We spent the night at a more than decent hotel in Khouribga. Lots of choice there, as it is a mining city and most likely seeing a lot of business travellers. We didn’t sleep in though: it was still cool in the morning, the sun was out and based on the previous day we expected quite some train traffic.
We made the first pictures at Mrizig, west of Khouribga. The bumpy road was perfect to wake up – no road too rough for our Romanian rental car. Next we moved towards Ras El Ain and Settat, where we found numerous photo opportunities. Trains were operated by a mix of French (Alstom) and Japanese (Hitachi) built locomotives.
Lunch was a tajine in the shade on a terrace, at a restaurant where the meat was hanging to dry outside. It was the most delicious tajine I ever had. It wouldn’t be the last time we saw Settat that day: when returning to our car in the afternoon, the level crossing guard requested us to drive an old lady to the city. We think that’s what he asked. So we found ourselves with the old lady in the car, who was showing us directions. I think. We dropped her off in the center of the city, at her destination. I think. Those are the nice little adventures that you remember even better than all the trains.
We ended the day with a photo of the evening train to Casablanca, with the town of Ras El Ain in the background. Nice and chill, after a full day of train hunting. The cold drink we purchased just before was a well deserved bonus – the car accessory needed to open the bottles made for another hilarious moment.