Chefchaouen to Meknes

A long, hot travelling day. We woke about 7am, got ready, paid, and left the medina by the nearby Bab Suk, walking about 2km (thankfully downhill) to the dusty bus station.

Last night we said goodbye to the very helpful Mahmoud at Dar Mexican, a nice young man whose English was very good (learned from watching downloaded American action movies, he said). I gave him a 100 Dh tip and he shot up from his chair, his hand on his heart and stumbling over himself with thankyous. He certainly deserved the tip and really seemed to appreciate it.

Anyway, we got coffee an cheese buns and some bananas at the bus station, and the bus came in about 9.30am. Then a very long, hot, airless trip retracing our route to Fez, even stopping at the same little gas station/cafeteria. Carol got quite carsick, especially n the winding roads out of Chefchaouen’. The four hour trip seemed to take a lot longer.

Finally we made it to Fez, easily got a petit taxi with a nice driver to the train station, and I bought tickets to Meknes using my fledgling French. In about half an hour it arrived and we clambered on board and chose a cabin already occupied by a guy in his 20s and an old man. We were huffing and puffing and dripping with sweat. A woman of about sixty entered, and then another young man and older man. By this time we were conversing happily with the first young man, who spoke enough English to get by. The old woman made a comment about ‘sauna’, put her hand out, Carol put out hers and she slapped it a version of a ‘high five’. Everyone laughed.

It was only an hour’s trip to Meknes but we all had a lovely, laughing conversation in our cabin as we sped across Morocco. The other young man joined in, and spoke even better English. The first man, we later learned, hadn’t spoken English for a year. We all talked about Morocco, where we had been and where we were going, Australia, and language; the old woman (whom, I noticed, was reading Balzac) putting in a smile and a word now and then. The second man was very helpful and when he got off at Meknes with us – after we had shaken everyone’s hands and said goodbyes, all agreeing how important it was to meet people when you travel – he gave his name as Hassan, gave us his phone number, and told us to call if we needed anything in Meknes.

A short, but very special train trip and our first real encounter with everyday Moroccans.

A petit taxi driver waylaid us at the station and drove us almost to the door of Maison d’Hôtes Riad. A lovely big room with walls and ceiling lined with fabric, giving the strong impression of sleeping in a tent (albeit an air-conditioned one).

How strange it is to be staying in the actual ruins of the 17th century imperial residence of Moulay Ismail, the Moroccan sultan we had both read about in the book White Gold (Giles Milton), who used captured European slaves to build his palace and city walls. But as the palace was mostly mud brick, only fragments remain.

This is an interesting little place – in a corridor is a strange little collection of old radios, a wall is covered with African masks, there’s a nice little pool, and the restaurant tables are outside next to a cactus garden – but the all-female staff are a bit surly and only respond to politeness with prompting. There’s a bit if a tired, dusty, dated feel to the place. The guests here seem to be almost exclusively French, and the staff don’t speak English at all.

Before dinner we went up on the roof just as a red sun was setting and a huge full moon rising, the call to prayer echoing over the city and flocks of swallows swooped and dived overhead. Dinner was fine; the usual selection of taglines and couscous. The salad was several small bowls of things like eggplant, olives, potato salad, rice, tomato, Spanish onion, and beans.

After dinner I went up alone to the roof and listened to Meknes, peering over the roof parapet into roofless rooms where people washed dishes, mopped floors, or watched TV. All around us people love amongst the ruins of Moulay Ismail’s once-great palace.

A very, very hot and noisy night, Moroccans seem to be night owls, especially the kids, and the cacophony of shouting children, barking dogs, and mewling cats echoed in the night. I lay awake for hours, sweltering in the heat, and eventually dosed off around 11pm.