He says –The beginning of the end of the love affair

17 - 19 sept 09

We got our passports back, by me pushing and shoving our way though the crowed of annoyed Moroccan that had been denied for one reason or an other. We were happy; we only paid for the 1-month visa but got the six weeks we wanted. We left Rabat just before 1500h, and bee-lined it to back to Marrakech. It was a long and boring ride and we stoped in campground just north of the city, as night fell.

Here we met couple in coolest camper. It looked like it was an old citron milk truck that he had converted. It was simply awesome; they where an elderly French couple that invited us over for some drinks. We did go over to chat but not drink. Tomorrow we still had a long way to go to be even sort of back on track. We chatted for a while, until the long day and lack of food called to us. We returned to our camp made some dinner and crashed.

Early the next day bee-lined it to Zagora. This is my third time on the windy road to Ouarzazate. I now know it so well I was able to cut off an hour of our1st time. The road from Ouarzazate to Zagora was painful but I don know why, it was only a 150 or so kilometres. Once there we looked at a couple of camp sites, the first was okay but we decided to look around a bit before deciding, the owner was happy with this and said he hope to see us soon. The guy at the 2nd site got shitty with us, and mouthed off so we went back to 1st campground. Moroccans really only want your money and if they think you are not going to give it to them they would not piss on you if you are on fire. They should learn to shut up until they actually have your money. “Oh your being rude, and angery.. okay we will stay with you and give you money…” Idiot!

Zagora was another of the places in Morocco where you are unable to take a piss without some tout or kid popping up wanting something from you. Even in the campsite that we chose as the “nice place” every other conversation was them trying sell us a camel-trek or 4x4-trek. This continued the entire two days we were there. On the second day, we had actually packed up and checked out, to go a bit further into the desert to M’hamid. We stupidly stopped outside town when a guy was flagging us down. My first reaction was that he was in need of help, he turned out to be a extremely pushy tout from Zbar Travel (M’Hamid Morocco, BEWARE!!!). He ended up following us back into town. Tam really wanted a night in the desert sleeping on dunes, so our second mistake was we talked to the guy. It turned out that he wanted almost 250€ for one night. We left saying that we would “think about it” but he followed us around town in his car. We eventually told him no. He countered with” I have camp ground.. bhlah, blah..” Tam and I like the idea, and it was only a few k’s drive, it was cheap and Tam got her desert night. We started to follow him in his car, he turned on to a dry-deep-sand- river bed.. no way! Anubis two up fully loaded is way to heavy to navigate 30-60cm of soft sand for 6k.

The tout was also too far ahead for me to see the path that he took. I stopped, well actually Anubis stopped, we were bogged. Begrudgingly he came back and agreed to take us by road. Road my ass, it was a farm track, that was a jumble of soft sand and hard rock with kids running up to the bike begging every 10 metres. After one of the first stretches of sand he took Tam in his car.

This is when the track got bad. How he was able to keep his car moving I don’t know. I did see it bottom out and fish tail a few times. Now, 6ks out of town, one real fall and one half off: I said “no further”. Only problem was the tout was way a head of me, I waved and honked but they kept getting a way from me. I was worring about Tam’s safety. Was he just taking her and me in to the desert to rob us.? Now that he had Tam what could happen, I cant just stop. I gave chase. These fears were unfounded, finally Tam made him stop as I was too far back, for her comfort. I was worried about her she was worried about me. I caught up and when she came to me I said it was over. The tout was pissed off he tried to charge us any way, I was not having a bar of it. He yelled, I was too pissed off to yell. He tried to blame me for his car bottoming out “breaking it”…Ah you where leading, it was you who picked the road. He roared off in his car, our only loss was some laughing cow cheese and a can of sardines.

We still had to ride out. Funnily enough the ride out was not a bad as the ride in, the tout did not know where he was going our GPS told us the he did not take the road. He circled the road 3 time.. Idiot was so greedy he was willing to ruin his car to make 30€.! It only took us a few minutes and about a 1.5k to get back to the main road. So we learned two things, never stop for a Moroccan flagging you down, and Zbar Travel M’Hamid Morocco, are a bunch of idiots willing to do anything for your money, BEWARE!!!

Pissed off and toughly fed up with Moroccans and their greedy to the extreme ideals we left M’hamid with out seeing anything. We headed back to Zagora, and to the café where we had such a nice lunch the day before. We need some supplies for the next day, so first Tam then I headed in to the souq where we were both pounced on by the false guides, touts and sellers. I was already pissed off, and when one started to lie (as they all do) I yelled Shooma! (Allah have shame on you and your family) the tout was swarmed by the crowed and I made my escape. Unfortunately it made no difference, no sooner was I away from that one some woman in expensive cloths were begging me to buy this or that FOR them, kids were begging and men where grabbing at me to drag me in to their all-the-same-mass-produced-shit-they-call-art shops.

I don’t like kids at their best but when one kid with ice-cream in mouth started begging, leaving was all I could not to hit him. Later a group of kids actually started to throw rocks, a plastic bucket, and sticks at us for not giving them money. Kids and adults alike would wave us down on highways with give us money sign. Morocco now has lost my heart, it had it for a while but then the glamour faded and I saw the sick-greedy-twisted true nature of the people.

That night we stayed in the same hotel as the night before, only this time the owner, was getting progressively more stoned smoking hash. He would talk for a while (in French) about how I could become his Australian contact and send people to him for tours. “We could be rich” (although as far as I could tell I only got free tours). He would then talk politics for a while before repeating his offer of me being his contact. This continued until we left him to his drugs and friends for the relative peace of our bed.