Bislaama Morocco
Before I get onto my present bewegings, let me just bring y’all up to par. I last wrote just before the 3am train I was going to catch to Marrakesh. Well I took that train and ended up in Marrakesh at 9am. Then found that the bus at 3h30pm was not fully booked as per the mense up in Kenitra and so I had a few hours to kill in Marrakesh instead of the missioning finding a different bus like I expected.
Walked around trying to find a bookshop selling English guidebooks on West Africa – and I actually did. I’m now the proud owner of a 1985 edition of Africa on a Shoestring guidebook. Fat lot of good it’s going to do me. Apparently according to the book, I was about to travel through a war zone to a country no-one actually goes to. Seems like contrary to popular opinion, Africa has actually changed in the last 20 years.
Anyway, then I took the 24 hour bus ride from Marrakesh to Dakhla. (Mostly I just read one the novels I had bought). They had stops for breaking fast and mealtimes (midnight and before fajr). I used to think of Marrakesh as the South of Morocco but there’s a kak lot of country below and its gorgeous. Dakha itself is nice without being exotic but its location on a stukkie land out into the ocean is breathtaking. Finally a city in Morocco that opens itself to the beauty of the ocean rather than a weakness to defend (and litter).
I spent a night in Dakhla and left the next morning with another bra to Mauritania (for 250Dh). I met him at the police stop next to Dakhla (during the last 2 hours of the bus ride I had to get off 4 times to give my details to the police – and as the only foreigner had the whole bus waiting for me while they did their dutiful handwriting).
This Mexican nutjob also organised the same ride. I call him a nutjob because his method of travelling was ‘get to the country, kneel and proclaim it for Jesus Christ, buy a keychain, take a photo of the flag, gets some coins and then it’s off to the next country.’ I shit you not.
The ride from Dakhla to the border is a desert and ocean mix that was quite spectacular. Looked some nice beaches but I didn’t have a metal detector with so that I could check it out. I didn’t see any mines or loose limbs lying around.
Tags: Mauritania, Morocco, Travel, Tag Index
Ghalied