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Bus ride from Paris
Essaouira, Morocco
February, 2003
Southern France, Spain, the straights of Gibraltar, Tangier, the Marrakech express. The exotic journey I had always dreamed. On the first class car I could vision the waiter pouring me fine French Champagne as we passed Camel trains in Southern Morocco. It wasn’t going to be exactly like that this time because I decided to go the cheapest route available, the Bus.
I showed up at Paris-Galleni about an hour early and had plenty of time to check in and wander around the Station before boarding at 1:OO PM. I had been on long bus rides before, but this was going to be my longest yet, Paris to Marrakech on Eurolines, and Marrakech to Essaouira on the local bus, over 50 hours in total. I was prepared with Books, 4 bananas, a couple packs of peanut-raisin melange and a bottle of water. I figured I would have to change busses quite a few times on the way down but I was encouraged when the CTM (Moroccan) Bus arrived.
Waiting to board I noticed that everyone in line was Moroccan except a Black African Guy and I. He was constantly wandering around listening to his portable radio. When they finally opened the gate, 15 minutes late, the line disinigrated and we all walked really fast to bus door. I won't call it running because that would be undignified. We walked really fast with heads held high. The bus driver and crew saw us coming and quickly moved aside as we all squeezed into the door. I'm no rookie at this game so I ended up towards the front and got to choose my seat, the row from the last on the right. The bus was old, smelled of diesel and had no toilet but was fairly clean on the inside. The bus filled up, no one sat next to me, yes, two seats until our first stop!
It was a great 4-hour drive to Tours, stretched out, comfort. When we arrived it was obvious that the bus was going to fill up so I scooted over to the window. When the new passengers got on everything was very calm at first. Everyone found seats; unfortunately, the biggest of them all end up sitting next to me. A bit cramped but he seemed nice, well dressed about 19. Everyone is settled in and we are about to leave when the last two passengers get on. A middle aged women and her husband both dressed in western style. The women comes down the aisle first saying ‘Jeuse’ every few aisles, which means ‘two’ in Arabic. I guess she was looking for two seats together. When she finally realizes there are only two seats left, and that they were not together, she begins to yell in Arabic (Note: all conversation on the bus was in Arabic except for French when directed towards me or the Black African behind me). A big scene erupts. She refuses to sit apart from her husband. She is screaming and turning red. The big black bus driver comes back and yells at her, “We don’t guarantee seats together, so sit down here so we can leave,” pointing to an empty seat. Now they are both screaming. The seats were three rows apart on opposite sides. While the lady and the drive continue to argue I notice that the Moroccans are beginning to manoeuvre. Two guys say that they don’t care where they sit. People start getting up and shifting. The lady and the driver seem oblivious to the movement and continue to argue. Soon there are two seats together and the lady sits down and the driver starts back to the front both while still yelling. When they were finally settled and it seemed like we were about to leave the driver came back one more time waving his finger and yelling, “Next time you may not get two seats together!” Finally we were back on the road. My seatmate asked me a question softly in French and I didn’t understand so I said, “Je ne comprende pas.” He looked back at me and coldly said “Oh, Tu ne comprend pas” and turned away. I figured that would be our last conversation. The bus was in a bad mood.
Soon it was dark and I began to read, until a great movie came on about an Australian Aborigine Boxer who became welterweight champion in the 50’s. Too bad booze and parting did him in. The most entertaining part was listening to French spoken with an Aussi accent. G’day Messieur. We passed through Bordeaux, then to the Spanish border and I slept most of the way to Madrid. Man it was cold. At one point, the Black African went up to talk to the driver and it got a little warmer after that. We arrived in Madrid at 5:00 AM, drove right through the city and stopped an hour later at a typical Spanish cafE, a bar, some hot meals displayed on the counter, some wood tables and a couple slot machines. It was to early for me to eat so I used the toilet and watched some Spanish TV. I noticed the sun was about to rise so I went outside, even though really cold. It was spectacular. You could see the light blue Mediterranean on the horizon and when the sun came up there were a bunch of little clouds that lit up like bright red cotton balls.
