By 
HOW many buttons for the horn does a Moroccan taxi driver need? This is not a rhetorical question… The answer is six. On my recent adventure to Morocco this past week, the BPM was at an all-time high: Beeps per minute.
Enough of the wit and more to the point, Morocco is a fascinating country. Being the closest African country to us northern Europeans, just eight miles between it and the Iberian Peninsula, it is widely accessible to backpackers and xenophiles.
It stretches from the Mediterranean Sea all the way to the mid-Atlantic (depending on what map you’re looking at).
A former French colony, it is a popular destination for the inhabitants of our protest-loving friends just across the water, yet it also has two Spanish enclaves and autonomous cities. So they must be friendly with the Spaniards, you would assume? More on that later.
So, Morocco in January… that’s not that strange of an excursion? It’s warmer than here and less rainy; it’s Africa for bleeding sake! But I wasn’t there to bask in the sun or explore the stunning beaches.
I, a Castlederg man, was there to watch African football; specifically the third place play-off game in the infamous African Cup of Nations tournament.
Now, you may be asking ‘why?’. Well, two very simple words…
PEER PRESSURE
Friendships are a weird and wonderful thing, especially male friendships. My friends could peer pressure Putin into giving up the Crimean peninsula.
For a good laugh, every year that AFCON is on my friends and I all get together over one big group chat call and watch the third place play-off game together.
The quality of football is awful but that’s exactly why we love it. Imagine a pitch where 90 per-cent of the players are strikers, but no-one can strike a ball.
Now to set the scene: It’s a cold and dark Tuesday in November, and there are whispers in the group chat about this year’s tournament. The gang’s getting back together to enjoy some awful football.
But these whispers are different… Tickets are mentioned, my name is mentioned, and flights are mentioned. And in less than an hour, our holiday was booked.
(Might I add, we had no idea what teams are going to be playing in this game at this point, and we wouldn’t know until January 14.)
Here’s the plan: Drive to Dublin and fly into Marrakech, a beautiful, culturally-rich city. Spend one day and night there before my compadres fly in and join us, where we meet up in the train station and take a three-hour train to watch the game in Casablanca, party city.
We will have one day in Casablanca before a train back to Marrakech where I say goodbye to my dear friends, and my partner Victoria and I will once again explore Marrakech ourselves before we fly out later that evening.
Fast forward to the day before we fly out, January 14, and the teams have been decided: It’s Nigeria v Egypt. There was disappointment inside the friend group as we were hoping for Mali v Mozambique or something absurd like that. But instead we get two very capable teams with actual world class players… what a shame.
I review my friend’s plans and notice they land at 6.30pm and have a train to catch at 8pm; the last train of that day. I suggested a possible plan B: If you miss the train due to inevitable delays, rent a car and drive across the country. This was suggested in jest, but with a hint of seriousness. ‘Don’t miss the train’ was the message.
COME FLY WITH ME
I’ve never driven to Dublin airport before, but I love driving so I thought it should be easy, and so it was. The roads in the South put ours to shame. It’s almost as if our government don’t care.
Anyways, we arrived, make our way on the shuttle to the terminal and before we know it we are on the luxurious RyanAir Boeing. The flight is 3.5 hours and we’re cramped into a small space like sardines, but we aren’t here to relax.
It goes smoothly (no crying babies this time), but a woman in front of us coughed like she was carrying Tuberculosis. Standard.
The clouds below us sheltered the arid land, but the beautiful Atlas Mountains still peaked through. We land before I know it. A welcoming 15 Celsius outside, but you could tell the sun was powerful.
It took us an hour to get through the airport, with immigration asking us what we had for breakfast and if my granny was in any terrorist organisations. Debatable.
I read a lot about the taxi situation in Morocco and how they will try to scam you. So I pre-booked a professional transfer service to our hotel, and eventually we find our guy in a sea of boards with names. I was not prepared for the driving standards.
A keen fan of Formula 1, the concept of defensive and aggressive driving styles are not lost on me. But on public roads? Not a fan.
Our driver was stopping the vehicle behind from passing while also trying to pass the vehicle in front, on a two lane road; we ended up five cars wide. As mentioned before, I can still hear the beeping in my head.
Finally at our Marrakech abode for the night, a bed that felt like cardboard was all I needed.
The view was stunning, the pool, the sunset, the outskirts of the city… all perfect.
We get our rest for what will be a day of walking around and travelling to our next destination.
We rise and order a taxi at the front reception, but we had an issue: We had no Dirhams (Moroccan currency) to pay the driver. ‘No problem’, the driver told us. He will find us an ATM.
What followed was a journey around the city to a bank that refused to change my northern notes, and to three different ATMs before we found one that worked.
