Meknes, my introduction to Marocco
“Can you keep these seats free for me and my father?”, she asks inbetween two songs. I’m equally struck by her brown eyes as her perfect English. I just boarded the train to Meknes with very loud arabic disco music all around. I quickly decided to look for guy with the ghettoblaster to make sure I would not end up in that coupe. The beats turn out to come from the train-speakers – so they are present in every coupe. After she returns with her father an elderly woman sits next to me. She picks up her Qu’ran and starts reading aloud with intensity, right through the beats who happily keep on pumping through the speakers. Apparently this is not nearly enough for the girl and her father – she gets her mp3-player and they share a headphone (Qu’ran music, I learn later). All sources of sound show no sign of giving up, with my sympathy going out to the old woman. Welcome to Marocco! It’s only four hours to Meknes.
You’ll remember your first walk in a Maroccan medina for sure… Tiny stores packed with goods as high as the laws of physics allow, other people selling very few goods on the ground in front of the stores, faux guides and touts trying to lure you into their store or hotel (or that of their ‘brother’ nearby, sure) and beggars with the most horrible medical conditions. Welcome in the medina!
The elderly have seen it all.
Beauty is certainly not about spotlessness. These colors are excellent.
Petit taxis are blue here 
. There are countless of them.