I want to believe…

So after a mammoth thirty hours of travel we arrived in Marrakesh.. Adelaide to Dubai was the easy bit, although our plane was delayed and nearly missed the take off curfew…  Dubai to Casablanca was slightly irritating as we had some turdy kids behind us kicking the chairs the whole time and we’re too polite to say anything…

The kid next to me was slightly better behaved for what we assumed was about an eight year old. Given that his parents were both living it up in first class i shouldn’t have been surprised that he had an iPhone 5 and was playing Texas hold em poker on the in flight entertainment system… I was both impressed and terrified at how quickly he turned $5k into $500k… I suspect his parents can afford the gambling addiction he’s soon to develop.

Customs was exactly what you’d expect and took almost 2 hours to clear… Once we got through we only had 5 minutes to make the train to the city so we were running along the platform channeling our inner amazing race contestant, who got us onto the train just as the doors were closing. Half an hour later we changed trains to Marrakech and finally got a seat.

Struggling to keep our eyes open we watched the sun sink slowly over the horizon as our train wound its way from Casablanca to Marrakech. We watched children chasing alongside the train through the rocky red sands of the desert and we knew we’d arrived somewhere different and unique.

It was dark when our train arrived and we got straight into one of the first cabs we saw… He gave us a reasonable but not great price and as he drove us away we passed all the other tourists from the train, arguing and haggling with their taxi drivers… They might have saved 5 dollars but we were on our way to bed.

I wanted to believe that our cab driver knew where he was going but he didn’t… It was a fixed fare so we didn’t care, but we were mildly concerned we were about to experience our first “that hostel closed down” scam when he pulled off to the side of the road and called someone who came and met us on a scooter. That guy took us down a tight and winding alley, past dozens of small riads (guest houses) until we finally arrived at our destination… The one we booked… exactly where we told the cab driver to take us.

The next morning we woke up early, rested and refreshed. We had some delicious breakfast at our riad and then went out to explore the markets of Marrakech (souqs).

We wandered for a few hours through the winding streets and I took a bunch of photos… This is probably my favourite:

This is how I always pictured morroco… and how it actually is.

We met a local who was walking in the same direction as us and offered to take us to the tannery… We’re  naturally suspicious and I can’t stand touts so we went to head in a different direction… He suggested we stay with him…. He stressed that he wasn’t a guide… He was just on his way to work and if we wanted to walk with him that was just fine with him.

I don’t know what came over me but I wanted to believe him…. I knew what he was and how his game worked, but I wanted to be proved wrong. He asked us where we were from and what we did, was this our first time in the country? (Refer lonely planet guide to morocco, page 405 – fake guides)

He stressed that the Moroccan people were friendly and had no ulterior motive for kind behaviour …. I wanted to believe he was a shining example of this.

(Can I just point out that at no point did I think he was anything other than a giant scammer but was strangely fascinated by Josh’s willingness to follow him….and curious about what the scam might actually be – Penny).

As he took us down the most complicated and esoteric route possible I wanted to believe that it was simply the best way to get where we were going.

When we passed a boarded up shop and he claimed that was where he worked, I asked why it wasn’t open. When he told me it would be open after prayer at 10 o’clock I looked at my watch… It was 10:30 but I wanted to believe his boss had just slept in.

Before any of our parents freak out we want to point out that the streets of Morocco are crawling with hundreds of people (and scabby cats) and at no time were we alone or in a secluded or dangerous spot… We passed other tourists every minute or so and would not have followed him anywhere away from the public hustle and bustle.

Our (no sir, i am not a) guide told us all about the sites and sounds of Marrakech, including the various museums and what it cost to get into them.. His prices were twice those in our guide book but he was quoting in english pounds and i wanted to believe he had made a mistake on his currency conversion.

We finally arrived at the tannery and guide number one introduced us to someone else who gave us a tour… We took some photos but they’ll be better in Fes…Guide number two then dropped us off at a shop where the owner stressed that we didnt have to buy anything.. He told us all about the leather and the dyes, showed us all the things they make.. It was actually very interesting. When he asked us to buy something we tried the “we’ll come back tomorrow” but unfortunately (he told us), 15 families share the tannery so if we waited until tomorrow his family wouldn’t get the money!

We had a fun morning and penny wanted some slippers so we asked him what the cheapest thing he had for sale was? It was slippers and they were 150d… We offered him 100 and he did the old “the price is the price, its fair and we don’t haggle”.. We responded with a bit of “give us the Australian price, not the British price”. We settled on 130d and headed outside with our new purchase…

…where we were promptly hassled by guide number one and two who wanted to be paid for their time. I argued with them both for a few minutes before giving guide number two 20d… It was the smallest note I had and they were both disgusted. Surely his time was worth 100d per person? I told them that was all I had and they could take it or leave it… At this point our loud arguing attracted a third concerned citizen who also felt we should pay 200d to guide number two… I told guide number two if his services were worth that much he could take us back to the main bank in the square, where i would withdraw some money to pay him.

He didn’t want to do that but guide one was happy to pay him on our behalf, then come with us to be repaid… We said hell no and decided the easiest thing to do was go back to the shop, return the shoes and let them fight over the 150d.

We started walking back to the shop and guide two chased us and said he’d take the 20d.. We gave it to him and turned around to leave, where we found guide number one still waiting…”what about something for me?” He asked.

“There’s nothing left for you…” I told him, “get a share from your friends”.

He was pretty pissed at us but as we told him we never asked for his help and he’s the only one who actually misled us. If anyone wasted his time it was he himself.. He yelled curses at us as we walked away and we tried to work out why we’d followed him in the first place… It made me wonder if these scams are only so common and well known because people let themselves fall for them.

In total, the whole experience cost us 150d, which is about eighteen Australian dollars. For that we got a morning of fun and an awesome story about that time we got scammed in Marrakech… worth every cent, even without the slippers.