Marrakesh Transportation Tips by happy-guy

'Mode': AROUND
Category: Other
Getting TO/AROUND: Course, what they don't tell you about Marrakech is the roads.
I intended to hire a 4 wheel drive thingy and drive about the country to see the sights. Now having been told it's cheaper to hire when I got there, I didn't pre-book. Smart move number one.
We went through customs straight into the waiting taxi to be whisked off to our hotel........ whisk being a very apt word.
We drove out of the airport and entered a world that could only have been created by an infernal marriage of the talents of Salvador Dali and Hieronymus Bosch. Things on wheels ..... EVERYWHERE!!!! For sur real!!!
Let me tell you about the rules of the road in Marrakech. They drive on the right ... unless its full .... in which case they drive in the middle ..... unless it's full ....... in which case they drive on the left ..... unless it's full ....and it's always full ...... in which case they just drive as if you're at a fair ground, safely ensconced in a dodgem car. But of course you aren't. This is the sate of affairs permanently, apart from the hours of 2.30 to 2.35 am, during which brief window of opportunity the sane venture forth ,,,,,,, nervously.
You think I jest. Ah, misguided friend of mine, I have never been more serious. Chaos, absolute chaos, or so I thought for the first 3 days and then I realised it was not chaos, merely anarchy. Imagine a road, albeit a wide road (this IS the main route around Marrakech after all) of just 2 lanes .. one going, one coming, allegedly. Each lane is occupied with nose to tail vehicles, 3, sometimes 4, abreast, some of whom are wanting to turn right regardless of lane and some of whom are wanting to turn left ... and some of whom are just wanting to turn. Thread this with cyclists on bikes and mopeds who are travelling at right angles to the flow. Thousands of them. Everyone travels at 30 miles an hour. Never faster, never, ever slower.
I never did hire a car.

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