When a few fights started breaking out among them, I walked up to a lone taxi waiting by the side of the road. 'Excuse me,' I said, 'but could we possibly wait in your car until the station opens?' Wordlessly, he looked away and wound his window up in my face.

Oh God, what a night. What a long and awful night it had been.

When, about ten minutes later, the station was finally opened and we collapsed gratefully inside, I felt as though we had been on some kind of odyssey through the city; we'd seen a lot of strange people but our overriding desire was to just get home to our friends.

Our coach was the usual: my seat was stuck in the upright position and Islamic music blared out all night, but it seemed a strangely comforting kind of irritation as the scenery floated past in the darkness and took us down the coast and away from Casablanca.

With events now in the coach driver's control, I lay as far back as the seat allowed me to and thought of Essaouira and what would happen there, and who we would meet...but first, at last, carried through the night on a dilapidated Scandinavian bus, I could shut my eyes and fall into a glorious, exhausted sleep.

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