The road to Morocco

Date: Apr 24, 2010

With all due respect to Bob, Bing, and Lana, we plagiarize our way to North Africa. Once again learning the rules for travel in parts of the world where sensibilities and morays don’t necessarily match with westernized concepts. Getting board was a small hassle as people jostled and looked for any crack in the line where they might jump the queue. It’s not really necessary here since everybody gets on board, everybody gets a seat, but it’s part of the psyche and hard to turn off just because you don’t need to be “On” all the time. I’m not critical of this behavior, I understand it. When survival and success are determined by your level of “Ballsiness,” then that’s what you have to do. It then becomes part of how the society functions, and to be otherwise can relegate you to a less desirable situation. I just adapt, usually (my Camino behavior to the contrary). When people try to move past me in a line, I just widen my stance, or move over just a little at a time to close the gap, or just glare.

That being said, we got on board, and watched the container ships in the port being unloaded of their weight, with the Safmarine Pantanal rising imperceptibly as each container is lifted and sent somewhere in the beehive for sorting out later. I was a piker yesterday when I said that there were thousands. Our taxi man told us this morning that at any given time there were more than 100,000 containers on the dock. The name brought a flood of memories from our 7 month South American sojourn. The photo that stuck in my mind was the shot I took Carol belly-button high in organic, brown water wading through lily pads.

We pulled out of port past the “Jessica B.” Carol said it must stand for Benavides, our Costa Rican daughter. We joined the line of ships moving out the channel past Gibraltar, like a 747 moving to the runway for takeoff. I waited for the captain to announce that we were 3rd in line for departure. But like the passengers on board we slipped past one and shot out ahead. An Arabic family with three young boys made me think of my daughter and her two “Terremotos,” (earthquakes) as they were called by a young woman we met yesterday, who had just one. The European family across the way sits quietly while their Scottish Highland Terrier lies at their feet. The strait is so narrow, you feel like you could spit in either direction and hit something besides water. On the fast ferry, our journey takes just 1½ hours into, as Kris Kristofferson would say, “A world we were hungryin for.”

And we got it!

All with a little confusion and paying our dues. The announcements on the boat were garbled in four languages. Spanish, Arabic, French, and English. It was like someone speaking through a megaphone under water. Something about having a stamp or you wouldn’t be allowed off the boat. We checked our passports and sure enough we had our stamp from leaving Spain, so no problem. Er, or so we thought. We were in the middle of the pack getting off the boat down the long, narrow gangway, at the bottom of which was a man checking passports for the appropriate stamp. Guess what? We didn’t have it, so we had to go back up the aforementioned long, narrow gangway with the aforementioned people all jostling to get off the ship a full five seconds ahead of another passenger. You can imagine and visualize Jim and Carol in a sea of people trying to swim upstream where nobody wants to give an inch because they might lose that precious five seconds. We finally got back on board and they told us they had announced it in four languages, what was our problem. Well, others had that same problem, so the border police had to be recalled and the proper stamps given. This took about 30 minutes and we just took it as part of the drill.

We took a taxi to our rental car place, a small hole in the wall office for a company I’d never heard of before, but they were the cheapest, and, hey, a car is a car is a car. They told us the car had to come from the airport, although I had called ahead and asked specifically where we were to pick up the car. At the airport? At the port? Downtown? They told us downtown and gave us the address to which we directed out taxi driver. It would only be 10 minutes we were told. 45 minutes later the car shows up and we go through the whole drill of the paperwork and finally got out of Tangier. While we were waiting, a girl in the office booked us into a Riad in Marrakesh. These are the traditional dwellings for Moroccan travelers. I don’t want to stay in a Holiday Inn while in Morocco. I want a Moroccan experience. If I want a Holiday Inn, I can do that in Battle Ground.

So out the door we went and started heading out of Tangier. These cities are huge. Tangier has over a million people, Casablanca 3.9, Marrakesh, 1.6 and so on. They are very sprawling and I learned why God made Moroccans. She did so to make Portuguese drivers look good. Technically, there are two lanes in each direction on main streets. Except that one lane is occupied on the average of every hundred yards by someone who has stopped for any myriad of reasons. That leaves all kinds of people, now in thousand pound cars, trying to do the same thing they do when they are trying to get on or off a ship. One of their favorite tricks is to straddle the white line between the two lanes. That way their bets are covered. If nobody is in the right hand lane for the next hundred yards, they can zip around the cars in the left lane. If the right lane is blocked, they move over into the left lane until they pass the blockage and then straddle the line again.

When we were getting off the ship, a man approached us and said he was from the tourist board. What he was, actually, was a guide looking for business. We told him we were going to get our car and head for Marrakesh. He looked at me and simply said. “You can’t make it in one day. You’re too old. If you were a young man, maybe, but not you, you just too old.” Now this guy thinks that I’m going to spend my money having him show me around Tangier after giving me the ultimate insult. Carol just looked at me and said. “Got your back up, didn’t you.” She knows me too well.

So off we head to Marrakesh and we paid our dues like we always do when learning the rules. In Portugal we got stuck in the wrong lane on a toll road and couldn’t get over to get a ticket. When we had to get off down the road, we had to pay a $25 fine for a lost ticket. We learned that rule in a hurry. Today’s lesson was that they have all kinds of speed traps In Morocco. I’m pretty good about sticking to the speed limit, but today I tried to apply US driving habits to Moroccan roads and I got caught. At home when entering a freeway, I speed up so that when entering fast traffic I’m going at a speed to allow safe and easy entry into the flowing traffic. No so here, the speed limit apparently was 35 mph entering into traffic moving 75 mph. I got pulled over and had to pay a $50 fine. None of this give me a ticket and I’ll mail it in. Or I’ll be out of the country before they catch up with me. This is on the spot payment. It’s Judge Roy Bean meets Allah’s adherents. The cops had a field day. They had cars lined up and the guy was getting writer’s cramp from all the tickets he was writing. I expect to see a lot of city improvements next time through there.

We finally pulled into Marrakesh after six hours driving which included a pee stop, the ticket stop, and another pee stop (I am an old man, after all) which we combined with dinner. We went through the whole thing again here in Marrakesh as we did in Tangier, except it’s twice as big here, trying to get to our Riad, and after six or seven stops asking directions to people who don’t speak English, Spanish or Portuguese, and receiving those directions from people who only speak Arabic or French, we pulled in to a hotel because we thought we’d find someone who spoke something we might actually understand. The lady did speak English, got out a map and was trying to tell us how to navigate all the small streets, when I asked her: “How much is a room here?” $50 was the answer. Do you have Parking? Yes, she replied. Under the Hotel. Do you have Internet? Again yes was the answer. I just looked at Carol and said: “I’m done. I’m not moving.” So, it’s not a Riad, but it’s not the Holiday Inn either. It’s a Moroccan-type hotel, and it’s half the price of the Riad. I’ll try for my Riad experience in Fez.

I’ve lots to say about our journey today, but this was the nitty-gritty. We’re here!! The guide can just go hustle somebody else. I may be old, and I’m certainly tired, but I’m not too old and I’m not too tired. I’m going out for an ice cream. They’re not big on alcohol here.

Stay safe,

Carol and Jim