Madness in Morocco, Melilla and Gibraltar
October 1993
Sunday October 17st – Malaga, Spain
We flew down from London to Malaga, Spain, and had a relaxing day on the beach - sun, seafood,beer.
Monday October 18th - Melilla
We caught the ferry across the Mediterrean Sea to Melilla on the African coast. This is a Spanish enclave within Morocco - a sort of Spanish Gibraltar. I had heard many stories of how bad Tangiers was as an entry port - the hustlers etc, and decided to enter Morocco through the back door. It was a lovely 7 hour crossing - sunbathing on deck, and we even had a cabin for a nap and shower. No tourists on board either. We arrived at Melilla in the dark, and had trouble finding a cheap hotel. In the end we had to plump for a £16 a night each Horrendous! - I always budget a max of £10 each a night on my travels - and for that you can usually get a clean bed and private bathroom. Malaga for example was only £8 each and we were in the centre of town).
Tuesday October 19th – Nador, Al Hoceima
You catch a bus to the Moroccan border a couple of miles away, and we got up early in the dark and caught the 7am bus. We actually walked through the border crossing before realising that we hadn’t filled any cards out and had to walk back to get passports stamped etc. Hundreds of Moroccans were coming the other way to start work in Melilla. There were no hustlers and noone gave us a second glance. The bad news was that it was raining - and it continued to rain for 3 days! We caught a taxi with some locals (known as Grande taxis - where you share rides) to the nearest town - Nador, a worn out, underdeveloped industrial town. It looked like a de-militarised zone. (The 1984 "bread riots" started in this town) There was an army road block on the outskirts. The place looked halfbuilt.The markets were just setting up. We had no Moroccan money, and needed a bank. We then discovered that we had crossed a time zone and that it was now 7am again, which is why it had been so quiet. We holed up in a cafe to try our first mint tea and then explored the market. Noone bothered us, even though we were the only tourists in town. But when we tried to photograph the market, a crowd surrounded us and suggested we did otherwise.
Once we had changed money, we caught a bus to Al Hoceima for a day by the seaside. A 3 hour ride through desert landscape and into the edges of the Rif Mountains to the sea. But it was pouring with rain, roads flooding etc. There were more army roadblocks outside the town. At Al Hoceima, there was supposedly a tourist industry in the summer (there are 3 hotels on a small beach for French package holidays), but in October it was shut down. It was a small town on the cliffs servicing Moroccan farmers and fishermen - they fished at night with lights to dazzle the fish. We found the best hotel in town (£6 each), and then tried our first Moroccan food in a workers cafe. I had originally gone with the assumption that we would get bad stomachs, but surprisingly we had no problems. I drank the tap water, ate anything from market stalls and survived. With no sun,there was little to do in town except hang around in cafes. Eventually a few locals started to accept our presence and would make light conversation. No hustlers. I think in retrospect that it was a good idea to do Morocco this way. It gave us a chance to get used to the culture before facing the big tourist traps where you get all the problems the country is famous for. But the terrible weather didn't exactly mean it was holiday time. In every town there were pictures of the king on every building, lamppost etc. It was like Big Brother.Wednesday October 20th – Kif Mountains
It continued to rain allnight, and it was time to leave. There was a 10.30am bus to Fez in the south west - the famous Moroccan tourist spot, - but it went via the Rif Mountains - a torturous 9 hours of twisting muddy roads. The Rif Mountains are famous as the drug producing area of Morocco. It is legal to grow "kir' here, but not sell it. The Rough Guide said "Do not enter this region - YOU WILL DIE". So that sounded fun. Bit more than a Disney ride.
We boarded a decrepid bus, sawdust on the floor, ripped out seats, full of peasants, chickens etc. There was no toilet just a bucket passed round if you got caught short. The problem with Moroccan buses is that there are no real timetables. It just picks people up or drops them off in seconds, with no meal stops. So once you are aboard you stay aboard and cross your legs. Not fun for 9 hours. Because it was raining, the windows were steamed up and we saw nothing for 3 hours. As soon as we started to cross the mountains, locals would get on, and start lighting up joints. Half the bus seemed to be smoking. I was thinking that by the time we got off, we'd be 8 miles high. You start to get nervous when you see the bus driver chain smoking joints when the roads are less than I0ft wide. We dug in for the trip. Periodically, the army or police would stop the bus to search it, pat people down, check our passports (we were the only foreigners), search luggage etc. This happened a dozen times throughout the day. At one checkpoint, the conductor came round to collect money to bribe the guards. At another point, he made sure every peice of luggage in the racks above belonged to someone.
Every so many miles the bus would stop. Someone would get on, or off. But we couldn’t move.We knew that if we got off; we would'nt know when the next bus came through. The roads had turned to mud, and we were sliding everywhere. By the time we reached Katama in the heart of the mountains, the sun was out, but it looked like a battlefield. The guide book had said not to go there because the local mob tended to rob you if you got off the bus. We never got the chance, but I saw a couple of black Mercedes which were the warning signs. In the aftemoon, the sun came out and there were wonderful views of the mountains and it was much more pleasant. The mountains gave way to a desert environment again.
