Tourist Bus

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Next day in Marrakesh we figured we'd take on of the tourist-busses and get a guide instead of walking around by ourselves. There are two different tours, one that covers all the city and attractions, and one that goes out of the centre and shows "the beautiful gardens", both are included on the same ticket so naturally we wanted to get the most for our money. The beautiful gardens displayed on the pictures were all lush and green, the ones we saw were mostly dry and a bit of green here and there. The gardens are probably very nice, but I wouldn't recommend the tour if you visit in the hot/dry season. The highlight for everyone on the bus seemed to be the camels lying around when we got outside of the city.
You would imagine it's pleasant with the breeze from an open-top bus when it's hot outside, right? Not so when it's closer to 50 degrees or so in the sun, the breeze blows away the cool(er) air close to your body and replaces it with new, hot one. So everytime the bus stopped, everyone relaxed and enjoyed the moments of stillness.

The citytour passes by one grand builing after the other, all while the recorded guide tells you which prince built what and why. The architecture is very nice, and if I got it right, there is an underground system to supply water to the trees and parks all over the city.

Allthough we liked the city, we didn't cry when it was time to leave the next day. The night-train was all fully booked, and not wanting to repeat the sleepless endeavor it was to get here w/o beds, we planned to take a train during the day and try to catch the late ferry from Tanger back to Europe.

As it happened, the engine of the train broke down an hour after the train left Marrakesh. With no electricity there were no AC either and the train quickly turned into a sauna. One after one the passengers gathered in the shadow provided by the few trees that were luckily (or through the experience of the driver?) near by. We had nothing booked ahead of time and were in no rush to get anywhere, there are always ferries leaving from Tanger and worst case we could just get one the next day. When it didn't look like the engine would be fixed shortly, we turned the stop into a picknick with the supply we had bought for the journey.

After about an hour and half another engine came and pulled us back to the previous station where free water was distributed to everyone (guess this isn't such a rare occasion). The train was delayed even before leaving the station and after another two hour delay in the middle of nowhere it was clear we would miss the switch to the train going to Tanger. With the help of some other passengers who translated the arabic/french messages we were told to get of at a later station and that transportation would be arranged from there.
Assuming some other train to catch there, we were a bit surprised when it turned out we would continue the last part by taxi. Since the train does a long detour this meant we traded the 5-6 hour train-ride for a 2.5 hour taxi ride and that we would arrive in Tanger even before the original train would have gotten us there, quite good after all...

This kind of service from the train company was quite unexpected, I'm pretty sure if this had happend in Sweden, I would have had to wait for the next train leaving four hours later.

The way from Khenitra to Tanger is about 200 km and luckily our travel-companion for the ride spoke english fairly ok. Stopping along the way for some coffee and snacks the marroccian guy insisted he pay for it. It turns out he is in the movie business as a "production manager" and has worked with a few swedish movies too, such as: "Pelle erövraren" (Pelle the Conqueror (en)), "Jerusalem" and "Hamilton" - Quite impressive. Then add a bunch of international movies, such as "Gladiator", we had lots to talk about (listen to) during the ride - one thing, the colosseum in gladiator was built outside of Marrakesh and took six months to construct...

Halfway through our taxi-journey, the headlights broke down and it was now quite dark outside and we were on a highway without overhead lights. It took an hour and half to fix them in some nearby city, oh well. Finally arriving in Tanger at about 1 am we had since long missed the ferry after all so we spent the night in Tanger and left for Europe the next morning.

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Photos

Morning Drink
Drink of Fresh Avocado and some more mixed fruits