Seen From A Bus: Morocco.

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'Oh, you're not in a hurry', the old man remarked, when we'd told him which company we'd bought the bus ticket from. 'This bus is very old, you'll arrive at midnight - if at all'. 'Inshallah' I replied, and he laughed. Minutes later, we realised he might be right. The bus was fraying at the edges. Our seat moved forwards, even when the bus didn't, and the windows were cracked and ill-fitting. But we figured we'd just ride it out, see what happened.

Bunking down in my seat, trying to avoid the draft playing around my legs, my spirits soared as we zig-zagged through a gorge - wild, inhospitable and stoney. We stopped to let five old women board, one holding the edge of her emerald-green headscarf in her teeth, pulling it across her face, hiding herself from public scrutiny. The red-brown henna-stained fingers of another clutched a shopping bag. Scenes of lives glimpsed fleetingly, stimulating the imagination and stirring the curiousity. Further on, a man reclines like an Arab sheik, but no cushions of velvet or brocade and tassles for him, just a patch of dry, bare earth under the shade of a prickly bush. In Rich, we pull into the bus station - most people leave, but others immediately fill their places. All around is ordered chaos. Vendors sell tiny clementines from handcarts, their displays made pretty with bunches of bananas; yellow peeping out of a sea of orange. A man in a striped woollen jellabah shuffles past, feet swathed in rags and stuffed into sandals. Pyramids of chocoate and towering mounds of packaged cakes are stacked onto stalls. A woman sits on top of a black hold-all, next to a sack of flour and two cardboard boxes tied up with string. Touts shout out the next destination and bang on the sides of the bus as it pulls away.

We head back into the harsh countryside. Storks nest on minarets. High above us a watch tower - a real-life Lego building - is almost invisible on a ridge of craggy rock. Plastic bags - black, green, white - float like half-deflated balloons over an otherwise stunning landscape. A large load of pampas grass lunges towards the bus - somewhere underneath it all there's a donkey. Conical cairns of rocks piled in fields denote land boundaries. Clothes spread out over bushes dry in the sunlight. Postage-stamp sized green plots line river-beds. Cows and donkeys share parcels of straw. Donkeys are two a penny, cows are thinner on the ground; triangular road signs warn of their presence. We skirt around a white Toyota pick-up truck parked at the roadside. Facing Mecca, kneeling on a staw mat, the driver prays. We pass coffee-coloured crumbling pise walls, the ruins of villages dotting the countryside like medieval fortresses. At the top of the pass, shards of red rock give way to swathes of green and pine forests backed by snow-capped mountains. For a moment I can almost imagine I'm in a mini-Switzerland.

We stop for lunch in Midelt. It's just a cluster of tables arranged amidst two butcher stalls and an open-air grill. Severed goat heads look on as passengers choose their meat and carry it to the grill. We go for minced-beef patties. The man turns, checks, wafts smoke with a piece of cardboard, cuts onions and adds a sprinkling of spice, before stuffing it all into a large round flatbread. Delicious. The driver blasts the horn, and it's back to the road.

The smell of oranges fills the bus - dessert. The peel is discarded and thrown onto the floor. Behind us, snow-covered mountains edge a dry, stoney landscape, like a fresh white collar on a dusty workshirt. Dirt tracks stretch out into unending emptiness. A young woman with a small boy gets off in the middle of this space - full to the brim with nothing-ness. She bends to kiss the finger-tips of an old man as she passes him by; a mark of respect for an elder. The bus is full of dust now. It swirls in the streams of sunlight and makes my nose itch. The sun, low in the sky, sets under the wheels of the bus, elongating it's shadow so that it too fills the countryside. 'Looks like a magic bus' laughs Jim; and the enchantment continues. More picture-postcard scenes. A shepherd, back lit against another snow-dusted mountain range, a flowing turban falling over his shoulders. An age-old picture, but he's busy with his mobile phone. A group of women collect water from a well, while donkeys laden with water cannisters, heads hanging, wait patiently nearby.

It grows colder, the sun fades and unfortunately so does the bus. It's seven hours since we started the journey. The drivers stares down into the engine, the conductor tinkers with a spanner, and a clutch of men stand around scratching their chins. The rest of us wait; but suddenly without warning everyone is on the move, dragging away boxes, bags and babies. 'Should we get off'? I ask a young woman, but I can't understand her answer. Undetered, she talks on. And then I hear 'You want something. Can I help you?' The man tells me there's another bus, 'but you must be quick'. 'Come, come' he says, grabbing my rucksack. He looks me in the eye and with a shrug and a smile says simply 'This is Morocco'. That's all the explanation needed.

The delay has cost an hour, but this is a journey that will stay with me forever.

This bus journey was from Er-Rachidia to Fez. Cost MAD 80 or Euro 7.

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Comments

[Heidi]

You write very well. You should try to get your travelogues published. the photos really add interest to the text.

[AfricaBound]

photos of the butchers
Love the photos! I miss traveling so much! Although I have to admit the paychecks are nice. We just got moved into a townhouse and signed an 18 month lease. I guess we won't be doing much traveling for the next bit. We're looking forward to putting up some photos from our past trips on the walls. Take care, Kathie