Friday, January 14, 2011

Travelers in a Strange Land

The French word for traveler is voyageur and it creates a fabulous image in my mind of unknown destinations and observations.  

Our base for the week is Marrakesh but we decided to take two day trips - one to Casablanca (also known as Casa Voyageurs) and the other to Agadir.  With no trouble, we booked passage on the train to Casablanca, a 3 hour trip, for only 300 Dirham (less than 30 Euros) per person roundtrip/2nd class.  The trains are not new but they are comfortable, roomy, clean and on time!  The only hiccup for the day occurred on our arrival at Marrakesh's beautiful new train station.  Since it is only a 10 minute walk from our hotel, we arrived at 8:40 am for our 9 am departure.  We walked confidently to the door leading to the gates expecting the other to produce the tickets.  Neither of us had them.  I had given them to Peter the night before and watched him hide them (from himself) under the desk blotter and assumed that he remembered to bring them.  We quickly ran outside, grabbed a petit taxi that delivered us to the hotel to grab the tickets and returned us to the train station in less than 8 minutes.  We handed him 30 Dirhams (less than 3 Euros) and he didn't even try to bargain - which means he was very happy with us ... and we with him!
Signs as Art -  in Arabic and French
Our map and tickets!
The new and very modern train station in Marrakesh



1 comment:

  1. Looks like Marrakesh is a wonderful place to spend a vacation. You have an excellent life after retirement indeed! Thank you for sharing your travels with us.

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