An Iberian Experience - Morocco

Out of all the places I went, Tangier is the one that really deserves the title 'experience'. Things began to go awry before I'd even left Spain when my water bottle decided to empty its contents all over the contents of my bag. Things didn't get any better on the ferry when I latched onto by a somewhat lecherous American who seemed rather too pleased to air his (numerous) prejudices and who sought me out twice. Needless to say, I was glad he was on an organised tour and hence would not have to try and lose him during disembarkation!


I was quite unprepared for Morocco. My guidebook didn't extend across the Mediterranean, I had no map, and the only things I knew had been gleaned from a quick Internet session in Seville and had been scrawled down in my notepad. So lesson one, if going to Tangier - be better prepared. I'd read about the problem tourists faced being hustled and followed around, so I was quite cautious in my approach and I wore subdued clothes to try and not stand out. Nonetheless within thirty minutes of getting off the ferry I was approached by a Moroccan man who 'only wanted to say hello'. Based on what I'd read, I thought I'd be a little unresponsive and so I pretended to be Dutch thinking that would be the end of it. Alas, out of all the people I could have bumped into, I bumped into someone who had worked in Amsterdam for eight years and spoke better Dutch than I did! Typical, and rather awkward from that point on. Anyway, the whole thing culminated in him offering to take me to the market, me politely declining, and them him spitting right in my face. So an inauspicious start to the day! After that I pretended to be German.

Undeterred I carried on, but after walking through the Medina spending the entire time dodging hustlers, declining offers of drugs, being followed by shop owners urging me to buy and being asked for money I adopted the policy of keeping my head down, hardly taking and photos, and walking purposefully. Unfortunately this resulted in me getting lost and missing an awful lot of what Morocco undoubtedly had to offer. In the end I got a taxi to the central square to get my bearings and spent most of the day on cafe terraces people watching. I stumbled across an Anglican church, so popped into the gardens to have some lunch, and had my spirits raised by a conversation I had with a genuinely friendly man who showed me around the church and the grounds and introduced me to the warden who seemed delighted to meet someone from England.


After that I spent the rest of the afternoon just wandering quite quickly around the old town. I came across a spectacular scene from the Kasbah looking across the Atlantic to Spain, but I also became aware of how different Morocco is to Europe and the poverty that some of the people there live in.



I have never been somewhere that different to what I'm familiar with, for all their differences, most European countries are essentially similar. From that perspective, Morocco was somewhat out of my comfort zone, but I'm so glad I went to see it for myself.

Unfortunately the biggest problem I faced was knowing who you could talk to. As the spitting incident demonstrated, it's really hard to know who is genuine and who isn't. Towards the end of the day I was trying to kill some time before going for dinner and got talking to a man who claimed to be the gatekeeper of the Kasbah and thought he looked like Sammy Davis Jr (he didn't). After the earlier incident I thought I'd trust this guy as I was beginning to think that the earlier guy had just wanted to take me the market out of interest, so I let him guide me around the Medina. Of course, things took a turn for the worst, the streets got narrower and he made the rather disquieting comment that he wasn't going to put a knife to my neck and demand all my money. Needless to say, that was enough for me to end the tour there and after a brief verbal altercation I ended up giving him the sum total of my Euro change that I'd thankfully left in my pocket from earlier in the day before we drifted apart in a busy street. I was rather less inclined to stay much longer after that, and so just went and got a ferry back to Spain.

Morocco was a fabulous experience, but the experience wasn't so great! It was just so hard to do what I love doing when I go to a new place - wander around, take in the sights and my own pace, sit and soak up the atmosphere etc. Instead, I found myself trying to blend in, not spending any time in any one place and never being sure of who I could talk to without being hustled. It was just hard to enjoy myself. But I did meet some lovely people, from the guy from the church, to the cab driver who put up with my appalling French to discuss English football with me, and I'd go back again tomorrow. I don't really like going round in guided tours, but if I were to go back, I think I'd probably go that route next time, if only to be with someone who knew the score more than I did. At the very least, I'd go with someone else.

So despite the bad incidents, Morocco was incredibly eye-opening and I'm so glad that I took the opportunity to see it for myself. Apparently it applied for EU membership but was denied outright, quite rightly in my opinion. Not only is Morocco nowhere near ready for the EU, membership would undoubtedly destroy a part of what makes Morocco, Morocco. The fact that it is different is what makes it such a draw. I can't deny that when I next saw the coastline of Africa from Europe it didn't have the same appeal as it did from Tarifa, but I'm determined not to let an experience in one place put me off an entire continent. Nonetheless, I was quite content to be sitting on the ferry back to Spain at the end of the day.