I had some apprehension about visiting Morocco. This was heightened when I read the following warning in the Lonely Planet Guide to Morocco (2011, p 499)”
GAUCHE, GREEN & GULLIBLE
“Many Moroccans genuinely believe that Westerners, though perhaps more sophisticated than themselves, are infinitely more naïve, gullible and even plain stupid. Some, including the notorious faux guides, may operate with this in mind.
"Very early on in your encounter with these guides, you’ll be sized up for what you’re worth. Apart from physical indications such as your watch, shoes and clothes, you’ll be assessed from a series of questions: how long you’ve been in Morocco, whether you’ve visited the country before, what your job is, whether you have a family (an indication of wealth) etc.”
Not only did this information make me more apprehensive but it really pissed me off. “So these guys are going to view me as naïve, gullible, and even stupid, eh? So, they are going to size me up for how many Dirhams (the Moroccan currency) they can fleece me out of? Well, I’ll show them, damnit!”
I’d been exposed to overly friendly, aggressive carpet sellers in the tourist areas of Turkey when I worked there ten years ago. So I read more about Moroccan hustlers (it sounded like they were particularly bad in Tangier, my destination at the northwestern tip of Africa) and devised a plan for dealing with them. They were not going to stop me from going to Tangier, they were not going to get me to blow my normally short fuse, and they were not going to spoil my experience of Tangier’s Medina, the old walled city within the much larger metropolitan area.
I discussed the options for getting to Tangier with the very friendly and helpful Spanish proprietor at the small hotel where I was staying in Algeciras near the southern tip of Spain. I could get a slow ferry at the terminal a few blocks away from the hotel and it would take me to Tangier’s new port located about 30km from the city. The crossing took close to 1½ hours and then I would have to take a bus or taxi into Tangier. The other option (more expensive – about $70 round trip) was a high-speed jet-powered ferry which went to the old port located about ½ mile from the Medina. The crossing took less than 45 minutes. There was a small catch: the high-speed ferry left Spain from Tarifa, the town at Spain’s southern tip. However, the price included bus rides between the Algeciras and Tarifa ferry terminals. During my three-month trip, I had normally chosen cheap options but felt it was definitely worth the extra 20 bucks to save an hour in ferry travel time across the Straits of Gibraltar and be delivered within walking distance of the Medina where I planned to spend my day in Tangier.
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| Tarifa harbor at Spain’s southern tip |
A clean, modern Spanish bus got me to the Tarifa ferry terminal on the morning of 7 October 2012. The ferry was late in getting out of port but once in open water, it hauled ass, a huge white plume of water spraying out the stern from the jet engine. The ferry even had a Moroccan immigration counter on board where I got my passport stamped. As the boat approached Tangier’s old port, I was relieved to see the Medina’s white walls (originally surrounding a 15thCentury Portuguese fortress) glowing in the Sunday morning sun and felt confident that I could easily get there on foot along a wide boulevard without getting lost.
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| A huge plume of water from the ferry’s jet engine |
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| Moroccan fishermen near Tangier’s old port |
After walking through customs and immigration, I headed out the port exit toward the boulevard with the mix of mostly Moroccan and Spanish ferry passengers. Most seemed to have rides waiting for them or climbed into taxis. Almost no one seemed to be going on foot and that made me a bit nervous. What dangers did they know about that I didn’t? There was a line of parked taxis as I neared the boulevard, and the cabbie at the head of the queue quickly approached me. “Oh here it comes,” I thought and immediately put my plan into action,“Bon jour,” I said while smiling but continuing to walk at a brisk pace. “Medina, 10 Euro,” he shouted. Yeah, right. That’s like $US13 to get somewhere I could walk to in 10 minutes. Sure, I could probably bargain him down a couple Euro, but then he would try to talk me into a guided tour and, of course, there would be his uncle’s carpet shop, etc., etc. Besides, I needed some exercise. Thus, I replied in a friendly but firm voice, “Merci, mais je n’ai pas besoin d’un taxi” [Thanks, but I don’t need a taxi]” before he could get more than a few more words of English out of his mouth. I had resolved to speak only in French, Morocco’s second language after Arabic. I didn’t want to use English because I didn’t want to be pegged as an American. He followed after me on foot loudly exclaiming in English, “It’s dangerous up there! No one will help you! You’ll get lost!” “Merci,” I replied trying to sound more confident than I was. “Peut-être vous avez raison [Perhaps you are right]…mais je n’ai pas besoin d’un taxi.” He seemed genuinely angry and disgusted with my aloof confidence but gave up as I kept on walking and didn’t look back.
