Getting into the country By ferry from Spain
- Customs are fairly easy. you need to get a stamp on the boat and present to customs. Most nationalities simply need a valid passport.
- In order to avoid hassles with changing money, it's best to do so on the boat.
- Once coming off the boat, you will undoubtedly be approached by touts trying to rip you off. This is unfortunately still the case in Morocco, and Tangier is probably the worst place for this, so be prepared.
Here are some stories I heard from other travellers:
- 2 Australians forgot to get the stamp on the boat and were sent back from customs to the boat. So they came off the boat after all the other people, and they were approached by a neatly dressed man who said he belonged to the tourist police, and it was his job to help tourists in the harbour. He said he would help them going to a bank and change money. He specifically told him: "we are now leaving the harbour and going into the city". After they had gone to a bank and to the train station, he wanted money from them, because he said once outside the harbour, his services weren't free anymore. This ended in a huge unpleasant argument.
- Several people were approached by a nice guy saying he would invite them to the wedding of his sister. The story is usually the same: you should get off in Asilah (next stop), buy a jellaba or some presents, and at the end there would not really be a wedding. This story is in the LP too, but apparently some tourists still don't know and get ripped off.
- A variant to the story above for people arriving with a surfboard is that there is a great championship going on in some small place.
By plane - I arrived by plane in Marrakesh airport. We had to queue a little bit, but finally everything went smooth. No touts at the airport. There is only 1 money exchange boot, rates are the same as in the city.
- A trip into town should certainly not cost more then 50 DH, although I got slightly ripped off with 60 DH in a minibus with 6 other tourists.
Transportation Royal Air Maroc
Introduction
- Royal Air Maroc has several domestic flights, but most of them start from Casablanca. They have international flights to Casablanca from New York, plenty of European destinations as well as some destinations in the Middle East and Africa. There are also some international flights from Paris to Essaouira, Ouarzazate, Marrakech and Tangiers.
- I took 2 domestic flights, and flights were delayed twice for about 30 minutes. The first time, the plane simply waited for some international flights into Casablanca who were delayed as well (like mine coming from Brussels).
- Most of the domestic flights are filled by tourists, so take this into account when booking: high season is March - May as well as holiday periods.
- As for prices, they have 3 price levels:
-normal price
-weekend packages save you about 35% on the normal return price. Only condition is that you spend a Saturday night on your place of arrival. You are free to change your return trip if you wish.
-package: you save about 40% on the normal return price. Only condition is that your return flight comes no sooner then next monday, and the return flight cannot be changed afterwards.
- For people below 26 years, they give a 50% discount on normal prices (no cumulation possible with weekend package f.i.).
Schedules & fares
Actual schedules & fares can be found on the website of Royal Air Maroc at www.royalairmaroc.com.
To give you some idea, here are the standard return fares for some destinations including taxes (prices 12/2002):
- Casa-Marrakesh: 1701 DH (7 flights a day)
- Casa-Essaouira: 1990 DH (1 flight on Friday and Sunday)
- Casa-Fez: 2185 DH (7 flights on monday, 3 to 4 flights on other days)
- Casa-Tangiers: 2140 DH (5 to 7 flights a day)
- Tangiers-Marrakesh: 3695 DH
Train
- Trains are pretty comfortable and the railwaysystem is easy to understand: from Casablanca, you have a train to Marrakech, Fes and Tangiers. You can thus travel from Fes to Marrakech over Casablanca.
- There is a sleeper service from Casa to Fes, but I doubt this is useful since this trip is only 4 hours.
- Interesting to know is that the train company also has buses departing from Marrakech towards other cities in the South who are not served by the train, like Essaouira, Ouarzazate etc. These buses wait for the train and are the most comfortable in Morocco. You can also take them independently from the train(see buses).
- The Moroccan railways have an excellent website with schedules and fares at http://www.oncf.org.ma.
Here are some ideas (12/2002):
| Trains | Marrakech | Casablanca | Fes | | 1 | 1h.30 | 6h.15 | 10h.50 | | CO | 7h.15 | 12h.05 | 15h.05 | | CF | 9h.00 | 15h.05 | 16h.20 | | 3 | 12h.00 | 16h.20 | 19h.30 | | 7 | 14h.15 | 19h.30 | 21h.35 | | MF | 16h.45 | 21h.35 | 1h.45 | | MK + MA | | 20h.00 | 1h.15 | | MA | | 20h.00 | 1h.15 | | 15 | | 22h.30 | 3h.05 |
Buses
Supratours
This is the buscompany from the Moroccan railways, they link up with the trains mainly from Marrakech & Fes. Their service is excellent, they depart from the railway station unlike the other buses.
From Marrakech f.i these are the options:
- to Ouarzazate: 7 pm, 60 DH
- to Essaouira: 11a m & 7 pm 50 DH
- to Agadir: 9 am, 12.45 am, 3.15 pm, 10.15 pm 70 DH
- to Layoune: 6 pm & 10.30 pm 250 DH
CTM
This is, after Supratours, the second best buscompany operating nationwide they have a website, but at this moment (12/2002) it didn't have much interesting info, especially not itineraries and timetables.
Other buscompanies
There are plenty of other buscompanies most of them operating locally. They are usually a bit less in comfort then the 2 above. the big problem with them is that they can sometimes stop very often to pick up or let off passengers.
Taxis
Grand taxis
- I found collective taxis a pretty useful and certainly a very fast way to go from point A to point B. They are usually 20% more expensive then the cheaper buses, but also faster, especially f.i. in the more mountainous areas (f.i. Marrakech - Ouarzazate).
- These taxis are either older Mercedes 200 series. They carry 6 passengers, 2 in the front passenger seat and 4 behind. Not really comfortable, but OK. Either it is an old Peugeot 505 station car carrying 6 to 7 passengers, 1 in the front, 3 in the back and another 2 on the small bench behind.
- Most of the time these taxis are waiting for passengers, and they fill up quickly. However, once in Skoura we were waiting for taxis to come, and then it's important to be fast when one arrives. Of course I was way to late to secure a place when the first taxi came, but when the second came I ran like all the other passengers and I got a place. Another point to mention is that it's impossible to catch such a taxi along the road because they are always full.
Petit taxis
There are 2 kinds of "petit" taxis:
1) In the bigger cities like Marrakech, they work like the taxis we know in Europe: you jump in, it brings you from point A to B and you pay a fare. It is important to follow certain rules when fixing a fare:
- ALWAYS ask to put on the meter, and this will be the correct fare. Anything else the driver proposes you will ALWAYS be higher, sometimes even much higher.
- Some drivers will quote the correct fare, other will try some tricks to make you pay more like:
-They will add a certain amount as "night tax" (something like 20 to 30 % extra). This doesn't exist in Morocco, so refuse to pay it.
- Some drivers will say their meter doesn't work. This is usually a lie, but anyway if you know the correct fare (f.i. from your hotel to the center of town), stay firm.
- A particular trick is this one: some taxis can pick up 2 separate passengers and thus have 2 fares on their meter. If you don't know this, the driver will put the meter on zero when you get in, but along the way he can switch to the second fare which is the higher one. So always watch the meter, and when you suddenly see the fare has gone up considerably, something is wrong. 2) In smaller cities like Ouarzazate, these "Petit taxis" ply a certain route for a fixed price and they pick up several passengers (maximum 3).
|
