Morocco: Trains, Planes, Buses and Taxies

There are a number of ways to get around this country.  Some very fun and others not so much.  We luckily experienced them all and then some.

Morocco’s four major cities are all connected by train.  The other 99% are reachable by one of many bus companies that operate in Morocco and the last 1% is possible to cover by a grand taxi.  Since all of you are familiar with buses and trains we will take a moment here to disrobe a grand taxi and how it operates.



Grand Taxi Stand

Ok, so a “grand taxi” is almost always a Mercedes Benz that was manufactured anywhere between 1970 and 1985. It fits six people plus the driver (three in the front and four in the back) and it is used to travel between cities.  Each passenger pays a set fee (which based on distance traveled) and each passenger can be dropped off and picked up along any given route as long as there is space available in the car.  Here is an example of how this system operates.  Each taxi leaves a taxi stand when there are six paying customers and travels from taxi stand A to taxi stand B.  As you are driving along one of the original six passengers might get dropped off before taxi stand B at which time he is replaced by another passenger down the road that needs the services of the taxi.  So, if you are traveling a distance of lets say 40km you might have 15 different people come and go before you reach your final destination.  Once the final destination is reached the driver waits for another 6 paying customers and the fun starts all over again. J  

Petit Taxi

 Grand taxies are always used to travel from city to city.  If you need to travel within a particular city then you would need the services of a “petit taxi”.  This is always a hatchback made by Peugeot or Fiat.  All of the petit taxies are painted the same colour and the colour varies from city to city.  Petit taxies can take a maximum of three passengers (by law) and cannot under any circumstances drive outside the city limits.

We have to take a moment to tell you about our attempt to catch a taxi, any taxi, outside the Fez medina at the time of closing.  We had been in Fez for about two days at this point and the four of us (S&M and S&M – M’s best friend and our kum joined us with his girlfriend for the first week of the trip… they happen to have the same initials… lots of S&M going on here J...  pure cheese we know… but it amuses us) felt brave enough to attempt to get home via cab.  Being from Canada the four of us did what any one of our country men would do and orderly lined up in what we thought was the lineup for the cabs that were constantly arriving.  After about ten minutes of standing there and watching countless people go around us and take taxies we decided to abort the lineup idea and venture into no mans land.  So, the first problem was getting a taxi to even stop for us. After a dozen failed attempts one finally did.  We all piled into the car only to leave in frustration as the driver kept yelling “three” in French.  Thinking that this was a tourist thing we repeated this process another three times.  On our fourth attempt we were finally told that the petit taxies that we were getting into can only take three people by law.  Our next plan of action was to grab one of these big old white Mercedes Benz cars that everyone kept piling into.  This was much harder than it sounds.  There were about two of these cars around at any given time.  The thing we found the oddest was the fact that there were always seven people in this car.  Not wanting to look like amateurs… again… we decided that the best thing to do was stand aside for a few minutes and see how the locals get these cars to stop for them.  What we witnessed was that every time one of these white Benzes would arrive a swarm of people would literally fight for an available seat.  Imagine playing musical chairs with about a hundred people and when the music stops the first six to pile into the car get a ride.  This is exactly what this was like.  Needless to say we didn’t even try to get into any of these cars.  So we ended up taking two different petit taxies and we got dropped off in two different locations.  Our friends got dropped off at the right location and the two of us about two entrances to the medina short.  After wandering and trying to find our way home for about 45 minutes we ended up paying an eight year old kid to get us home and finally met with up with our friends.  One for the books folks that’s for sure!

Moving onto the interesting Moroccan bus industry.  There are two main bus companies that operate in the country.  One is CTM and the other Supr@tours which is associated with ONCF (Morocco’s railways company).  In addition to these two operators there are about a dozen or so privately owned companies that operate throughout Morocco.  Some are great and some are as shady as can be.  We got to experience both sides of the coin.  Buses overall are very modern and comfortable.  They leave and arrive on time but this can be said only for the two main operators.  While we had excellent service from CTM and Supr@tours we were left a bit frustrated with some of the other operators.  The frustration lies in the pricing structure (different price for tourists and locals), the fact that the bus leaves the station only when it fills up (this can add hours to your departure time), the quality and smell of the bus and the fact that the other bus companies will take anything from sheep to luggage in the luggage compartment of the bus.  I kid you not, you have not lived until you see a luggage compartment open with a sheep and a goat tied to the inside both looking as confused as can be.  Overall we both agree that the bus industry of Morocco is well organized and mostly reliable. We rate it 7/10.

A sheep in the cargo space of a bus



Remnants of the accident :( *photo courtesy of Sara

 The railway system is pretty impressive we have to say.  The trains are clean (with the exception of bathrooms which we would not wish upon our worst enemy) and very reliable.  We experienced the train on five different occasions and three out of these five times they arrived and departed on time.  The last time was right after a big holiday in Morocco and the train schedule was all over the place.  Our first impression of the trains was arriving into Casablanca from the airport.  We will be honest and say that we were pretty skeptic but the train that greeted us was clean and much better than a lot of the trains we had throughout Europe.  It left and arrived on time.  On our way from Fez to Marrakech we had a bit of an unfortunate accident where our train hit a crossing car and we were delayed for about 3 hours.  After the operator noticed that our train was not operational we had another train pick us up and take us the rest of the way.  On our way from Marrakech back to Casablanca we were traveling during the above mentioned holiday and the rail company added trains to the schedule to meet the demand.  Very cool indeed!  We rate the train service 7/10.  All points were lost because of those horrid bathrooms.  They still keep us up at nights!!!! J 

We won’t comment on the plane portion of the trip as we took the planes to only get into and out of the country.  But we will say that the Mohammed V airport in Casablanca is very modern looking but also very backwards.  They have flights leaving past midnight yet the entire food court closes after 9.  So if you have a flight leaving late pack yourself a sandwich or buy food before you arrive at the airport.  The phones in the terminal all have a calling card slot but only take coins (but none of them were operational).  The security check was a joke and we’re not the ones to harp on security but if the metal detector goes off as someone is walking through it, please check that person and don’t just wave them through because they are a tourist and a female.  It was very bizarre and a bit alarming to say the least.  We rate the airport experience a 6/10. 

Settat Train Station (waiting for our replacement train)

 

Gare de Marrakech *photo courtesy of Sara

Rare moment of PDA *photo courtesy of Sara