We bought the tickets to Essaouira and waited for our bus. Well, about one and a half hours later the bus still wasn’t there and I went to talk to the guy who sold us the tickets. Would have been nice if he mentioned it before, but now he said there was no room in the bus and the next one goes in about 8 hours. So much of that plan. Fortunately we managed to sell our tickets back and as we didn’t have much time before our plane from Marrakech back to Düsseldorf-Weeze anyhow, we decided to go ... read more

Foreign journalists or people working in the fields related are not very welcome in Morocco and especially in Western Sahara. So writers of any kind usually tend to claim some other title when asked for occupation. Before going to Laayoune couple of days back me and my friend had stayed in Agadir for two days, walking in every possible direction, so we already knew our way to the beach (not always did we know the way back, but that’s already a different story). And we also knew that there’s a... read more

We left Laayoune at about 1900, the time which happened to be the exact time in the bus schedule as well. That was surprising, considering so far none of our transportation in Morocco had been on-time. Quite refreshing, isn’t it? This time, it wasn’t just the locals and the two of us in the bus. The third tourist in Laayoune, the English teacher was heading back to Agadir as well. Like on our way from Agadir to Laayoune, we again saw something like ten or more police stops. And we were as... read more

Western Sahara was annexed with Morocco in 1976 and about half of the native population fled to Algeria where most of them still reside in five specially created refugee camps. No countries have officially recognized the country. „A guerrilla war with the Polisario Front contesting Rabat's sovereignty ended in a 1991 UN-brokered cease-fire; a UN-organized referendum on final status has been repeatedly postponed. In April 2007, Morocco presented an autonomy plan for the territory to the UN, which... read more

Remember that in Morocco, taking one wrong turn might result in a number of wrong turns (in which cases you won’t even be able to decide on the last turn, confusing, eh?). And by taking the bus by a wrong company which cost more, took more time and was more uncomfortable than the “right” bus, we didn’t really reach Agadir but its transportation center (Inezgane) about 12km away from Agadir. The station for the better buses is also about 12 km from the center of the town, but these stations are s... read more

Getting to the bus station is usually easy, you just look for signs to "Gare routiere". But in Morocco, in many cities, there seem to be at least two different bus stations. One for stupid people and one for just a bit smarter ones. Or okay, I could say that one is for poor people and the other is for rich people, but that would be a plain lie. The main difference there is – the busses in one station are old, ugly and if it catches fire, I guess it’s a normal thing. And in the same bus station, ... read more