Rock the Kasbah

A little bit of a side trip off the itinerary – Morocco!  It’s just a brief trip, coming about because of cheap airfares from Marseille to Fes.  Our goal is to work our way north through Spain and this was a cheap way to achieve that ($50 each!).

The first interesting thing that happened was at the railway station.  We had booked our tickets to the airport, where they actually sold us bus tickets because there was going to be a train strike.  When we arrived at the station at 6.15am, the front doors were flanked by 2 rows of camouflage clad soldiers; presumably there to control the strikers.  Catching the bus wasn’t easy.  There are no signs and conflicting directions from anyone we asked, but we made it eventually and arrived at the airport unscathed. 

Ryanair leaves from the “lowcost” terminal.  We’ve never been on a low cost airline before and we’d jumped through hoops to make sure that our bags were each under the 20kg allowance we had prepaid.  Low cost means a concrete floor, limited computers and plastic chairs in the waiting area.  The plane itself was new but the most amazing thing happened!  There are no allocated seats!  You can imagine the chaos.  People travelling alone immediately jumped in seats of 3 and those travelling in groups split all over the place.  There were aguments over who had which seat first and so on and so forth like a school bus.  Really quite a rediculous system.

We made it to Morocco alive and well, although all of us were questioning if the decision to save money on a plane flight was actually a smart one and I don’t think we’ll by flying “cheap” for a while.

Morocco was a bit like going back in time.  Back to bottled drinking water and bartering for a taxi; back to everyone wanting a piece of you.  On the positive side, it also means going back to friendly people who aren’t in a hurry, who aren’t over touristed and who genuinely want to talk to you and help.  It also means we can stay in decent hotels without haggling over how many people are in the room and we can all get in the one taxi!

Fes reminds us of a cross between Egypt and Jordan, although it has nowhere near the tourists of Egypt, nor the wealth and infrastructure of Jordan.  It does have a sort of “Arabian Nights” feel to it and due to multiple reports we had read about security issues such as kidnapping and violent muggings, we were a little uncomfortable when we took a taxi to the Medina (the ancient city). 

Typically, our taxi driver had driven us to the entrance where he had a mate who had a restaurant.  Turns out this is an entrance at the back, and it didn’t seem to us there were too many tourists using it.  It was mainly men and the occasional donkey; virtually no women, which also makes me feel less comfortable. 

This old city, like all the others we had been in, like Jaisalmer in India and Jerusalem and even Venice; was a labrynth of alleyways and doorways that lead to more doorways that lead to more alleyways and so it goes on.  We discovered that a lot of men pick up stray tourists and just start talking about the Medina.  Next thing you know – you’re on a guided tour you didn’t ask for and you’re in a dark alleyway you had no intention of going down.

  Suddenly you start to wonder about this friendly stranger.  Is he really a friend?  What lies around the corner of the alley he insists we go down?  Strangely, we don’t trust this man but we’re forced to because without him we don’t stand a chance of finding our way out.

It’s getting dark and it’s Ramadan, so there are men starting to drift around us getting ready to break the fast.  Still no women around.  To his credit, our guide, typically named Mohammed, did show us a lot in the small time we allowed him before we reached panic status and asked him sweetly if he would take us to the outside.  “No problem.” he said with a big grin.  “Just follow this path.  Go straight ahead.  No right, no left.  Stay on this path.” 

We were at this stage on what appeared to be a major “road” and we had seen a tourist couple in front of us, so we decided to take his word for it, paid him some Dirhams and set off at a trot for the outside world.  Men who were eating their breakfast  – typically dates, dried fruit and boiled eggs – looked at us curiously (or was it mysteriously?) as we bolted past. The gate suddenly loomed and we were out!  It was like a breath of fresh air. 

We scolded ourselves for being complacent and putting ourselves at risk and also for being so untrusting.  Not surprisingly, though, a few days later when we went to the Medina in the port city of Tanger and immediately a guy started walking and talking with us, we immediately told him we were not interested.  We weren’t deviating off the main road and if that meant we weren’t going to see the best sights that he kept telling us were off down the side streets, so be it.  He walked beside us for at least 20 minutes, not getting the idea that we weren’t going to go with him.  Eventually he left (after Paul told him to GO AWAY!) but he wasn’t happy.

As we discovered in Greece, this is a really smally world!  We were having dinner near the Tanger Port when we heard an Aussie accent and turned to see a young Sydney couple we had met in Italy when catching a bus to Naples. They had just got off the ferry from Spain.  We’re amazed at how these things work and wonder what the purpose of this chance meeting may be in the future?