Eventually we struck gold: 600 Dirhams (£50).
We reached our final destination in the taxi, Jemaa el-Fnaa, a UNESCO heritage site and the main area of the city. There were bustling markets, monkeys in soiled nappies and women in burkas trying to grab your hand to give you a henna tattoo. The monkey problem got so bad we couldn’t even tell if a child was a human or a monkey anymore, so we avoided walking near both nevertheless.
We cast our eyes on the ever-repeating trinkets and toys the sellers offered, without trying to garner too much attention from them. We then found ourselves in alleyway after alleyway, avoiding motorbikes like we were playing a game of Frogger.
Wanting something to eat, I was willing to pay a fee to not be food poisoned. Eventually we stumbled upon a lovely traditional Riad which was transformed into a rooftop bar and café. Here I got some Kofta, while the lady got herself some couscous. We admired the stunning architecture from our rooftop, paid the hefty fee and once again went on our way.
THE RAIN WAS BLESSED
The rain came, and it was no longer warm… but absolutely freezing. We knew it was going to rain while we were here but gosh, it was heavy. The streets formed rivers and there was minimal shelter from the bombardment.
We had enough of this area, so off to the train station we went to mingle with our friends who thankfully – and surprisingly – had zero issues getting from the airport to the station on time.
We board the train to Casablanca and headed on our way. The train was nicer than you would expect; the seats were comfortable and we had a table. No complaints at all.
We arrived in Casablanca in one piece at around 11pm, with a very nice hotel for a price too good to ignore waiting patiently for us.
Leaving the train station to hail a taxi, this will be our first encounter with the Dacia driving delinquents that are the official taxis.
There are other options like InDrive where you can get a driver for a whopping 10 per-cent of the price an official taxi would charge you, but they don’t like that. Taxi drivers will chase and shout at you if you dare use that service.
200 Dirhams to get to our hotel, the man offered. I said 150. He replied, ‘No, no; Four of you, bigger price’. So 200 we agreed, and in we piled into his tiny car. The driver asks for the address and suddenly his mind has changed. ‘This is outside the area, 300 Dirhams’, he retorted. I had two words for him, but held back. ‘Okay,’ I said.
I can’t write much about Casablanca because it is boring and soulless. There is nothing to do, especially in the pouring rain. There are loads of things I have to leave out of this piece, like nearly getting beheaded by an automatic door, twice. But honestly, I can’t recommend Casablanca to anyone looking to experience Morocco.
The game was in the afternoon, and as we were within walking distance to the stadium, walk we did.
The atmosphere was buzzing; 38,000 people were at the game, much more than we expected.
What we did expect was a very bad game of football… and we did get a bad game of football… in the wrong ways. Just like the city, it was boring.
Throughout the match, the Egyptians faced a barrage of whistling and shouting while the Nigerians were met with cheering crowds.
We found ourselves cheering for Nigeria for our own safety. They thankfully won on penalties.
Back at the hotel, we shared laughs over memories late into the night, questioning what we are actually doing with our lives and how we ended up here.
NO MORE MOROCCO
An early three-hour train back to Marrakech awaited us the morning after, but this time we had the sun on our side and could see what we were travelling through: Hostile landscapes with rivers that flowed red, and donkeys carrying carts which were followed by the newest model of Range Rover. It was a strange land that made for interesting viewing.
We said ‘bon voyage’ to our friends at the train station, leaving them to fend for themselves with a dodgy Dacia driver and we headed back to Jemaa el-Fnaa.
This time we wanted to explore a bit more.
For 30 minutes we dandered through never-ending winding and tight alleyways before we realised… we are getting stared at.
I stopped and looked around: ‘Where are all the Europeans?’
…We had stumbled into the wrong part of town.
To answer the previous question: No, the Moroccans do not like the Spanish.
‘But you’re not Spanish’, you may correctly deduce.
I know, but apparently I look it.
‘EY HERMANO!’ was the phrase shouted in my direction, very aggressively, multiple times.
‘Get out of my country,’ I was even told in French.
‘Hala Madrid’… I prefer Barcelona, but thanks.
Poor Victoria was frightened, so I opened Google Maps to find merciful civility. But I could not make out a road nearby, only rooftops. We were lost.
For the next half hour we walked and walked, sustaining stares and more abuse hurled in our direction.
Eventually our fellow tourists started to appear, and we found ourselves back with the monkeys in nappies and snake charmers, an obvious sign of safety.
By the end of this whole fiasco, we went to the airport a whopping four hours before our flight because, frankly, we were sick of the place.
Not to sound ungrateful or pretentious, but it was all a bit too much.
I never thought I would say it, but Dublin was the most beautiful sight of them all.
