Maroc Diary 1: Welcome to the horn-less city of Tangier

My full day trip to Morocco from Nigeria culminated in an enjoyable but lengthy train journey from Casablanca to Tangier, an 8-hour trip.

Having arrived the Murtala Muhammed Airport in Lagos at about 1am, I settled down at my already prepared abode in Morocco at about 7:30pm (8:30pm in Nigeria).

I had received several warnings before leaving Nigeria that I would hate this beloved country of mine when I get to Morocco, most especially from my UK-based boss Calvin Onwuka. This prepared me not to look overawed by whatever I see in Maroc which I was able to do to a large extent.

However, it is important to highlight one or two things which were noteworthy to me on arrival. Firstly, I must note that African time do not exist in this part of Africa – this I knew right from our flight take off in Lagos -.

The flight was scheduled to leave by 6:30am but if you just arrived around that time, you’d be joining us in the clouds of Togo because we left at about 6:13am. The first train we joined in Casablanca en route to Tanger also left at about 11:20am instead of the 12:32pm written on it. No time to waste time.

On arrival in Tanger, we (myself and my French-speaking companion from Nigeria) picked a cab from the train station and on our way to the Hotel Raina, I took note of the very first difference in culture between Nigeria and Moroccans – the use of horn. I saw that there was less noise on the streets as vehicles move without unnecessary haste and you hardly hear horns on the streets.

That is a far cry from what is obtainable in Nigeria where we either use the horn to greet a friend on the street, to dance to the music being played in the car stereo or even hasten the traffic lights to change from red to green. It was beautiful to behold that as a pedestrian crossing the road, just get yourself to the zebra crossing and oncoming vehicles will wait for you, you dare not try that at Allen Round about or Ojuelegba under bridge.

Well, I met my folks in good health and they were indeed happy to get the delivery of the Noodles and gloves/head warmers I bought for them from Lagos.
By the way, don’t let us get into the weather gist, that can prolong this but for the first time, those smokes I see in the mouths of footballers and coaches in Europe on TV, they came out of my mouth too when I was alighting from inside the Air Maroc aircraft into the 8 degrees Celsius weather in Casablanca.

That’s it for Day One… Watch out for day two highlights from the city of Tangier.