Tuesday 3 April 2007

buses and taxis

morocco, like many countries, has not only buses but a secondary fleet of people movers known as grand taxis. the average grand taxi is a 60s or 70s era mercades, big old blue things that crusie the streets along set routes or from village to village. they all congregate in car parks or in real small villages in the main street and you sit round and wait while the driver shouts the name of their intended destination to passers by in the hope of persuading them away from their daily shopping and instead into a trip to a nearby town.

the mercades fits the driver plus six passengers and thus is pretty bloody packed. theres also another model, a very old peugot 504 wagon with half the wagon converted into an extra row of seats, these ones fit eight people plus the driver and are, surprisingly, more comfortable than the mercedes model. i remember the first grand taxi we took we were pulled over by the cops and i was thinking i wonder if thats cause theres seven people in here, but then the cop looked in the window and waved us on and i realised thats just how it works in morocco.

the buses, in my opinion, are far more fun and comfortable than the grand taxis. theres a fleet of tourist buses which are apparently rather lush but we never managed to catch one and anyway the normal local buses were heaps fun. like india you buy your tickets off random dudes wandering round the bus station and hope your getting the right ticket (they always are, though). unlike many countries they only ever sell as many tickets as there are seats and so theyre never overcrowded. the buses are decorated with streamers and religious paraphenalia and they play really really cool traditional moroccan music (unlik most places) and so you dont need a walkman. they also are one of the few times in morocco that we had any interaction with moroccan women. oh yeah and there cheap.

our only problem we encountered with our moroccan bus experiences began in ouarzazate. we wandered into the station on the day we wanted to leave and found it strangely deserted, we hung about a bit and tried to find out what was going on, eventually we found out there was no buses that day and the next one was early the next morning. we thought that was strange but we went and found another hotel and hung around till the next day when we returned and found the same dead station. again no buses today, eventually i realised there must be a strike and managed to get a affirmative reply through our language barrier with most moroccans, so we had to take a triple change grand taxi ride to get to our destination:taroundannt.

taroundannt was probably the least memorable place we visted in morocco, it wasnt bad just kinda a bit average. at least the accomodation was cheap. we stayed a couple of days and then went to catch a bus outta there. we jumped on the bus and waited, then eventually it moved...a few metres then stopped, everyone got out and the the luggage started getting unloaded. the damn strike was back! (its almost enough to turn you into a neo-liberal...almost). so we had another complicated grand taxi mission to our destination mirleft.

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