Trains, Taxis, and Total Chaos: Our Grueling First Day in Morocco

Immediately after exiting the plane, we all rushed to the nearest bathroom to brush our teeth and freshen up after the long flight. As we had landed very early in the morning (6 AM), the sun had yet to rise and no matter how hard we stared out the windows from the terminal, only darkness greeted us.

We continued onwards and found ourselves now in the winding customs line. It was a bit of a different experience for us as they demanded to know where we were staying along with our occupations. Once our answers were deemed satisfactory, we found a small booth selling tickets for nearby taxis and soon were speeding down the dark streets. It is out these dark and dirty taxi windows in which we saw our first real glimpses of the country in which we would be calling home for the next week. Rows of palm trees and Moroccan flags formed a backdrop for the hectic morning traffic. A short ride later, we found ourselves now in a rather modest train station. We wasted no time and went up to the counter and purchased tickets to head to the next city of Casablanca. Even though the trip had hardly started, this is where we made our very first mistake.

The upcoming train ride to Casablanca would be an exhausting three hours. Unfortunately for us, we had decided to save some money and purchase a second class ticket instead of first class. This turned out to be such a horrible mistake as we would spend the next three grueling hours in a small, cramped train car with five other people.

Now I am not one to shy away from a social interaction but this was a whole different scenario. The cabin in which we found ourselves was about the size of my bathroom and featured eight seats, five of which were taken. There was some confusion regarding the ticket numbers and we crammed into the musty cabin; all the while lamenting our fate. I wish I could say the next three hours flew by but that would just be false. Due to the arrangement, our knees were firmly pressed against each other and the slightest movement to the train car would cause us discomfort.

Throughout the next three hours, we would experience several young kids, a man who would glare at us, and a mother and her newborn baby (who she tried to get me to hold) all who did not speak a word of English. It was a torturous ride and all the while made worse that we had just recently experienced a nine and a half hour flight and were going off of very little sleep.

Fortunately our train journey was over and we found ourselves in the coastal city of Casablanca. In our utter eagerness to get off the train, we disembarked too early and realized that our next planned stop would be over an hour commute on foot. We quickly hopped back onto the train for another few minutes before finally arriving at our intended spot. We still had a rather long walk to our first attraction (the Grand Mosque) but we were beyond excited to see that train behind us and finally have the opportunity to use our legs.

Our journey to the mosque took us down countless side streets and along busy roadways; all the while trying to dodge traffic as crosswalks were a thing of imagination here. Casablanca is an industrial port city and our first impressions were rather lackluster. Trash strewn amongst the streets, little infrastructure, and an overall disappointing vibe.

During this journey, we stopped into a small dilapidated currency exchange office and I attempted to convert some of my cash into the local currency. Of the $150 I turned in to convert, only $20 was accepted due to the fact that my other bills were older than five years. Several minutes later, we eventually found ourselves in a small train station and Austin and Matt used this opportunity to convert some more of our American dollars into Moroccan dirhams.

Starting to feel the effects of the journey to get here and emerging pains of hunger, we took this moment in the train station to sit down and plan a potential lunch spot before our scheduled tour at the Grand Mosque. I was able to find a few potential restaurants on my phone and set off in search of  typical Moroccan cuisine. Once we had arrived at the place I had discovered, we quickly realized the restaurant seemed a bit nicer than we expected. We rapidly pulled up the menu on our phones and began to bulk at the price. Fortunately another restaurant was just a few blocks away and we began to make our way towards this new destination. On our way to this new restaurant, we happened to bypass the dinner that was recreated from the iconic film Casablanca.

A few blocks further, it later turned out that this new restaurant was situated on the top floor of a shopping mall overlooking the harbor. Now within the walls of a foreign mall, it was a rather surreal feeling as we had not planned on being here and we just tried to take in the experience. Though the restaurant was rather lavish, our meals and the surrounding port was rather modest.

Casablanca relies on trade and industry and it does not hide it. It was truly surreal seeing the Atlantic ocean from the coast of Africa but it was a bit sullied by the overwhelming amount of trash, cranes, and ships nearby.

After our lunch, we set off toward the looming Grand Mosque.

With the Grand Mosque situated directly on the coast (and even on top of it), the wind gusts near the mosque were something out of a twister film. As we approached closer to the mosque, we began to hear the faint sounds of the call to prayer breaking through the wind.

We spent some time walking around the shadow of the towering mosque, all the while avoiding the massive crowds of people within the square. As our tour time neared, we made our way to the designated meeting point and were told to wait in this area for several minutes. A short while later, we found ourselves in the middle of a large group standing before the mosque’s ornate doors.

Immediately after entering the mosque, we were handed cloth bags to put our shoes into. Now walking on the carpeted floor in just our socks, we spent the next forty five minutes getting lectured about the historic and purpose of this massive structure.

Devoid of much of the flair or history of an ancient cathedral that we might have seen in Europe, we lacked much enthusiasm and eventually had to abandon our tour due to time constraints.

Still within the shadow of the mosque, we summoned a taxi and found ourselves within another train station.

After purchasing a ticket to our final stop for the day (Rabat), we were overjoyed to find our next train much more spacious than the one earlier in the day. A short one hour ride later, we found ourselves now in the capital city of Rabat.

After exiting the station, we were able to take yet another taxi to an apartment that would serve as our lodgings for the night. Once at the apartment, we were met by a young woman who spoke no English (reoccurring theme) who showed us our room and demanded payment. Unfortunately she did not accept cards and we had to use a large chunk of our converted currency to cover the room, effectively using all of Matt’s dirhams. After finally getting payment settled, we dropped off our bags and set into the now dark streets in the hopes of finding something for dinner.

In a city that has the population of Rabat, you would instead think of it as a ghost town. Apple Maps, Google Maps, and even our blind wandering all failed us and we could not find a single open restaurant within a large distance. We eventually found ourselves in a small square and we again dove into our phones trying to find a suitable restaurant.

As luck would have it, one of the restaurants was just a mere few minutes walk from our apartment and we set back off in that direction. We arrived at a very small shop with several outdoor tables and settled for a meal of small sandwiches (and a non-alcoholic beer, Muslim country and all).

One must guess that foreigners are not a frequent site as one of the employees or owner came out and asked if he could film us for his social media. After our dinner had concluded, we had an extremely short walk back to our apartment to officially end our first day in Morocco.

To see the previous day’s adventure, click here.

To move onwards with us along our journey, click here.