We left Marrakesh
and headed to the coastal resort city of Agadir and that´s when we had
the joy of figuring out the Moroccan transportation system. We went to
the bus
station without tickets and found out the hard way that one of the more
reliable bus companies CTM should be booked ahead. So empty handed we
walked away from the the counter into the hands of the eager hustlers
and busters of the Marrakech station. The bus we decided to take was
suppose to leave in a half hour, but when we got to the bus it was
literally starting to drive away as we were still loading our bags on.
Then they did not tell us until we were on the bus that there is also a
luggage fee so then the price went up, I guess we shouldn't have been
so surprised. So here were were on a ratty bus that ended up being
close to the same price as the higher end buses which have more space,
air conditioning, and a time table they usually stick to. The worst
part of these ratty bus companies is that they rarely leave on time (if
they even have scheduled times...I am not so certain that they do) as
they wait until they are full. On top of this they make stops on the
side of the road in all sorts of random places. Its great for the
locals who can get dropped of and picked up waking distance from their
homes, and let me tell you
they have the process down to an art taking just a moment to drop people
of and
pick them up at their road side stops (I have even seen people hope
off and on slow moving buses). Still they just make so many of these
stops that it add a lot of time. I am sure that the road side stops are
not the sole reason for the major delays but one time we thought a
trip was going to take 6 hours and it took 10...ahhhh! The pit stops
are always entertaining as well. If you don´t have the system down yet
you end up sitting there waiting to figure out if it will just be a
pick up or an actual break. They do not make announcements, or if they
do on the rare occasion it is usually not in English so you sit there
with the
bus idling watching people hoping off wondering if they have the
system figured out or are just taking a random guess. We would usually
wait for the sure sign of the engine being turned off, then you knew you
were there for at least 15 min. Then it was a game of watching of the
driver to see when he went back to the bus...wouldn´t want to get left
behind.
As we discovered on this and other bus trips the guys touting
for the buses lie. And I do not mean exaggerate or anything like that,
I mean they will straight up shamelessly lie directly to your face. One
scenario that we ran into was when we tried to find out when a bus was
leaving...Us: "So when does the bus leave", guy looked at his watch:
'Right now!" and hurried us onto the bus. Turns out the confident 'now'
ended up being
over an hour wait. The one thing that did make us feel better about
being lied to was that it was not just to us being tourist, they lie to
everyone including the locals. There were some annoyed people waiting
with us.
Anyway, we had read about getting to Agadier and how many of bus
companies drop you
off in a hub town called Inezgane 13km sth. of Agadier. So we made sure
to ask about this and got an addition to the list of lies we would
receive along the trip: "yes it takes you to directly to Agadier" and
where
do we end up...Inezgane a massive transportation hub. The amount of
people there were overwhelming but we eventually were pointed in the
direction of the grand taxis to take us to Agadier. As we had not yet
taken a grand taxi were extremely intimidated with people running around
everywhere hoping into overloaded cars and taking off, we didn´t even
know where to star. So we decided to try a public bus instead. With the
help of more pointing and directions we made our way to the bus stop. We
watch for a bit as people were crammed onto buses and doors closed on
them as it was just that packed and they were half hanging out. We
finally got onto our bus and found people on the bus quite
friendly...almost more so towards me than Zach, it was quite
entertaining. One guy let Zach pass by his seat then scooted over and
padded it in an invitation for me to seat haha.
We didn´t stay in Agadir long instead heading to Tiznit a smaller
city further south which we would use as a hub to got to a few places
along the coast. But before leaving Agadir I managed to walk into a car.
I didn´t get hit by the car, I
walked right into the side of it. Didn´t get hurt just more of a
shock...guess there is a first for everything hey haha. By this point
we had gotten quite good at crossing streets, however the
lack of signal use still makes it a game of Russian Roulette and I
proved this by walking into a car.
From Tiznit we went to the
small beach town of Sidi Ifni, and from there we went to the nearby
Lagzira Beach with this magnificent natural rock arch that we had seen
in our Lonley Planet...the arch was quite huge and spectacular, however
what was not mentioned was the amount of garbage on the beach. I am not
talking about the bits of litter that people leave behind, but the spots
that looked like mini dump sights, it was quite disappointing.
