A day of wetness!
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Essaouira,
Morocco
Saturday, November 25, 2006
Saturday was our last full day in Morocco. Cynth, Dee & I decided to do a day trip to Essouira which is a small town on the west coast a few hours from Marrakesh, well known for beaches, surfing and being a chilled out town. We bought a bus ticket on the "tourist" bus (the normal standard of bus we are used to) and in a few hours we were there. Unfortunately, it decided to rain very heavily and we were unprepared for this having had nice warm weather for all of our tour so far. We were wet and cold within half an hour of arriving and quickly getting miserable. We had a quick look at the markets and found that the prices were half that of Marrakech. I bought some scarves and some gorgeous earrings for a pittance. We ate lunch then decided to get back to Marrakesh ASAP. The problem was that our return bus was at 6pm or so and it was only about 1pm. We caught a taxi to the local bus station and were harrassed as soon as we arrived into buying a ticket on one of the many buses due to leave very soon. Of course, it turned out that the bus wasn't leaving for another hour or so so you can imagine our mood!! Walking onto the bus it was clear that we were in for another adventure! The bus was very old, had some seats missing and was wet in places as it leaked..... finally on our way, the bus was full of locals and a couple of other tourists who like us were probably wondering if we would get back alive!!! The bus was a slow bus as it made quite a few stops along the way and instead of about taking 3 hours (as our morning tourist bus had taken) it took about 4 & a half hours. We were on the edge of Marrakesh and I was almost getting hypothermia due to the cold wind leaking into the bus when we were stopped by a police patrol. We had seen many of these on our travels over the past week (they check licences and are looking for illegal immigrants) so didn't think much of it. The policeman got on our bus and proceeded to start asking everyone for their ID cards. This, of course, proceeded to take him 15 mins to get through the first quarter or so of the bus. We were near the back and you can imagine how happy we were to be delayed again!!! He got to some tourists 5 or so rows in front of us and got most confused when they gave him their passports. He looked like he didn't know what to do with foreigners!. I was getting worried as I had no ID on me whatsoever but the Moroccan man near us said they don't really worry about the tourists. anyway... the policeman decided he had had enough and got off the bus and we were finally on our way again. Yippee!!!! finally back to our hotel, we went out for dinner then bedtime couldn't arrive quickly enough!!
