for me and would not take money from me. When we got to the town, the woman and her family got in another cab and told me to get in and they would take me to my hotel. When we got to my hotel I tried to give them money and they would not accept it. More people helping out a stranger. I’m kind of starting to have a crush on these Moroccan people.

Right now I’m sitting on my back patio that overlooks the sights and sounds of the market across the street. The smells, the noises, the temperature are all perfect. I am really liking this.

Sunlight through the clouds

Moroccan village from the train.

Same village, a little further down the tracks

Train Station