In order to get to Sidi Ifni and Lagzira Beach we had our first grand
taxis experience. "Grand Taxis" are not so grand in
size, they are the size of a regular car. Just a note that there are
numerous
grand taxis stands in a city or town as they try and group ones going to
the same place together. As a tourist when you walk up to a grand taxi
stand they immediately assume you want, or at least try and get you to,
take a taxi of your own. Many tourist seem to do this renting
an entire one to themselves, which is great if you have a group but as
it was just Zach and myself and we were trying to stay on a budget we
would always go in a communal taxi. Renting a taxi to yourself can be
great as it can be like having
your own guide as well and you can make all the stops you want if you
pre-establish them with the driver. It was a benefit to have a guide
book that had an
out line of the price system as there were a few times people tried to
swindle us and just we had to let them know we knew the price and they
would accept it. The taxis are a set rate for the entire taxi depending
on the distance and just divided by the number of
people in it. Depending on how busy it is at a grand taxi stand it can
seem chaotic but if you watch long enough you can see that there really
is a system to all the madness. When you walk up some time you
will get approached and asked where you are going and sometime you have
to just call it out or approach some one and tell them and they will
sort you out. Like
the cheaper bus companies the grand taxis wait until they are full
before leaving so this can take some time. Lucky we never had to wait
all that long.
So as I mentioned the grand taxis
are really just regular sized cars, but they do manage to cram 6 fully
grown adults into these things, oh I mean 7 if you include the driver.
Ya. You have 4 people in that back seat and 2 plus the driver in the
front. They weld in an extra backboard in the middle of the two front
seats to give the middle person a back rest...and keep in mind they all
drive standard so the person in the front in the middle is usually in a
awkward angled position. As Zach put, it its like being back in high
school
when you would try and cram as many friends into the car as possible,
but in this case it is strangers and usually longer distances so you
may be pack into this car for over an hour. It´s cozy and hot packed
shoulder to shoulder with strangers and usually only the
drivers window is open and there are no handles on the rest of the
windows as they have been removed so they don´t even give you the option
to role it down. Our first trip Zach and I sat in the front seat
together,
Zach sitting in the middle and me squished into the door. Other than the
occasional comment exchanged between Zach and myself no one spoke and
in this case the driver had a tape blaring with some really bad old
R´n´B and Rap, but oddly the music suited the dingy interior of the car.
Once the tape had been flipped and finished nothing else was put on and
we all sat drowning in silence, it felt awkward at first then it felt
kind of normal. The
car struggled up hills and the gas gage, broken, sat at empty. It would
have been more unnerving had we not stopped for gas on our way out town.
There are
random knobs and such broken off or just missing. There was a bit of
driving down the center of the road or on the wrong side of the road.
When passing people walking or on on bycicles and such there was a
warning honk, or
five, and then the person walking or cycling would pull as far off to
the side as they could and we would continue by at top speed. Every time
we
went into a corner that pushed me even more into the door I would grab
Zach´s arm as I was terrified of the door flying open and me flying out
if I put too much pressure on the door. Despite my fear of falling
out, the drive was pleasant and I enjoyed taking in the scenery.
On
the ride back we waited on opposite sides of the road to see what would
show up first a bus to take us back to Sidi Ifni or a grand taxi with
space for two to take us to Tiznit, We got lucky and ended up in a grand
taxi with a bunch of chirpy old fellows who chatted away in Arbic. They
were very friendly and one guy offered us a loaf of his bread. We
declined but after realized it is polite to take what is offered, or rub
your stomach to let them know you are full. I guess in Morocco it is
rude to eat when others have nothing.
One last thing on Moroccan driving. I have come to realize that
the excessive honking in Morocco is
some times necessary. I still don´t understand the laying on the horn
when traffic is not moving during a traffic jam, it usually starts with
one, then people join in until you have an entire orchestra of horns,
but
its not as appealing to the ears. However, a lot of the time it is fair
warning to "get out of the way" or a change of light warning as many
people will pull up so far in the intersections they can not see when
the light changes green so relay on the honking of others.
