Decided to rent a car in Morocco. Initially, a couple of us hired a car and driver to go from Fes to Marrakesh to pick up my friend Alan at the airport there. This seemed like a great idea at the time - we could stop at will for drinks, photo ops, etc., and not be trapped into the same 'train set' that took half of my day just to get to Fes in the first place. On that adventure, from Casablanca, I purchased a 2nd class seat in an airconditioned compartment. Train fares are dirt cheap in Morocco, and it's a great way to see the inner city of the country's larger metropolitan areas. Last time I rode the train in Morocco, this classification of travel had assigned seats and compartments, and was not air conditioned.
Imagine my surprise when, at the train station in Casablanca, all was a mad rush just to board. It was similar to - but not quite as bad as - trying to board a train in India. I just don't have the cahones to push old, veiled ladies to the side to squeeze onto a car. I managed to board but was crammed sardine-like into a car which had all of the compartment and seat numbering removed. I could only bear standing in the aisle for an hour or so, but by then enough people had disembarked to allow me to lay down my pack for something to sit on. Shortly after that, a seat opened up in a compartment. I found my way to it, and the compartment doors closed - to keep the hot air from the aisles out. Unfortunately, the hot air from the aisles was the only "air conditioning" that this car along with several others had. It was a bit disappointing.
So, for a trip south to Marrakech, I opted not to train. However, this opened the door to a new type of heat adventure: traveling through Morroco's interior, at the end of summer, in 105 to 107 degree temps, in an unairconditioned car with the windows down. Because there were 3 of us - the driver, Sayeed, and my Spanish/Morrocan/Jewish friend Tony, we rotated passenger seating. The car was a hatchback and with the windows down, the victim - I mean, passenger - in the back seat was subject to incredible gusts of baking hot wind and often sand that would force heated air and particulate into the nose, ears, and somehow even the closed mouth. By the time we reached the airport at Marrakech, the temp was at 107, and all of us felt completely wiped out.
We did sucessfully pick up Alan, a colleague from the Norway-based project I'd previously been working on, and drove back up to Fes for a wedding celebration. But Alan only had 3 days in the country with an early morning return, so we had to turn around and head right back to Marrakech. For this journey, though, I rented a car. With airconditioning. And we drove a different route.
The driving was incredible fun - especially with windows up and air conditioning. The roads in the countryside are sealed two-laners that twist and bend first through the Middle Atlas mountains, and then through the High Atlas range nearer to Marrakech. We ventured in and around both ranges, and before I knew it, we'd driven almost 10 hours. It felt like 4, and I felt like Mario Andretti - straightening out curves, or eating up the camber of the road. We all had to be on the lookout for goat and sheep herds, though - one of the beauties of Morocco is that is nearly fence-less (minus the walls that surround cities and homes).
What we did not have was a real map. My guidebook, in the introductory pages, had a basic map - more for the purposes of illustrating where the towns and points of interest are, though it did show a few main roads. But, as has been said many times before, the journey is the adventure - and with maps, we very likely would not have encountered a village's traditional heritate celebration. This was a re-enactment of the tribespeople of the village putting down an invasion by nomads, and consisted of elaborately decorated riders on even more elaborately decked out horses - complete with antique musket-like guns layered in silversmithing. Alan, Tony, and I were the only non-regional folks there. And we would have missed the serendipitous celebration had we bought a map.
No comments:
Post a Comment