Oujda was full of outstandingly helpful people. When we asked where we could find internet in my version of their national language of French, the store worker took us across the street to another store and presented the "Inglisi" to the another clerk who walked with us for 4 or 5 blocks to an internet cafe and recommended a restaurant en route. We went to a cafe and forgot our envelope of papers there. When we realized and came back after an hour, it wasn't put in the garbage or picked up by someone else as I would expect it to be in Ottawa. The waiter retrieved it from a shelf and said, "Welcome to Morocco. Your second home is here." When we had paused for for a few seconds and were contemplating which street to take to the bus terminal a middle-aged cyclist went past us, noticed us gesturing and doubled back to find out where we were headed and told us the way. Then like Santa Claus, turned with a wave and nose and disappeared back into the city.

Getting a bus at Oujda was as easy as asking a Petit Taxi driver for "gare" (6 Durhams for the ride) and walking  to a window in the gare and asking for a ticket to Figuig (50 Durhams each, $8 Canadian) for over 6 hours ride. Bussing through a desert is surprisingly not very hot with wind blowing through the window. It got warm when the bus stopped for a change of passengers in the sun.

The land goes from flat to slightly hilly and slightly vegetated to flat again and sometimes a wind whips a sheet of sand. Where there is a large clearing where wind is likely to heap the sand, there are the equivalent of snow fences to catch the sand from drifting over the roadway (below).

The people mostly dozed on the bus as one couple played kissing blinking games with their baby with enough love to warm the whole bus. When the baby slept, they slept. When a woman boarded the bus part way, the father didn't even appear give a second thought but gave his seat up beside his wife to the women and newborn. He squatted and stood at the back of the bus with a few other men who stood for an hour or two of the ride.

Three times going and twice returning we were stopped by the gendarme passport checkpoints. We were taken off the bus for 10 minutes or so the first two times and all our information taken including profession, place of birth and residence, (all taken at every hotel as well) names of our mothers and fathers, marital status and number of children we have and route we are taking to and from and purpose of travel. The guards were quite friendly and helped us stumble through our bad French and French/Spanish/English sentences. Someone from the bus got off to help translate. Returning he just took our passport to record the number again and asked where we were going now. The guards and driver seemed to be happy to see each other again. The driver enjoys his job a lot and at stations gets off to chat with people at many of them. At the 3rd checkpoint returning the same guard saw us again nodded to us and picked someone else for a passport check which caused an almost congratulatory laughter from fellow passengers "tag. your turn this time".

	The desert is never quite empty and even here the same selection of food and drinks were available. The bus made a lot of small stops, sometimes to refuel, sometimes to change passengers.		It isn't sunset that makes the sky pink but the blowing sand over this desert settlement
	Some older men wore all white and something like a toile-turban against the sand. Some women wore an overshoot over their robes that can be used to block gusts of sandy wind. Still, the sand eventually sifts all over and under everything and when water comes to wash at night the face wipes away red brown onto the cloth.		Sometimes the bus stopped to let someone on or off in what seemed like just off left center of no where. With no landmarks we could distinguish, people make 2 or 3 slow claps to indicate when their stop is coming and the bus stops to let a man or family off to walk to his horse or to their adobe house or tents.
	In central Canada in open area where the wind sweeps through, thin picket fences are put up for the wind to pile the snow against. It prevents the roads from drifting in. Alongside the roads in open area between clefts in the hills, bits of what appeared to be sugar cane pickets were put into corrals to buffer the sand in the fine silty sand in same way.

On our return we also passed though Oujda to take the train to Casa. When we asked at a hotel where to find a bank so we could get local cash for the tickets for the train, reception  invited us to pass our time until the train by their hotel pool and swim if we like. I am very sure that that wouldn't happen in Canada. Hotel staff at the Ibis really helped us with warmth when we had stayed there as well.

2002, Pearl and Brian Pirie      | Trip Main Page |