Crossing our legs, we rolled into Fes around dusk. It stopped right outside the old town (Medina), and we were surrounded by hustlers. "You want taxi? You want hotel? Ah hotels are booked up, but I can find you a room, good price". They were like flies. I saw a taxi rank and we wrestled our way to a taxi and said get us the hell out there. All the major Moroccan cities have two parts - the old part (Medina) built in the 10th/llth Century and the Ville Nouveau - the suburbs that the French built when they were in charge and wanted separate living areas to build offices, shops, hotels, house etc. We had chosen a hotel in advance and the taxi took us there. The Ville Nouveau was paved, clean and western. Not much hustling. We found a restaurant that sold beer (not easily available in an Arab country). It was full of English or German tourists trying to seclude themselves - like us I suppose).
Thursday October 21st - Fez
At dawn we got a taxi to take us to the Merenid Tombs, the old town cemetery which looks over the Medina - where you can hear a coming to life with the Minarets calling the Faithful. Fes is the most ancient of the imperial capitals, and the most complete medieval city of the Arab world - unique. It is a place that stimulates your senses - sounds, visual details and unfiltered odours - and it seems to exist suspended in time somewhere between the Middle Ages and the moden world. 200,000 people live in an extraordinary tiny and cramped Medina-City. Known as the Fes el Bah it is a maze of narrow alleyways, many under canvas, stalls, cafes, fabulous monuments and 'souks' - areas where particular craflsmen or merchants are based - metal workers, dyers, carpenters, the tannery - all engaged in the same activities and using the same skills and tools that they have been for a thousand years.
The entire Medina is surrounded by a city wall built in the 10th Century. It is very confusing for any stranger (which the hustlers exploit – "very dangerous, you get lost for days - let me guide you and show you the sights" etc). We avoided the main entrance where the hustlers worked on the tourists and came in through a side entrance - with a rough map - but you really needed other orientation skills to get round this place. It all looked the same after a while and many alleyways were dead ends. We adopted a mental attitude before entering the place. The hustlers were multilingual and would try to find out where you were from. Once they kmew, they would stick to you to try and get hired as guides or piss you off so much you gave them money to go away. Many tourists hire a guide to keep all the others off you. We kept silent, so they couldn't work out if we were English, French, German etc, and it seemed to work.
Once we were in past the first 300m, they gave up, and we were able to wander leisurely, but at any moment, you expected another attack. We tried the famous pea soup for breakfast. I had a list of the famous sights which we gradually found - Mosques (which we couldn’t go in - just look from outside), Medersa's (religious teaching establishments – built in the 10th Century - carved of wood and wonderfully preserved). We were able to climb to the roof of one and look over the entire city. We gradually discovered the souks where metal workers hammered away. In the Dyeis souk, the dyes ran down the alleyways, workers covered in soot and wearing rags, looked like chimney sweeps as they stoked furnaces. It was unreal. Occasionally, we would come across large tourist groups of various nationalities with their guide who would take them round the sights. After Nabor, we were wary of photography, but the tour groups didn't care. They just snapped away and sod the locals. So we pretended to be part of the group to get various pictures but you needed to smell the place to bring it to life.
Skinned Bulls heads, meat hanging everywhere, covered in flies, smoke fires, the heat of the sun, mules canying supplies along tight alleyways, where you had to hide in doorways to let them past. I have never seen a place like it. The tannery is the highlight. It is a cross between an abattoir with carcases everywhere, and workers in clay pools up to their thighs in smelly water treading on the leather. It is treated with seagull shit - so the smell is horrendous - decaying flesh, shit etc. The tour guides give the tourists a sprig of mint to hold under their noses, but I saw two people throw up with the stench. The tour groups crawled along with dozens of people with them trying to sell them anything. They either bought the item or gave them money to go away - and then someone else would come up to them and try again. That was definitely not the way to do this place. We soon tired of their pace, and would disappear, only to come across another group somewhere in the place. It seemed that electricity was the only modern convenience that had been introduced.By midday, we had seen everything. We retired from the Fas El Bah and headed for the gardens nearby to relax with mint tea, almond milkshakes and just get way from hustlers. Later in the afternoon, I went in myself again, with no map, and just wandered around trying to get lost. We were not interested in buying anvthing·, but I did treat myself to a wool 'djellaba' (a kind of cloak) which reaches my feet and has a hood that makes a great dressing gown. Late in the day, we retreated to the Ville Nouveau. Fes is the highlight of any tour of Morocco because it is so unique.