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| Top:Scenes from the Medina. Bottom: View of Tangier from the old port. |
There was a good sidewalk along the 4-lane boulevard, traffic was light, and no one bothered me as I headed in the direction of the Medina, then turned on to an alley which I could see led up a steep hill to an open gate in the wall surrounding the Medina. Once inside the walls, I felt somewhat relieved, studied a sign with a map of the Medina, and headed up the narrow brick street to the Petit Socco, the main square in the Medina, then (a few hundred feet further) out another gate to the Grand Socco, a large square immediately west of the Medina where I scored about $15 worth of Dirhams at an ATM. Since it was only about 10AM on a Sunday morning, few shops were open, few people were on the street, and no one hassled me…yet. Now that I had my bearings and a feel for the charming old city, I headed back through the gate and started exploring some of the alleys which were too narrow for cars and lined with funky shops and little residences all squished together. I clicked away with my camera which I had secured to my belt with a metal cable. (“You want to grab my camera? You’ll have to drag me or my pants off with the camera!”) I successfully blew off a couple of perspective “friends” who tried to approach me, not stopping to talk and greeting them with, “Bon jour. Je n’ai pas besoin d’un guide.” [Good morning. I don’t need a guide. Thanks.] I refused to answer any of their prying questions such as, “Are you German? Canadian? French? American?” and just kept walking.
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| East gate leading into the Medina |
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Map of the Medina: This old walled quarter is less than 1/2 mile from north to south and from east to west.
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The labyrinth of alleys was fascinating and fun to explore, and I challenged myself to remember each twist and turn, what direction I was going, and how to get back. It was sort of like exploring a system of intricate canyons in Utah. Heading north, I soon reached the wall along the north side of the Medina and went through a small opening to a platform with an old canon. From here there was a nice view of the Straits to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. Click, click, click. It was also here that I attracted the interest of a boy of perhaps 11 who started peppering me with advice and other bits of conversation in very broken English. My standard dismissals didn’t work with this kid who stuck like glue as I headed west toward the Kasbah. I supposed that he had learned that if he bothered tourists long enough they would give him some coins to get rid of him or engage his services. In my opinion, it’s a bad practice to give money to persistent kids in developing countries who then grow up viewing Westerners as ATM machines. So I finally turned to him and said, “Petit monsieur, je n’ai pas d’argent pour toi.” [Little sir, I have no money for you.] That worked, he got a slightly dejected look on his face and, thank dog, he stopped following me.
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| Modern mosque in the Grand Socco |
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| Elegant entrance to a mosque within the Medina |
The Kasbah turned out to be a small square in the northwest corner of the Medina. There wasn’t much of interest there and the museum didn’t seem to be open. This time a genuinely helpful man approached me and explained that the museum had moved to a location back down the alley to the east and then a block to the right. The museum admission was about 25 cents and it certainly did not house a world-class collection. Nevertheless, it had two nice courtyards, some cool mosaics, ancient coins, and a few other items of interest.
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| Courtyard in the Kasbah Museum |
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| The museum has this elegant Koran from the 13th or 14th Century in its small collection. |
Heading down another alley, an older “guide”picked up my scent and started pestering me with advice and offers of help. He, too, was initially undeterred by my rebuffs. He persisted so I employed the “scratched record” technique which I learned more than 30 years ago from the est Training (Yes, I really did take “est” but I got in for 50 bucks instead of the usual 300-400 because I was an ordained minister – "ordained" by a friend who had started his own church as a sort of spoof.) The “scratched record” technique works like this. When someone doesn’t seem to “get” what you are saying, you just keep repeating your response much like a scratched record that keeps playing the same snippet of a song over and over and over until you move the record player arm (probably no one under 35 knows what in the hell I’m talking about!) So, every time this leach asked me a question or offered unsolicited advice I would say, “No, merci” [no thanks]. Finally, he accused me of being paranoid to which I replied with a smile, “No merci”. He too gave up and that was the last I was really bothered by “guides” for the rest of the day. By now they had other fresh tourist meat to pounce on as the Medina was starting to fill up with activity.
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| Residential section of the Medina |
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Left:I was drawn into passageways like this by my unquenchable desire to find out what lay on the other side.
