Long post alert. This stuff is super important if you’re going to be traveling to Rabat (Morocco in general) and I haven’t yet seen a post this detailed about it—so please read if you’re planning to travel here! If not feel free to skim or skip.
I traveled with a few friends to Chefchaouen (the blue city) this weekend! I was going to write about it, but realized that our time there would be better served by a picture post. However, here’s something that’s worth writing about: public transportation! Here are some useful tips for planners like me, some of which you can find elsewhere on the internet, and others which you can’t.
- Taxis: there are two types of taxi in Rabat: blue petit taxis and white grand taxis. Petit taxis can seat up to 3 and can’t go outside the city limits (not even to Sale across the river), but they’re the better choice if you want to travel somewhere within the city. They have a counter (conteur in French) which should start running when you start; ask about it when you get in the taxi or you could get ripped off. It shouldn’t be more than a couple dollars to get anywhere. Grand taxis can be found in any city and can seat five—though the number is flexible, we got seven counting my infant host brother and his giant plush clownfish—and if you’re thinking of taking them a long way to a popular place, ie Tangier to Chefchaouen, you can generally find recommended prices online. Or ask a Moroccan.
- Rabat-Sale tram. This is the futuristic thing that was the picture in one of my past posts. It’s fun just to ride around because it’s so awesome and clean, though keep in mind it doesn’t loop around. I haven’t explored a ton on it, but it goes to many of the neighbourhoods in Rabat and is also the most stylish way to get to Sale. It’s 6 dirham (60 cents) for a one-way trip.
- If taking an inter-city train is an option, do it. They’re faster and more comfortable than buses, plus they have bathrooms and snack trucks (like Harry Potter!). All of the timetables are online on the ONCF website (still not sure what that stands for, but it’s something official, and you can just search ONCF Morocco). It might be a bit tricky to navigate without basic French, but the website is lovely and helpful and most things on there are cognates. Be warned, though the train system is good, they can be late, so figure that into your schedule (contingency plans are great regardless). If you get a first class ticket, it’s not that more expensive, but you get a reserved seat and air conditioning—I know how important these things are after this weekend. Rabat has two train stations, Rabat Ville (in the center on Mohammad 5, right next to parliament and a five minute walk from the old medina) and Rabat Agdal (in Agdal on a terrifying road I once walked down, completely lost, for an hour).
- There are quite a few bus companies, the best of which (I am told) are CTM and Supratours (ONCF buses). CTM has a nice website, just like the ONCF, where you can find timetables and reserve tickets. Apparently it is also air conditioned—the buses look really neat too, kind of like the tram. All the other bus companies… not so much (about reserving tickets in advance, or all of the above). The bus station (Gare Routiere/Kamra) is located a few kilometres away from Rabat. To know the other bus’s schedules/buy their tickets you have to go there. You can take a Grand Taxi or the tram, the latter of which is cheaper but takes much longer. Men will approach you by the entrance (which took me aback at first, as I thought they were random creepers) asking where you want to go, and you can ask them the bus times for said destination. There are no bus schedules posted (though there are at other stations, at least Chefchaouen), but just believe them; this is their job. They will also sell your tickets to you. You won’t be able to enter the Gare Routiere unless you buy a ticket, and for the non CTM/Supratours buses you aren’t able to buy tickets in advance. Random buses are a really cheap option, but do be warned that taking them is an adventure. See note below on my experience/random bus tips (skip to the last paragraph for the latter, travelers).
- Ask a local. There are a lot of things that you can only know by asking local people; I couldn’t have made this list without our professor, coordinator, and homestay coordinator. And because of the relative lack of things that you can find online (with anything related to travel, esp. in non-touristy destinations like Rabat) it’s helpful to ask people who know what’s up.
Often anecdotes are helpful in decision-making, so here’s the story of our bus ride to and from Chefchaouen. There’s a lot of good and bad that probably applies to these bus rides in general. So, Chefchaouen is kind of in the middle of nowhere in the mountains. It’s a huge tourist destination, so a lot of people get there by being in/traveling to Tangier or Tetouan and taking a grand taxi from there. However, we’re cheap college students horrified of a 2-hour-long $100 taxi ride and also on a tight time constraint, so we opted for either train (which transfers to an ONCF bus in the town of Souk El Arbaa) or direct bus. However, the only train and only CTM bus from Rabat both left somewhere between 2-3 PM on Saturday, and because of class, we could only be gone Saturday to Sunday. So, we decided to take another bus that left at 5:30AM (Shoutout to our coordinator who called her taxi driver friend who took us from the hotel to the station).
The trip there was decent, although we took a rather roundabout route going through Fes, instead of the most direct route, so it ended up taking about 6.5 hours instead of the 4-6 we had heard (maybe that was for CTM or something). The beginning was terrifying/great; it felt like we were on the Knight Bus, moving deftly around cars, coming within a foot of trucks, and generally going about 20 km above the speed limit. Due to the early time, the bus wasn’t very crowded and it was actually pretty cold inside, despite the lack of air conditioning. Also, it was nice to see the terrain of Morocco, particularly as we climbed into the Rif Mountains.
The way back was a bit less decent. We got there about 10 minutes before it left, so we got some of the last seats and some people had to stand (though not for extremely long; there’s a ton of turnover on these trips). When I got on the bus, a small child had just vomited under the seat next to the one I sat in, and her mother felt awful and was trying to dump all sorts of disinfectant on the ground to clean it up. This actually ended up being good for me, as no one wanted to sit next to me and my friend was able to move into the seat, but it smelled weird for a bit. Also, the only windows were very small and there was no air conditioning, so it was boiling in the early afternoon. We went along, the driver decided to take an hour long break for some reason, and we got on the road again, only to have a window broken by a bunch of 7-year-old hooligans throwing rocks (no, actually). The driver and attendant spent a lot of futile time trying to find the window assailants, but ended up giving up and just breaking the rest of the window (so the shards wouldn’t hit people, though some still did) and driving for a few hours. People kept getting annoyed at the wind, and possibly the shards of plastic/glass that were hitting them, so we went very slowly until we reached our next rest stop, where they were able to cover the window with some plastic. We took the more direct route this time, but the trip still ended up being about 7.5 hours because of the traffic and incident. The sunset was beautiful.
Random bus tips: First, bring a long (not very deep) book! Next, in general, there are a good amount of bathroom breaks on these bus rides, in which there are Turkish toilets (bring toilet paper if you think you’ll need it) for which you have to pay about 20 cents. Also, if you don’t know darija (there are just some places French won’t cut it…), it can be really confusing when the bus is just stopping to let people on/off or when the bus is stopping for a bathroom break. One suggestion is to figure out what the driver looks like, and if he gets off and starts drinking coffee, you’ll probably be fine using the toilet/buying snacks/whatever. If you’re going to eat those snacks, it’s considered bad manners not to also offer a bit of food to the people around you. I didn’t bring food, but a kind woman next to us gave us an apple. Also, like I said above, try to get there decently early to get a seat. And you never really know the route the bus will take until you go, but it’ll get there in the end.