Charbonneau & Morocco

Embrace the detours.

Kevin Charbonneau

7th June 1999 0925hrs Rabat Hostel. Sunny. Monday. 3 weeks travelling. A bizarre day already. Speaking with Mein Host, a German in his late thirties living and running the Hostel in Rabat, he tells of his idea for a floating restaurant conspiratorially to the long-staying American, Donovan. I casually mention the abandoned paddle steamer on the Medina. Mad reaction. Now have Donovan’s address, and the promise of a Finder’s Fee if feasible to buy it and bring it to Morocco. Interesting...but not too much so, as both Mein Host and Donovan strike me as a very strange pair. Mein Host listened with rather too much chortling glee to my tale of the run in with the manhole, and Donovan claims to be staying in Rabat to work on his music. He has two bongo drums, which Gemma and I heard him play before leaving yesterday. No wonder he had to leave California to practise.

We’re off to Marrakech today, and I realise that this hostel is a really great place. The courtyard with very open dorms around it, the orange tree, bushes and ancient and gnarled money tree and the kittens with their oversized ears and huge eyes play-fighting, climbing the plants or after some scrap of breakfast are all very endearing and home-like. It is also a kind of European/American/Asian refuge from the African and Arabic world outside. It’s even got Virgin radio playing over a satellite dish.

The trains in Morocco were good. The network wasn't particularly large or complicated, with only a few major stations and one changing point, but the trains themselves were of old French stock, and they had eight-seat compartments and air conditioning. Pulling out of Rabat, a young man in olive green military fatigues was sharing our compartment. He sat quietly, looking out of the window.

Rabat was Morocco's capital, and on the coast, and our train route for the day took us down south through Mohammedia and Casablanca, before cutting inland away from the Atlantic coast to Marrakech...and Marrakech was the end of the line.

After pulling ourselves disappointedly away from the windows after a less-than-inspiring industrial arse-view of Casablanca (we had heard overwhelmingly negative things about the place, so we didn't plan to stop there) we began discussing our plans for the rest of the country over our maps and books. The air conditioning was particularly sweet. This far south and heading down through the country even further, the heat after the morning coolness was like a gentle weight on all the parts of the body. We were buying bottled water, and I was hacking my way through basic Arabic numbers...asking for 'Jooj' bottles (assisted by the universal shopping language of holding up as many fingers as items you want), and formally or informally greeting shopkeepers based on their age. Older people got the full formal 'Salaam Walaykoom', translating as 'Peace be upon you', whereas youngsters got a cheery 'La bes!' or, 'Hi!'.

Moving through train carriages was difficult, because of the Mahgreb Arabic for excuse me; 'smeh lee'. Gemma and I found it hard to keep a straight face walking along aisles with our bags repeatedly saying 'Smelly. Smelly. Smelly.' to the graciously moving Moroccans.

I know it is wrong. But it was funny.

Another great Arabic phrase we picked up was 'Tawil Balak'...literally meaning 'Lengthen your mind', or calm down. Unfortunately it became impossible to say without adding 'man' or 'dude' afterwards.

As we started our planning, the chap in uniform chipped in.

1500hrs- Train to Marrakech
Rather than stay two nights in Marrakech and then head for Fes and then Tangiers – Spain as we had planned previously, I think we’ll take the friendly advice of our on-leave military compartment cohabiter and go to Ouarzazate and see the Sahara, or the beginnings of it at least.

1645hrs – Still on the train
We’ve now thrashed out an approximate plan up to the 19th when our Interrail runs out and we aim to be (more like HAVE TO BE) in St. Ondeio (spelt?) near Grenoble. A night in an oasis town seems an attractive idea. The Moroccan rail network ends at Marrakech, so a bus over the High Atlas mountains, which lurk on the horizon as I write, is the only way to the Pre-Sahara and Sahara proper. Ouarzazate is the base town from where they filmed Lawrence of Arabia, so it can’t be too far away from any desert-like country... This country is anachronistic. Often I see a collection of low buildings made of pisé (mud and rubble) and I think ‘it must be deserted – there are modern buildings nearby’. Then my eye catches the TV aerial or satellite dish mounted on the roof. We can see mile after mile of scrubland – dry, overgrazed-looking, hilly and rocky. Grazing camels look up to watch the train go by. The Pre-Pre-Sahara.

I can't help but read the phrase 'The Pre-Pre-Sahara' without feeling embarrassed. It is as though I was so desperate for the romance and intrigue of the desert that I was attempting to convince myself that the scrubland that we were travelling through was a part of it.

The end of the line in Marrakech was just that. The tracks stopped with no ceremony or barrier beyond a thick plank of wood nailed to two posts in the ground. The train station was small but ornate, and opened onto a wide expanse of black tarmac - an enormous road that ran straight into the heart of the city, lined with incredibly tall and slender palm trees which threw long shadows in the hot afternoon light.

The heat was dry - we were further from the sea and closer to the desert.