After a long, hot and painful day….(seriously with the 2 hours of sleep….) we managed to get into our baby buses and go to the train station in Tanger. Our train was set to leave town at 10 and it was pretty prompt.

We had booked the overnight train, which surprisingly was only one car on a really really really really long train of 2nd class cars and some 1st class. And thankfully it was the farthest car from the station – it gave us a chance to walk a little before boarding.

Our little room was very comfortable. Considering the 4 us were all in there with all our luggage. Laura, Kerry, Christina and I got all settled in and ready to go, go, go, go. Pretty much straight into our little bunks and straight to sleep.

The only thing of note that happened on the entire 12 hour trip (we were 2 hr late pulling into Marrakech) was the catastrophic rumbling. Oh, you think I’m exaggerating, but alas, no. I’m not. I was sleeping on the bottom which made it a little louder I think. No one knows what happened. We will never know what happened. But whatever the hell it was …I was half expecting stage coaches to surround us as we were robbed old western style.

We think, possibly, at least it sounded like, we hit a rock pile. And by hit I mean ran into, and then continued to run over, a shit ton of rocks. Most of us were sound asleep and it took a second or two to wake up but the dawning came quickly enough. It was LOUD. Bang Bang Bang. Rocks pounding against the bottom of the train. And then it stopped. Not just the noise,  but the train, and the lights, and all power in fact. Just stopped. Somewhere in the middle of Morocco, in the middle of the night. Up we all jump and off to the passageway. What do we find there? Yup. Mustapha. Knower of all things. Master of our harem. Protector of his women. Solver of mysteries.

“Mustapha, Mustapha. What the heck was that noise? What happened? What is going on?”

“Laaaadddiiiiesss, there is nothing to worry about. Everything is fffiinnnneeeee. We just went off the rails. Machi mushkil. Don’t worry about a thing.”

What can I say. He was right. Everything was fine. The lights came on, the train started up. Nothing to see here folks. Back to bed.