Tetouan: Onward to Fes

There's a certain amount of adventure in travelling in Morocco. 

Part of it of course is not being able to understand the language; my high school French and simple Spanish keep us from being totally lost.  People understand just enough Spanish or French to manage a simple conversation.  I'm sure that our exchanges would be comical to an observer.  My biggest problem so far is to figure which language they know -- we're close enough that Spanish still abounds.  The main language, of course, is Arabic.

Part of it is a certain distrust, almost paranoia, that influences one's interactions with the locals.  There are enough "helpful friends" wanting to know where you are from and to guide you to where you want to go that you have to give credence to the stories in the guidebooks.  So you have to take any advice with a grain of salt and ounce of skepticism.

Finally, there's the organized chaos through which locals seem to effortlessly navigate.  I was completely floored by yesterday's car ride in the grand taxi, packed tight for a 50km journey.  Today, our biggest worry was how to get to Fes from Tetouan.  Would it be a series of grand taxis bounce through the towns to Fes?  Or would we have to take a grand taxi back to Tangers and then hope for a train or bus to Fes.  Timetables didn't seem to be readily available. 

In the end we went to the main bus station, le gare routiére.  A local who said he worked at the station helped us.  There seemed to be a bus to Fes leaving right then.  I asked the man to show a card to prove he worked there, and he very bemusedly pulled out an id I couldn't read, asking if he just showed us a card, we'd trust him.  I didn't completely, corroborating with other passengers that this was the right bus.  It's completely full, but reasonably comfortable.  It cost 60 dirhams each, about $8 for a 250km ride.  A 6 hour trip.  Let's see how this chapter unfolds…

Hello again.  We're about 5 hours into a ride.  One lesson learned is to explicitly budget time for travel in Morocco.  We'll have used up the better part of 3 days in getting from Fes.  Sure, the weather slowed things down and prevented us from seeing a lot, but travel is a lot slower here.  We'll see how the trqain is when we go to Casablanca and Marrakesh.  At least blogging is a good time sink!

The bus ride has been mostly routine.  We have been chatting with our neighbors, a youngish couple, mostly via pantomime and pidgin Spanish.  People have offered us sips of their drinks and a hand-rolled cigarette (both of which we've politely declined).  I gave the guy a moist towelette, which amused them to no end.  We've made a few rest stops of uncertain length -- there seems to be a risk in getting out and seeing your bus leave!  I still ventured out in the longer last one.  I was tempted by the smell of the kebabs at the rest stop, but I managed to refrain.  There better be a good meal at our Fes riad!