Rugs on Fire in Morocco

We arrived by bus to Algiceras, a port town right on the southern tip of Spain at the Straight of Gibraltar. The town itself left a lot to be desired and seemed to be made up of the port, the bus station and the train station. Not exactly a cultural hot spot to say the least. We walked from the bus station to our hostel, which was actually just a cheap hotel. When we arrived the door was locked so we rang the buzzer and waited. After about ten minutes a portly older Spanish couple came a stared waiting with us. It seemed as though they lived there but also had no way of getting in. They were very talkative speaking extremely quickly and in some strange dialect that they cut the ends off of all of their words. This made it nearly impossible to understand the simplest phrases, things that we previously had no problems with. We did get that they were telling us that we were “Muy Guapo,” which means attractive, but we had no idea why. After another 10 minutes of this stimulating conversation an old man came and let us in. He spoke in the same impossible dialect, took our passports and left. When we tried to tell him not to take our passports he just kept on muttering something about his son. Eventually his son came and checked us in but we still could not understand him to save our lives. In the end all we really got out of any of it was a headache but we did get our passports back.

The next morning we were going to take the ferry to Morocco across the straight. When we started looking up ferry tickets the previous night we found that they were about 70€ for a 1hour ferry ride. We did find a tour though that was only 50€ that included lunch and a tour of three cities. We had heard about these tours before and how they just try and scam you the whole time, but we figured we would give it a go with a sense of humer.

We met our tour group of a Spanish couple, a Portuguese couple, a Japanese Couple and their kindergarten aged son, and us. We took the ferry across the straight of Gibraltar to Ceuta, a City that is actually part of Spain. There we were met by our tour guide, Ahkmed. Ahkmed was a really, really big Moroccan. We were quite impressed when Ahkmed was able to speak fluently to all of us in our native languages. I guess we really have no idea how his Japanese was but they seemed to understand him. The eight of us were quickly herded into a tour bus built to hold about 50 people.

Our first stop was at the border between Spain and Morocco. It was a really interesting place because you have Europeans crossing in camper vans and nice cars and Moroccans crossing on foot or bikes with all of their possessions folded up in a blanket thrown over their back. People were crossing with huge Costco size containers of dipers and Shampoo held under their arm with kids in tow. It was so interesting seeing what a difference an imaginary line can make. At the border Ahkmed took all of our passports and gave them to the Moroccan Police. We then carried on without them. This worried us a bit but there wasn't really anything we could do about it.

Ahkmed then got on the microphone and told all of us in our native languages what we could expect for the day. He repeated himself over and over because I think he could not remember what he had said in what language. We were heading for Tetuan, a big city about 50 kilometers inland. He was very pleased to tell us that there was going to be an arts market today that only happened once a month. We could see right through this. He was obviously very excited to have a couple of big spending Americans on his tour because he kept talking to us about what we could buy and mentioning that Americans love to haggle. He had the wrong Americans. It is a well known fact that the tour guides get a commission on things that are purchased. After Tetuan we we going to head to Tangier, a huge city on the Northern Coast before we headed back to Ceuta for our return ferry. Before we got to Tetuan, though, he had a special treat for us. We were going to have the opportunity to ride a camel! We pulled off of the side of the highway into a small rest stop like place where there were two men, each with a camel. We all filed out of the bus, gave the men a Euro and rode the camel down the pavement for about 50ft with one of the men leading the animal, and back. Just as I was finishing my Berber experience, another tour bus pulled up and followed our lead riding the beasts.

We then headed to Tetuan. When we arrived, Ahkmed explained 3 or 4 times that there were two parts to the city, an old part and a new part and that the important part for us today was the old part. There was a wall dividing the two parts. The instant we entered the old city it was obvious we were in a whole new world. There were cages of chickens packed in so tight they couldn't move, Berber women sitting on the ground selling herbs wearing bright robes and hats that looked more Mongolian than anything else, and Men wearing the traditional kaftan, a robe that looks like something that Obi-wan Kenobi would be wearing. The streets were absolutely packed with people doing their daily shopping There were butchers with skinned cattle and chickens hanging, bread shops and piles and piles of produce. There was even a cart going around selling live canaries in little cages. (I don't want to know what they were for). Surprisingly, as foreign as the market was, the smells were very familiar. Fresh bread dominated by cilantro freshly picked in the nearby hills.

