My magic Morocco

Summer 1998. Landing in Tangier. Because all airplanes to anywhere else were full.

Sulking. What am I going to do in an unknown city, in a muslim country, they with 600.000 and me so alone...

Zing!

Touching ground. Police officer looked if I didn't carry any weapons.

He said: "You have a good body".

Now, no police officer at no border had ever said such a thing - ever.

Back in Andalusia

Today...

To be honest, Tangier is no longer my thing.

The city I fell in love with has gone, as if it has been flattened by bombs and some cosy, middle of the road town has been erected instead.

Video screens on the seafront, brandnew palmtrees and neatly cut lawns and fountains, and shoppers, lots of shoppers... but magic? No.

That is a bit all over Morocco though. La Gare is now The Railcentre.

Now I go to Kenitra, or Kenifra, or Safi... that is where the magic sometimes still goes on.

 

Adventures 1997 - 2007

First week: No tourists. OK, 5 in all. Being mugged. In a gentle way. Thief apologised. Me walking about with a great big smile.

6 months later: Back. Spent 7 days with Ali and Hassan and their shop. Their 'shop' being a box with cigarettes and chewing gum, on the sea front. Sometimes a wrinkle of whispers through the crowd: "Police! Police"! Me with box running and hiding behind a tiny dune on the beach.

6 months later: Back. Exploring the souks. Sitting two days in the ashtray-and-moroccan-lamp shop of Houssam. "And now, you try to sell". Phew. Impossible. Too little tourists, too much competition. I sold one ashtray. In one whole day.

1 year later: Back and forth every 6 months. To buy books. To go to Hercules caves and do the touristy things. To enjoy the atmosphere. And talking! In Spain: "But what on earth are you going to Tangier for?? There is nothing there"!

The Spanish have one mental border: whether a country is free or not. If it is not, why on earth would you go there?

2 years later: Back and forth every 3 months. Now bringing friends. Then friends of friends. Then people I thought to be friends of friends but happened to be just German tourists who had no clue why I was talking to them, but thought: this is nice, a free tourist guide.

Later, later... Working in riad and hotel web design, so I travel a lot to Morocco.

"Bye bye
C'est fini, j'en ai mare
Ghalini, goodbye
C'est fini, au revoir".