We pulled our bags on and lurched towards the door surrounded by a swarm of these people. The bouncer heard us knocking and unlocked the door for us; soon we were standing in the cold dark street again, stranded.

We checked our watches-it was nearly four o'clock. The bus station had to be open soon if our coach was leaving at five, and we asked the bouncer if he knew where we could get a taxi. 'I know a place,' he said, and lumbered off round the corner. We followed him and found ourselves looking down yet another long dark street. At the end of the road was a group of about thirty petits taxis; all the drivers were crowded together in a huge group, arguing and shouting at one another. Our bouncer shouted something in Arabic and pointed to us.

The entire group stopped shouting at once as thirty pairs of eyes fixed themselves on two foreign tourists in need of a taxi. There was a small pause, and then the drivers just launched themselves at us en masse from about fifty metres away, knees and elbows pumping, in a blind charge to be the first to reach us; we stared in terror as they bore down on us with astonishing speed, shouting at the tops of their voices. We pushed our way through the screaming rabble with effort, ignoring cries to 'take my taxi', 'come this way', 'you go with me', 'come, get in', 'follow me, my friend', and so on. Forcing open the first door we came to, we squeezed into one of the cabs while the driver and his friend fought off the others to take the front seats. Maybe it wasn't even their cab, and they were just the first to get in. Anyway, they beat the other drivers back from the front seats, slammed the doors on their friends' fingers and drove off, cleaving a path through the raucous, screaming crowd.

We told the two we had ended up with to take us to the CTM station. They accelerated round two corners and stopped three seconds later, outside the bus station where we had started. In all our wanderings we must have walked in a big circle and somehow ended up just near the station again. It had not been worth the ride.

'One hundred dirhams,' the driver said, to his credit keeping a straight face. We virtually screamed at him-it had been maybe a two-dirham trip, even allowing for the extra fifty percent usually added after midnight. But we had ended up with a bastard of a cab driver and we couldn't get the fare lower than twenty dirhams. We paid up wearily and got out.

By now we were so tired, we just wanted to get on the coach and sleep our way to Essaouira and people we knew. The station was still not open, and the big doorway was now filled with an assortment of shady characters in trench-coats holding bottles and sleeping quietly by the door. Luckily they were all sound asleep, and we made as little noise as possible so as not to wake them up.

At about half-four, an official arrived and at last started unlocking the door to the station. We were just crowding in after him when he put his foot out and stopped us, telling us that it would not open for another half an hour. We asked if we could possibly wait inside, because we were a bit worried about all the strange people sleeping around us. 'These people?' he said, coming back out. 'Oh, they won't worry you. Oi, oi, oi!' he shouted, waving his arms and kicking at the figures on the ground; 'Hey! Get up! Clear off!' They started stirring with grunts and grumbles while we looked on with some alarm.

Having thoroughly pissed off all the sleeping Moroccans, the man retreated inside and locked the door, and we found ourselves trapped by the door surrounded by these people, who were coming round irritably having been so rudely disturbed. 'Oh my God,' I said, 'he's woken them all up!' I wondered desperately if we should attempt a lullaby; but it was too late, and soon we were again in the centre of a group of curious and slightly unsavoury Moroccans. This group was perhaps the most frightening of all, most of them holding some kind of weapon, whether it be a broken bottle or a splintered plank of wood, and some of them were quietly beating each other up around us.

One weasely man approached us hesitantly with one arm held firmly behind his back. He stared at us from a distance and came over to poke at our bags, which we had barricaded in a corner behind us. 'I like your bag,' he said in faltering French, 'you give it to me to carry.'

'What's in your other hand?' I asked cautiously. He looked at me narrowly and bent his head back to check that whatever it was was still there; he went back to prodding our rucksacks without elaborating, but he regarded us with suspicion from then on. Simon swung round and beat desperately on the door:

'Let us the fuck in!' he shouted.