26.06.18
I left yesterday’s blog as we headed to bed under a Saharan almost full moon.. woke this morning to what sounded like someone chopping wood but which ended up being one of our hosts clapping his hands to encourage us to wake up to see the sun rise. So up we hopped at 6am and climbed the sand hill at the back of our tent again to watch the sun rise and the colours change across the desert. Breathtaking (and not a 4am wake up to see the sun rise so you can imagine I was pretty happy!)
Breakfast was a much quieter affair than the evening previous so at least we didn’t feel guilty about only eating a small amount (you know when it is really hot and you just don’t feel like eating… I’m definitely suffering with this issue). Should also note that the bottled water here in Morocco tastes bloody awful so I’ve taken to only drinking “with gas” to mask the flavour—so carbonated water also fills you up heaps quicker than normal. Bags packed and we climbed back onto Mustafa and Donkey for the trip back across the dunes to Mergouza. (The camels and camel herder stayed the night with us here in the camp). Interestingly, the camels stayed saddled all night (unless the berber driver put on their tack in the dark) so I guess they were pretty happy to be going home to some brekky and no saddle. The walk back across the dunes on the camels was very peaceful albeit every downhill was pretty damn uncomfortable. I’ve definitely discovered “camel muscles” muscles that I didn’t know existed until I took a ride on a camel..
Finally my torment came to an end and we were back at Mergouza and into our aircond van for the long drive back to Marrakech.. ten hours of driving here we come! We left the sand dunes behind at Mergouza at 9am and we were booked on the overnight train to Tangier at 7pm… was going to be tight!
Drive back from Mergouza was very long without too much to break up the monotony. I spent much of the first two hours (whilst the drive was fairly straight and flat) to write up plenty of day’s worth of blogs (I’m getting further and further behind—I realised I still haven’t uploaded anything for nearly ten days!). We stopped at the same rest stops we had stopped at the day’s previous so the menu and the atmosphere was very comfortable (or should I say boring…) Anyway, after driving and driving and driving (exactly the same way we had come) we finally got to our last rest stop at the top of the Tizi ‘n Tichka pass.. by this time it was 5.30 and both us were starting to get a little nervous as we knew that it was still quite a way to go to get to Marrakech.
6.30pm and we arrived at Marrkech and the race was on to get across the Medina and to the Gare before the train departed at 7pm.. 6.45pm and we were still a ways to the train station.. 6.54pm and we pulled up in front of the station. Rushed to get our bags out of the car and say good by to Azdhin and at a very fast walk got ourselves into the terminal and over to the departure gate.. where we were stopped.
Ticket attendant said something to us and indicated for us to wait whilst he went and got a staff member who spoke fluent English (BTW most people who work in the tourism industry, including taxi drivers, speak a good amount of English so you don’t even need rudimentary French to get by). The team member came over and told us politely that the train to Tangier had been cancelled (due to track work between Casablanca and Tangier) and that we could go to Casablanca tonight or we could wait for tomorrow morning to catch the train through to Tangier. She then told us we would need to think quickly as we only had a few minutes before the train departed to Casablanca. After a hurried conversation we both agreed to travel the next morning to Casablanca and she hurried away to organise our tickets.
Meanwhile, in the last few minutes to 7pm, others had been arriving at the station trying to get on the train. On the dot of 7pm the glass doors to the platforms were closed and locked and all other passengers who turned up were turned away. There was much shouting and yelling abuse at the staff for not letting them run on the train! One guy took it so far as to try and kick the door down. Got to hand it to the Maroc railways the trains run dead on time.. not one of the trains we’ve caught to date has left a minute earlier or later than scheduled.
Our ticket lady returned with our tickets to Tangier (and a partial refund as the day train is cheaper than a sleeper) and we were left standing trying to work out what to do accom wise as we were now stranded in Marrakech for another evening!
Fortunately, the Marrakech train station has been done up (they all seem to be under construction) so we hopped into every traveller’s McD’s for some dinner and wifi to find ourselves somewhere to stay for the night. Our digs ended up being across the road from the train station so after we had consumed our McChicken’s we walked across the road and were very pleasantly surprised to see that our last minute “where the heck are we going to stay” was really good!
In fact, as it had turned out, our train not running was a blessing in disguise. Was SOOO good to have a hot shower (after sitting in a car all day and riding a camel first thing) and our bed was super duper comfy so we were both actually pretty happy. Early get up tomorrow for the 6.20 train to Tangier.. try again.