Right:Commercial section of the Medina with Moroccans in traditional dress
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It was lunch time and I was eager to find some vegetarian couscous. I stopped at one restaurant in the Petit Socco and asked to see the menu. “I am the menu,” replied the waiter assertively. “What do you want?” Instantly, I knew that I would be overcharged if I didn’t see a menu with prices so I said “Merci” and found another restaurant which only had a large, fixed price meal that was about $US15 and included way more food than I needed (including meat which I don’t eat anyway). Thus, I exited through the Medina’s west wall and found a small outdoor café I’d seen earlier in the Grand Socco near the ATM machine I’d used. The menu was posted, the prices were reasonable, and I was served vegetarian couscous. The proprietor also served me a fresh green salad. As I was about to stick my fork into the salad, a lesson from my Peace Corps training kicked in. “Wait a minute, stupid. This is Morocco not Western Europe. The lettuce and tomato could have been washed in water crawling with e-coli.” Finishing my couscous, I called the proprietor over, told him I didn’t want the salad but would like a bowl of the delicious-looking lentil soup someone was eating at a neighboring table. He came back with a bowl of vegetable broth that was the same as been on my couscous. I then realized that the lentil soup was apparently on the menu of the neighboring vendor. It was an old annoying technique I’d learned in some of the crappy restaurants where I’d had to eat while working in eastern Turkey. The waiters sometimes give you what THEY think you should have rather than what you tell them you want (I don’t think this is a necessarily a language communication problem). They figure you will accept what they give you without complaining. I’ve been told that Europeans (particularly the Brits) are less apt to complain but we Americans tend to not put up with that shit. So I told the proprietor firmly that I didn’t want the couscous broth; I wanted the lentil soup. He spoke briefly to the neighboring proprietor and came back with a bowl of lentil soup which was, in fact, very good. I think I was overcharged a few extra Dirhams for the soup but it wasn’t worth the argument and my stomach was happy.
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Lunch: The vegetarian couscous was pretty good.
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During lunch, I watched this unfortunate SUV driver
getting a ticket from a smartly-dressed cop.
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So far, I’ve been rather hard on the Moroccans. In fairness, I should also go after the obnoxious Western tourists they have to put up with. A prime example was a young European couple seated at a table next to me during lunch. It was a warm October day and the 20-something woman was wearing a halter top. Yes, a halter top in a Moslem country where most of the local women I saw were dressed in long skirts and head scarves. Was she stupid, naïve, or maybe she just didn’t give a damn about local customs? Later I saw some Western men wearing shorts. While women wearing revealing clothing in Muslim countries are culturally insensitive, men wearing shorts simply look ridiculous to the local people. I speak from experience having lived and worked in three Moslem countries: Pakistan, Niger, and Turkey.
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| Guided tourists experiencing the Medina |
I spent my remaining Dirhams on delicious sweets at several small shops in the Medina and walked back to the port in mid-afternoon. I was pleased to have nearly 100 shots on my camera from my brief North African visit. As I approached the immigration booth, I saw one last entertaining scene which gave me a big chuckle. A persistent local vendor was trailing a confident-looking European woman, and he was intent on selling her some article of clothing before she reached customs. She seemed to be enjoying herself offering the poor bloke ridiculous prices but he persisted. I didn’t linger to see the outcome as it looked like the ferry gate was going to close soon.
In summary, I realize that Morocco is a relatively poor country by Western standards and some of those hustlers I snubbed were probably trying to feed their families. Although I personally didn’t want a guide (I find them distracting and I enjoy the adventure of discovery on my own), a taxi (I avoid them when I can walk somewhere safely in a half hour or less), or a carpet (I didn’t need to lug one all the way back to Colorado), some Western tourists are potential customers.
At the beginning of this post, I quoted the Lonely Planet Guide’s contention that many Moroccans believe Westerners are “…naïve, gullible and even plain stupid.” After my visit, I concluded that it is the Moroccans who are naïve and stupid (or at least the ones who are most visible to tourists) because they seem unwilling or unable to understand how to appeal to potential Western customers. Instead, they turn off any Western tourist who has enough smarts to see through their phony attempts at friendship that would make an American used car salesmen look like a humble Buddhist monk. Many tourists probably avoid Tangier altogether because they’ve heard about its reputation and don’t want to put up with constant harassment. In a way, I have to feel a little sorry for people who seem to do such a good job of self-sabotage. On the other hand, I guess their tactics work often enough for them to keep hustling.
[August 2013 update: Three months ago, I bought a new vehicle for my storm water consulting business in Denver. One of the salesmen I dealt with was a friendly young Moroccan immigrant. Fortunately, he had learned the American art of "soft sell"!]
Coming next: Ronda & Cordoba, Spain.
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