la prima imprezione

// the first impression

Immediately after stepping off the ferry in Morocco I thought 'god I hope that terrible smell is just the boat and not the city'. It turned out to be the city but never mind, the weird dead fish smell makes a welcome change from dog pee scented Europe.

I took the ferry from Spain to Tangier, from where the night train to Marrakesh leaves. I was a little stressed about whether I would have enough time to find my way from the Tangier port to the train station but shouldn't have worried; it took me ten minutes to get here and taking into account the new time zone I have three hours to wait.

Morocco is daunting for a lone female traveller. I've met people who had been here and they told me that it's all perfectly safe but I wasn't convinced. However, when I got off the ferry and found a free transit bus waiting for me, which dropped me at the taxi rank, where a kindly taxi driver approached me and offered to take me to the train station for three euro (which I later learned is a rip off, but oh well), I started to relax. I jumped in along with two Czech girls and he chatted away to us in flawless English, telling us how much he loves Morocco, not to bother visiting Casablanca because it's just like Europe, that the people here live together in harmony and that we won't have any problems. It was like being collected at the ferry by a favourite uncle. He pointed out the bank for me, the ticket seller guy spoke perfect English and quoted the price in both dirham and euro and nobody turned their head to look at me.

In spite of having a good first impression I remained wary and kept a close eye on my bag when a man in the train station approached me. He guessed that I was Australian because he meets so many of us. From past experiences in Turkey, Italy and Spain I was suspicious and expected the familiar awkwardness of a 'you are very beautiful girl' type of comment, but he just chatted along, reminded me that it was Ramadan and then wandered off back to his friends. So far, so good.

I've just arrived so there isn't much more to say than that. I'm feeling really excited about being somewhere so different. I'm sure that many adventures await.