Keep Your Friends Close, And . . .

Charlie's brother Pete traveled to Morocco about 10 years ago or so. Those were the days before the cheap European airlines like Ryan Air and EasyJet made it possible to fly from London to Marrakech for 20 pounds plus tax, and so it was before the hordes of European tourists had descended en masse. Pete said that, when he visited, he was extremely hassled by the Moroccans eager to fleece him, particularly when he was in Tangiers. We didn't experience such hassling.

We experienced only minor hassling. Like guys, such as the one in the picture above, who somehow sense that you are lost in the mapless maze of the Medina, and kindly offer to show you the way to where you are going because they happen to be going the same way and they just want to be nice and friendly, so they say, until they demand 1 or 2 Euros as payment for their services once they get you there. (This particular guy in the photo above was off-his-head drunk.)

Then, there was the petit taxi driver who charged us 20 dirham ($2.50 US), when the same short taxi ride on the way back cost us only 5 dirham (60 cents US). One of many cheating schemes attempted by taxi drivers, but the only one that succeeded in fooling us, and for a pretty small amount of money at that.

And then, there was the guy who enthusiastically shook Charlie's hand in a gesture of welcome, and then, when he turned to shake mine, he wiggled a finger into my palm in the international gesture of skeeziness. I don't know which is more amazing - how violated I felt by a little palm tickling, or that there are actually guys in this world that attempt such nonsense. I mean, really....

All in all, we managed to survive relatively unscathed.