staying sane while travelling solo in morocco

While I loved Morocco for its wealth of Islamic architecture, delicious tagines and maghrebi landscapes, it performed very poorly on my personal Tourist Hassle Scale. In fact, only in India did I experience more incessant pitches by vendors, taxis and would-be guides. 

Of course, not everyone has the same triggers. Indeed for some, the vendors' habit of soliciting customers passing through a Moroccan souk, followed by a vigorous round of haggling over tea is a quintessential experience.  Not so for this traveller. 

Particularly annoying for me, and in some cases downright menacing, are the men who will follow you. They may get right to the point and offer their services as a guide. Others begin with the pretence of friendly conversation, curious about where you're from and to hear your impressions of Morocco. Others follow you around several turns, decide that surely you must be lost, and insist on guiding you to your destination in expectation of a tip. Just as often as not, these helpful strangers have no idea where your destination actually is. The winding warren of pedestrian lanes in medieval, car-free Fez is particularly problematic for the latter category of opportunist. 

It's hard to begrudge these young men. Youth unemployment in Morocco hovered near 20% when I visited in 2017. Tourism accounts for nearly 30% of GDP in Marrakesh and is increasingly important to the economies of Fez, Meknes and Tangiers. When French tourists alone spend €920 million in Morocco annually, is it any wonder that tourists are sometimes seen as walking opportunities? Some have really put the work in and are capable of carrying on a superficial conversation in half a dozen languages. 

Over the course of my travels, I have attempted to refine my own version of a  friendly, polite refusal. "Thank you, no", are among the first words I teach myself in the local language when visiting a new country. If you stop to engage with every business person who speaks to you in Marrakesh, you may never make it past the end of your own street. 

Fez was the first stop on my Morocco itinerary. The city's car-free ancient centre is one of its main draws. It's also exceptionally easy to get turned around here. Signs are often non-existent off the main thoroughfares and the plaster walls of the reputedly 9,000 streets have an astonishing number of dead-ends. 

Wandering aimlessly is a great pleasure of travel and that's how I found myself lost and isolated one afternoon in Fez. After likely walking in circles for 30 minutes, a young man approached me and asked where I was trying to go. I smiled and said something to the effect of "just walking". He kept following, asking questions. There's something inherently uncomfortable about someone following you. Maybe it's a subconscious holdover of elementary school "stranger danger" warnings. Of course, when you're alone, very much lost, and in a nearly deserted area, anxiety rises more quickly.

As my pretence of having any sweet clue of direction had clearly failed, I relented and told him I wanted to get to the market. "The market is closed now. Where is your hotel?" Plausible, I thought, as the sun was going down. So I gave him the name, thinking he'd rattle off some directions and be done with it. Though he claimed to know it, he of course had no idea where my small guest house was located. He first suggested walking me there but as soon as we reached a recognizable street - perhaps sensing his advantage was evaporating - he started to give nonsensical directions and demanding a tip for his unsolicited help. I passed him a couple coins from my pocket hoping to be done with it. "Are you crazy?", he said. "You give paper money." Thoroughly irritated, I ducked into a shop and he carried on. 

Google Maps is utterly useless in old Fez, so don't rely on it. 

In Meknes, I had an argument with a taxi driver (in my broken French) who refused to use his meter but also refused to stop the taxi when I told him I'd rather walk. He eventually relented, turned on the meter, and laughed off the disagreement. 

By the time I reached Rabat and had been persistently followed by several more guides who brazenly ignore even a direct request "Please stop following me", I decided on a new strategy. Where Google Maps had failed me, Google Translate saved me. "What language would these guys be least likely to understand that a pasty white dude could plausibly speak? " Norwegian. That night I memorized the phrases I would utter many a time over the following weeks with the occasional "No English" thrown in for good measure. 

The next morning, I put on my new pair of dark sunglasses and set out with a Scandinavian sense of purpose. Dishonest? Sure. But this small change resulted in a much less stressful experience. 

Jeg må løpe,

J.