A Moroccan Adventure: How to Meet Border Control

Our plan was infallible. My two college roommates and I had three days in Morocco, and we were determined to cram as much as possible into that time. We would arrive in the morning in Tangier, where we would have lunch. In the afternoon, we would bus to Chefchauen-a relaxed hillside town known for its hash-loving citizens. After a night in Chefchauen, we would wake and catch another bus to Fez. We would stay the night in there, soaking up the old-world vibes of a traditional Moroccan city. The next morning we would take the coastal train back to Tangier and return to Spain. Nothing could go wrong.

Or so we thought...

Fresh Off the Boat

Disembarking in Tangier, we were ushered out of the ferry in a massive crowd of people. Moroccan men greeted us, aggressively offering their tour services, and we bobbed and weaved through the wave of people into town. At the bus station, a crowd of dodgy men rambled off destinations, creating a buzz of nervous energy. Bypassing the ticket black market, we went directly to the bus company recommended by the guidebooks. The added expense of a reputable bus company was well worth it for a comfortable three-hour drive winding through the hills and past makeshift highway-side markets selling cheap pottery.

Once in Chefchauen, we stood in the bus station looking over our map for the quickest way to our hostel. Looking the confused tourist in a bus station (never a good idea), we were almost immediately approached by a Moroccan man with alligator shoes. Wary of aggressive con men, we started to walk away. However, Mohommad, as he introduced himself, insisted that while Tangier was full of conmen preying on tourists, Chefchauen was different, and he wanted only to ensure we enjoyed his town. Still suspicious, we let him walk with us to our hostel.

Lesson for the travelers: No matter what country or culture, any stranger that approaches you in a bus station wants money.

We tried to say goodbye to Mohammad at our hostel, but he pretended not to understand. While we went in to set down our packs, he waited outside, smoking a cigarette. We waited in our rooms hoping Mohammad would take the hint, but twenty minutes later, he was still sitting on the stoop, smoking cigarettes as though he could wait for hours.

We were in the midst of formulating a "ditch Mohammad" plan, when our hostel owner knocked on our door to ask our passports. It is Moroccan law for every guest to be registered. We handed over our passports, watching as the owner flipped through first one, then another, then another, looking more anxious with each one. He handed them back and asked how we had gotten to Morocco. We answered that we had arrived on a ferry that morning. He apologized, but said we could not stay there because we were missing an entrance stamp and it would be illegal for him to house us. His eyes were full of suspicion as he told us we had to go back to the border.

We looked at one another, thinking we just ridden a bus for 3 hours, and a trip back to the border would be the end of our carefully planned Moroccan holiday. We asked if we could just have the local police give us a letter with permission to stay. The owner shrugged and said that if the police said it was okay, we could stay.

We were on our way out the door to the police, when the owner added, "take your stuff with you... just in case."

Back On the Bus

Outside the hostel, Mohommad was still waiting, and jumped up when we emerged. "Okay, now I take you to my store," he declared authoritatively. When we answered that we weren't interested, Mohommad pointed at us (bear in mind we were in the middle of the city and surrounded by people), "You are not Americans. You are Jews. Cheap Jews." And so, with Mohommad trailing us and hurling racial slurs, we ran to the police station.

At the police station, Mohammad quickly (and rather conveniently) disappeared. We went inside and explained our predicament to the police. They flipped through our passports in disbelief. By their third time through, realizing the stamps would not magically appear, they handed the passports back, seeming afraid that merely holding them would implicate them in a coup d'etat. They said they had never encountered someone who had entered Morocco without getting a stamp and advised and that we should return to Tangier immediately.

So, a mere hour after we arrived, we were back at the bus station. With no other option and daylight fading fast, we booked three tickets on a local bus. The journey to Chefchauen had been a three hour tour of beautiful countryside; the journey back would be a hellish five.

A Hands-On Lesson in Moroccan Bus Etiquette

We were among the first on the bus and I sat in the window across the aisle from my two mates. Within fifteen minutes of leaving town, there were more people on the bus than seats, as the bus stopped at random to pick up people on the side of the road. The aisles were crowded, and each stop, more people got on than off. A lanky, well-dressed Moroccan man sat next to me, and as the bus became more and more crowded, I leaned against the window and closed my eyes.

No sooner had I escaped into a restless sleep, than I woke to find the man's hands running up and down my leg. Unsure of how to explain that as a lesbian I really wasn't interested in a friendly grope on the way back to Tangier, I resigned myself to the universal language of dirty looks. I said with my eyes what I couldn't in Arabic: "Keep touching me like that and I may introduce my foot to your crotch." He removed his hands, and drowsy from traveling, I quickly nodded off again. As soon as I had, his hands returned.