After the sunrise I was about to go back into the warm when I noticed a courtyard next to the cafE that was filled with roosters, hens, ducks and the like. And there was something really strange going on under this little tree. A medium sized white duck was, “Fighting” or something, with this little chicken. The duck was standing on the chicken and was using its bill to pin the chicken down by the neck. Three fairly large roosters surrounded them. One rooster remained neutral but the other two seemed to be taking sides. One would glide by and swipe its claws at the duck, which the duck would ignore, and the other would swipe at the little chicken who couldn’t react. The duck really had that chicken pinned. She would struggle some but she could not break free from the stranglehold. This lasted about five minutes, all four of them going at it, when suddenly the duck let go and waddled away gently quacking and the Roosters went back to scratching the ground and pecking. The little chicken ran back to the other chickens on the side of the yard. I was about to return inside when a new character entered the scene, a big female cat, white with black spots, who walked right into the middle of all the Roosters and sat down contently with her tail wrapped around the front and eyes lowered. A couple rosters moved away but most just ignored the cat and kept pecking. What a great menagerie! Soon the bus driver was honking and we were back on our way south.
Southern Spain is really beautiful with the Mediterranean on the left and the sharp dessert hills on the right. It was getting much warmer and the mood on the bus was improving too. After 24 hours together we were beginning to feel a bit of camaraderie and it really showed when we stopped for lunch. The sun was shining and there were about 20 outside tables. We all sat down and took out our packed lunches. A few people went inside to eat but this was beyond most people’s means. I broke out a banana, a bag of nut melange and my water and began to munch. Everyone is in a really good mood, chatting and sharing food. Lots of boisterous happy Arabic. The lady who was yelling the first day approached me and forced me to take a hardboiled egg. Soon she is back and gives me salt, a couple slices of bread and a hunk of cheese. We have a quick conversation in French, where I'm from, where I am going and Vice Versa. She introduces me to her husband. Then she brings over an apple and a couple oranges. Soon after an old Moroccan guy who could speak some English came and sat by me, offered me some food and we talked about America. Of course, he had some relatives there. It seems like every Moroccan I meet has at least one relative in America. When we got back on the bus everyone was really happy. Even my seatmate and I started talking and became good friends. I explained that my French was crap and he explained that his English was crap and communication was fine after that. Everything slow with lots of sign language. Abdel is a student in Tours studying Economics and his family lives in Casablanca. This was his first time home in two and a half years. A really nice guy who ended up giving me his addresses and phone numbers in Tours and Casa and invited me to come and visit. What a great turn of events. All of the other Arabs on the bus were really nice to me too. They were constantly interpreting the bus driver for me so I knew what was going on.
After a relaxed 4-hour drive we reached Algeciras and boarded the ferry to Tangier. The boat left the dock at sunset with Gibraltar lit up by the sunset off the port bow. This was a very magical ride for me, such a historic crossing, and such an exotic part of the world. I had a couple T and T's on the way across and my spirits where high. Abdel and I hung out for a little while, took some pictures of the sunset and then I went to get my passport stamped. Oddly enough, you go through customs and get your stamp on the boat (visa good for 90 days). The Duane doesn't even look at you, or what you are carrying, how would they know anyway because all of your stuff is on the bus. He just stamps your Passport and says, "Next." Basically no customs.
As we approached Tangier Abdel met me back on the deck. We were both smiling. I pointed to the lights in the distance and said, "Tangier." He looked at me, squinted his eyes and said, "Danger." It’s an old joke and we both laughed. After docking we returned to the bus and were on our way through Tangier. We didn't stop until we were out of town and there we hit our first Moroccan Cafe. I didn't feel like eating because it was 1:00 AM so I just wandered around and watched some TV. When returned to the bus and were on our way to Rabat they played the second movie, a new Chuck Norris film in English. Everyone on the bus laughed and pointed to me saying, "This is for you!" because I was the only one on the bus who understood English. But I fell asleep in minutes and have no idea what the movie was.
I barely awoke in Rabat, Got up to say goodbye to Abdel in Casablanca and then slept all the way to Marrakech. The sun was just rising and it was fairly cold when we arrived at the CTM station. It’s on the outskirts of the city so I grabbed a petite taxi to the main bus station. Luckily there was a bus leaving to Essaouira a few minutes later so I quickly bought a ticket (3 bucks). Before knew it I was on this old rickety bus filled with Moroccans, dogs and chickens on my way home.
It was a four and an half hour ride, only covering 180 KM, but I was in the zone. I could ride for hours, days, weeks, months, nothing should stop those wheels rolling. Arriving in Essaouira was an anticlimax. It had been 55 hours since I had left Paris. In another 55 hours who knows where I could be, Mauritania, Senegal, Mali. Somewhere new. Somewhere unknown. Somewhere soon.
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