Ahkmed led us around strutting in front of us like he ran the place, shaking hands with about every third man he saw, grabbing loafs of bread and oranges from the vendors and flicking a small coin at them telling us “You must try Moroccan bread!” (It tasted like any other bread.) This was actually our favorite part of the tour because it felt very real, like this was their daily life. I was getting a little frustrated though because there were amazing photo ops every 2 seconds but we were being toted around way too fast to set up for a good photo.

Somewhere along the way we picked up Muhammad, who seemed to not actually be doing anything except following us. At one point I asked him a question, he answered then asked for a small tip. After about an hour of this, Ahkmed had a special surprise for us. A local school for the arts had invited us for a mint tea, the drink of choice in Morocco. We were immediately suspicious but what choice did we have, we were now quite far inland without our passports! When we went in they separated us into our native languages so that we could have better discussions with our hosts. We were taken upstairs to a large room with brightly colored rugs wall to wall. An eager Moroccan started telling us about all of the rugs and showed us that they would not light on fire by holding up a lighter to the rug. This apparently meant that it was a top notch rug. After showing us about a hundred rugs he asked us which one we would like to buy. We expressed that while they were all very nice we didn't want any of them. He kept on us asking us how much we thought they were worth. We knew this whole thing was a set up because we were never allowed to change our money into Moroccan Durham, instead they only wanted to deal in Euros. Eventually we were able to convince this guy we were not going to buy one of his “hand made” rugs. We were then lead downstairs into a huge room full of more “hand-made” goods. Everything from tea pots to swords. Another Moroccan came over telling us about how nice the rugs were, again trying unsuccessfully to light them on fire. He informed us that his mother had made these rugs and that the would cost 180€ in summer but we could have it for 80€! We passed.

We did find a teapot we wanted. We were asked how much we thought it was worth and we said 1 euro. Our host was not amused and told us that it actually cost 30 euros but he could make us a deal. I said we only had ten euros with us so he then countered with 28 euros. This went on for about 20 minutes when he finally said, “Ok, just give me the 10 euros.” As we were leaving the guy trying to sell us his mothers rug came over to us and whispered that he could probably let one of his mothers fine rugs go for just 25€. His colleague came over and once again try and light the place on fire, but thank god they were good rugs that would not burn!

We left the shop with absolutely no mention of mint tea. We then went for a traditional lunch in a “typical restaurant.” The typical restaurant turned out to be a huge ballroom that was beautifully decorated, had a live band and belly dancers. It was full of banquette size tables and very western looking tourists. While it was far from a typical restaurant, the food was actually very good. After lunch and more people asking for tips we took an hour bus ride to Tangier. In Tangier we were again given a short tour of the old city. During this tour we were surrounded by men selling all sorts of shit from toy horses to African drums, saying “you like, you like.” They would literally not get out of our face for a solid 20 minutes. During this time Ahkmed was chatting them up in Arabic and shaking their hand instead of sending them away as any decent tour guide would. Finally we got some relief when we were taken into a traditional pharmacist and spice shop. Again we were separated into our respective languages. This time however we were given a demonstration of local medicine from spices that was actually pretty interesting. Of course we had the opportunity to buy herbs and spices, but at least this guy was less pushy. When we stepped out we were greeted by the same pushy salesmen trying to sell us shit. We were then given some free time to go shopping. We wandered around a little trying to avoid the the vendors. Somehow Ahkmed seemed to know everyone in this city as well.

At this point is was about 6:00 (8:00 in Spain, even though it is due south there is a 2 hour time difference) and we still had an hour bus ride back to Ceuta. When we went back through customs their seemed to be a problem with our passports, but not to worry Ahkmed got of the bus a returned with our passports and said that he took care of it. Even though they had our passports for like 10 hours they never got around to stamping them, so who know what was going on. It was really hard to tell what was a set up and what wasn't. Again, just by crossing an imaginary line we were back in the western world with churches instead of Mosques and infrastructure that didn't look as though there had just been an earthquake. After a quick 30 minute ferry ride (This time we got on the fastest ferry) we were back in our hostel eating a cold tortilla and chocolate milk for dinner. Even though it the whole thing was just a sales pitch for shit we didn't want, it gave us a good taste of Morocco and left us wanting to actually see the country without Ahkmed.