Four hours later, I had learned such new dirty looks as: "Why don't you try that when I'm not sleeping turdhead" and "My god, you are absolutely pathetic; I bet you ride the bus because it's the only action you can get." Luckily, he, along with most of the other passengers, exited the bus two towns before Tangier.

Rescued From Almost Certain Peril

Night had come over the hills. The darkness and my previous seatmate had me on guard, so my friends and I moved to the front of the bus where most of the women were sitting. I began to tell my friends about my backseat violation, when one of the Moroccan women in front of us, turned and in near perfect English asked how we were enjoying our time in Morocco. We were so shocked that she spoke English that it took us a few seconds to find a voice to respond.

Noura, as she introduced herself, had lived most of her life in Holland, where her father was an imam (a religious leader in Islam). We explained our situation to Noura, and when we came to the part about returning to Tangier, Noura looked horrified. "You can't go to the port by yourselves at night. It is not safe," she declared.

Before we could protest that we would be fine, she was on the phone. Minutes later, she announced that she had found someone to take us to the port to straighten out the situation.

Back in Tangier, a black Mercedes and a man with a white shock of hair was waiting for us. He greeted Noura and her mother in Arabic, then in broken English instructed us to get in the car. We briefly weighed the risk. On the one hand, he might have been planning to kidnap us in his trunk. On the other hand, the port, a place our travel guide said to avoid after night, no matter what, awaited us. We got in the car.

Greetings From the Gestapo

With Noura in the front and my two friends, Noura's mother and I in the back, we drove to the port. When we got out I could see why Noura had worried. Figures in the shadows gave me the impression that this was the center of Moroccan drug trafficking. Following our Arab escorts, we walked quickly to the border control office, where the Moroccan version of a Gestapo official looked over our passports. As our Mercedes man and the official spoke heatedly in Arabic, I tried to read their gestures. It seemed they were either: arguing over whether or not to stamp our passports or conferring on how to brand us before selling us at the local market.

A few minutes later, we left the office, no stamps. I looked around, sure that at any moment a hot cattle prod would mark my backside with a free Moroccan-style tattoo. However, no such device emerged. Eventually Noura explained that the official couldn't authorize a stamp, and without a stamp we weren't allowed to leave the port. I stammered, "So, uh, I guess we can stay the night here." Noura answered, "Of course not, we'll wait a minute and see what happens. Besides if you don't straighten this out tonight you won't be able to reenter Spain."

The words were barely out of her mouth, when we were waved back into the office, a room I affectionately termed, "port of torture." Another official stood behind the desk with an ominous metal box, which I was certain contained bamboo shoots for my fingernails. However, instead of torture devicees, he pulled out a stamp pad, took our passports, and without a word, gave us the much sought after Moroccan ink.

The Wisdom of Samantha Jones

It was now after 11pm and most hotels were closed. We had no way of finding a place to stay, and Noura and her mother insisted that we come with them, declaring it their Islamic duty to shelter strangers in need. So, it was that we wound up sleeping on a gorgeous Moroccan rug, discussing with Noura the tenets of Islam, her coming wedding (for which she had returned to Morocco and was renovating the house in which her family hosted us), and Sex and the City.

Noura, in every other respect a very traditional Muslim woman-she wouldn't allow us to photograph her without her hajib (headscarf)-had a love for Sex and the City, particularly Samantha. One of the last things I remember before drifting off to sleep was Noura's observation that, "There is a little of Samantha in every woman."

The next morning, we woke to the smell of a full Moroccan breakfast. Noura's mother was preparing one of the greatest meals I have ever seen. We had olive oil, fresh Moroccan bread, jams, and pastries,

After breakfast, Noura guided us through the old city markets. A few purchases later, we returned to Noura's house for lunch, an even more extravagant affair than breakfast. We sat around a low wooden table with Noura's family, eating in the traditional Moroccan style by swiping at a communal platter of chicken and vegetables with bread rather than utensils. We learned the two rules of Moroccan eating: never use your left hand (Moroccans consider the left-hand dirty because in Moroccan culture it is used in the bathroom, thus keeping the right-hand clean for communal eating) and eat only from the area of the communal plate directly in front of you.

After more shopping and another meal, we went to bed. Having scrapped our original itinerary somewhere between my groping and our detainment, we decided to ferry home a day early. Though Noura invited us to stay and her mother's cooking tempted us to accept, the fear that the border control would hunt us down had us determined to flee to Spain sooner rather than later.