Friday October 22th – Tangiers
We headed north back to Spain. We caught a comfortable 5 hour train to Tangiers - clean, with classical music piped through speakers. The sun was shining. Our spirits lifted. Reading though the guidebook, Tangier looked interesting - by the beach, with a history of spying, French colonialism and the visits by William Burroughs, Allan Ginsberg, Joe Orton, Kenneth Williams which I was interested in. We decided for better or worse to have a night there. I think in retrospect that because we had handled the hustlers so well in Fez we thought we could do the same in Tangiers.
As soon as we got off the train (again the only tourists in town), we got hassled immediately and these people didn't quit. The hotel was a short walk from the station. But all water had been cut off in town because of shortages. We found one with its own supply to get cold showers at least. But as soon as we left the hotel to go exploring, a local waiting outside, stuck to us like glue. After 10 minutes I saw a policeman, and told him to get rid of him, which he did . 5 minutes later another hustler wouldn’t leave us and another policeman was called. This was getting worse and all the tales I’d heard were becoming a fact. Even my travelling errperience was having difficulty in coping with this. We had no money anyway so they were wasting their time.I wanted to visit the Medina and Kasbah. It had been done up by the French and was a tiny section, just shops really. We visited the Petit Socco, where William Burroughs used to hang around and pick up boys and various places I had read in biographies of Burroughs, Ginsberg, and famous spy cafes like the Cafe de Paris. We walked up through the Medina to the Kasbah at the top. It was late afternoon so most places were closed. At the top, where we took in the view of the coast, we were accosted by locals. One man was very persistent, thought we were French (since we hadn’t said anything) and did his patter in French (Linda with her fluent French could understand all the tales about 'this is a dangerous place, throats get slit, come with me, its safe with me, come to my shop' etc) which played on her fears. As we tried to drop him, he got aggressive, and tried to trip me. Then he started to bump me and got really aggressive. I’d taken enough and took a swing at him. Immediatelyj the group of locals started to approach.I grabbed Linda's hand and we ran. There was only one main alley up to the Kasbah and I knew he & his mates could ambush us on the way back. So we disappeared down a side alley and without a map tried to get back through the medina using instinct, continually coming up against dead ends. But we got to the bottom, and avoided any more incidents. By now Linda had had it with Morocco. I got her back to the hotel where she refused to leave until we caught the ferry the next morning.
I went out exploring on my own, like I owned the place, visiting the hotel where William Burroughs wrote 'The Naked Lunch'. Outside that hotel I was approached first by a Canadian who pretended to be friendly. He was soon joined by his Arab friend. They were trying to sell me drugs to ship back. I hung around and had an interesting psychological battle with the nice guy/bad guy routine. In the end I left them and went my way, again exrpecting to be ambushed, but no problems. I adjusted to Tanglers quickly and handled the hustlers - almost taunting them. It was like living on the edge, where everyone was a potential problem and I could feel the adrenalin pumping - either ready to fight or run. I talked to some nice people, but there was always the initial suspicion. The place was definitely a nightmare. The only place we really enjoyed was visiting the famous English church attended by ex pats, with a sweet old Moroccan caretaker who gave us a tour. God knows why the English want to settle there. In the evening I persuaded Linda to visit a restaurant.
Saturday October 23rd – Algeciras, Spain & Gibraltar
We had to get up at dawn again to get the 7.30am ferry back to Spain. It was a nightmare of queues and paperwork. It took an hour to get through passport control and another hour of queuing to get on the boat, full of Moroccan itinerant workers with all their belongings, scrambling to get aboard. The boat was Spanish which meant Spanish food and prices – luxury. It meant the cafe was empty and we could tuck into decent food and beer for breakfast, while the Moroccans ate whatever they had. I have to admit I was all against bringing them into the EEC. I kept wanting to up and say 'This boat very dangerous, you want guide? I show you around. Cheap price'.
The two hour sailing to Algeciras, Spain passed quickly. We kissed the ground and walked straight through customs, while the non EEC people fought again to get through. Hopefully, they would be there for hours. Catching a bus to La Linar, we checked into a hotel with a big bath and walked across the border to Gibraltar for the afternoon. Cultural shock or what? Woolworths, the Coop, BurgerKing. The bars were full of squaddies getting drunk on cheap beer. We caught a cable car up the cliffs to visit the caves and play with the Barbary Apes. It was strange to be talking English. I had been surviving on Spanish all week, or Linda's French. We popped into Safeways on the way out just for the enjoyment of see such a selection of food. We had a Mexican meal in the evening.Sunday October 24th - Malaga
We bused to Malaga, through the tourist resorts with the Spanish youth emptying out of all night discos at 8am. At Malaga we sunbathed and blew our last money on cold beers. I found it ironic to board the plane to see the same people we had seen the week before with great suntans after their package tours. We were nearly white - with rain most of the time, and the fact I couldn’t wear shorts in Morocco. I felt like we had been to the other end of the world and back. I remembered the two Germans I had met in Malaga 3 years previously, who had just left Morocco, and looked shell shocked to be back in civilised Spain. But one day I will return... to visit Marrakesh and climb Djebel Toubkal, the highest mountain in North Africa!
