After figuring out the bus and ferry schedules we realized that there was no way we could get to tangier in time for the 2 o’clock train to Marrakech. So our only option was to night train, something we all feared! In Algeciras, the Spanish port town, we bought our ferry tickets and got in line for customs. When it was my turn, my watch beeped 16:00, the exact time our ferry was scheduled to leave. But the custom official grabbed my passport, but instead of stamping it, he kept examining it, and muttering and he showed it to his buddy. After a few minutes they made me and the guys follow them down stairs and we had a seat in a lobby while he went in a back office to talk to someone. After 5 long minutes he came back out and said: “no problem.” I still don’t know what happened. Either way I grabbed my passport and we ran as fast as we could to the gang plank. On the boat we set down, and 2 hours later, the boat finally left, 2 hours late.
The ride over to Africa was exciting. A whole new country and even cooler, a whole new continent! In tangier we went to the taxi stand to get a ride to the train station. I love Moroccan taxis because they fight over passengers, trying to get a ride is tough work, you start to et in a cab with one driver and the other drivers yell at your driver and tell you that he will steal your bags or drive you out to the desert and leave you for dead! After much screaming and yelling we finally got a cabbie but he wanted to charge us 10 euro apiece which is outrageous so we offered him no more than 40 dirham, which translates as about 1 euro apiece. At the train station the atm was out of order and we barely had enough money to buy our tickets to Marrakech, while waiting for the train we met some other travellers. On the train we found seats together, bolted our bags together with locks and bike chains and a steel cable, then we made a big pile of our stuff and I slept on it all night for extra security! Well I shouldn’t say slept, its nearly impossible to sleep, the lights stay on all night, a window was broken so the freezing cold night air filled the car, and at about 4 am there was a Moroccan idol contest with 2 guys at on e end of the train car wailing in Arabic to a guitar and spoons, and at the other end were some young guys singing what sounded like Arabic rap. That night on the train proved to be one of my longest and most miserable yet. Of course it didn’t help that a guy warned us that: “do not sleep, your bags will be stolen!” so we didn’t sleep.
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