Disaster Travel: Morocco by Sean Thomas
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Behind me was a wall of sand and stone. On my left a wide an uncrossable canyon. In front a shrieking, baying horde of Moroccan kids, hurling stones and imprecations.
The first rock to hit me drew a sharp sting of pain, and a dribble of blood. Welcome to Morocco. The real Morocco. Experienced visitors to Morocco will know, perhaps, what I’m talking about. Others might be surprised to hear my story. But it has to be told.
Why? Because Morocco is a hassle; and everything therein is a hassle. As one friend of mine put it after a fortnight’s persecution in the Atlas Mountains: in Morocco, even the cats hassle you. Step outside your hotel or campsite and immediately you are importuned, baksheeshed, spat at, taunted. When the cats aren’t ruining your pilau rice by leaping on the table the hash dealers are tugging your sleeve trying to sell you fake dope and their friends are simultaneously ‘persuading’ you into taking them on as a tour guide. And that’s forgetting the carpet sellers. Christ, the carpet sellers...
This is all a great pity, as Morocco has everything going for it, otherwise: fine cuisine, superb climate, striking landscape, intriguing culture, proximity to Europe. It’s just the people I met managed to combine the hauteur of the worst kind of European with the craven-ness of the worst kind of Arab, adding to both an irrational pugnacity all their own. These Moroccans - and yes, I’m sure the vast majority are fine, I just didn’t come across any of them in an entire fortnight - were the sort of people who aggressively begged money from you while simultaneously holding you in contempt for tolerating such unsavoury treatment.
The cities, one would think, are the worst. Yet not. Five days after landing in Marrakech my friends and I grew so wearied of having to don dark glasses and hooded jackets and a Walkman every time we stepped outside (it’s the only way of slipping anonymously through the markets and medinas of Marrakech, or Fez, or Tangiers, or anywhere) we quit town. In the faint hope of meeting some nice, quiet, bucolic Moroccans, we struck out for the wilds of the lovely Draa Valley.
Which is where I was nearly stoned to death. There I was, contentedly mooching along the emerald green ribbon of a riverine oasis. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a crowd of seal-pup-eyed Moroccan kids appeared. As per, they asked for some pens. I gave them pens. Then they asked for cigarettes. I gave them cigarettes. Then they demanded pens, cigarettes, tee-shirts, guidebooks, water-bottles, and money. They started pulling my sleeve, tugging my hair, putting their grubby hands in my pockets unbidden. Wherever I wandered, they followed; if I sat down, they sat down around. After at least two hours of this relentless and unfunny hassle, I gave in to my resentment and, quite stupidly, reacted. I lifted an arm as if to slap one of the kids. Their response to my ‘medina rage’ (yep, there’s a word for the reaction of over-hassled Moroccan tourists, so common is the experience) was to explain that if I even touched so much as one black hair on one Berber head they would go directly to the local police and accuse me of child-assault. So I did the only thing I could do: legged it.
Of course, they ran after me. I kept running; they kept pursuing. Then the tallest of then had a bright idea and paused to pick up that rock. This he threw at me, with some accuracy; his friends aped him. A few hundred yards along I found I was cornered against the hillside; with rocks raining down around me, and a yawning chasm blocking any escape.
By this time I was genuinely frightened: and I genuinely lost it. Mad with adrenaline I picked up my own rock and advanced towards them making it clear as desert daylight I was fully prepared to brain the nearest kid, and sod the local gendarmes, whereupon like a Saharan mirage they dissolved.
Now, my experience might have been unique; perhaps I was unlucky. So by all means go to Morocco. Just don’t forget your Walkman, your shades, your hooded jacket. And a few large rocks, just in case.
Looking for an altogether different experience of the country? See our selection of luxury hotels in Morocco.