Trip to Merzouga

Thursday, March 3, 2011

The trip down to Merzouga was eventful, to say the least. It was a long bus ride, with stops fairly continuously along the way. You’d see someone get off the bus and see only one house from the road. This clearly was the only transport for folks. Probably only the seven tourists took the bus the entire way from Fes to the end, at Rissani.

We passed through some pretty dry countryside, tall plateaus, and a forest in which I believe I saw a monkey.

This is the town of Rich. The arrival of the bus was a big deal.

After miles of dry countryside these two bodies of water seemed miraculous.

We had plans to take a grand taxi the remaining 20km from Rissani to Merzouga. On the bus we were offered a ride from a man selling tickets for his taxi, and so along with a German couple we would fill that taxi. As we understood we might be ambushed by taxi drivers, we were pleased to have this settled. A bit later, a young guy with a turban got on and spoke to me a little in Spanish. I guess word was out that I spoke Spanish. We got off the bus and into the driver's jeep, along with the turbaned guy. (Turns out he and the driver are buddies.) But the German couple wasn't with us. I was stuck in the back, but wanted to understand why they weren't coming with us since we were going to the same place. They said the driver wouldn't take them to Chez Julia. I was confused, but because of where I was I couldn't get more info. I asked the driver if he could take us there even though he couldn't take the other couple. He said yes.

So, we drove on a paved road for a while and then turn off onto what clearly seemed like a private road; all the signs were for private locations and we were on a dirt road whose edges were marked with small rocks. Pretty soon Dave started to complain that we were not on the road to Merzouga and we both began to fight this guy verbally. He laughed that he's not the mafia, blah blah blah. We laughed at ourselves for distrusting him and we had a few laughs together. But then he stopped his car and got out. The group sitting in the row ahead of us had been utterly silent, and had not insisted on where they did or did not want to stay. When the driver asked if they wanted to stay there, we said no. He got mad at us and said he wasn't talking to us. He gets a commission for this place and it's only 40dh. Of course it's not in our books and it's really remote. We fogured we'd be stuck if we stayed there. And by the way, this was happening at about 9:30 at night, and it was pitch black out there. (We also know the Algerian border was nearby, which doesn't help our nerves any.) After much effort by certainly Dave and me -- even appealing to the other guy in Spanish -- but maybe one or two of the morons in the seat ahead of us (young American guys who've been camping their way through Europe for months and a sleepy chick they met on the bus), we persuaded him to turn around. We wanted to go to the center of Merzouga. Over and over he claimed there was no center but there were five towns. Did any of us know for sure? Only what our guidebooks told us. He also claimed not to know anything about our hotel. He started driving like a maniac and in one dip we bottomed out and Dave cussed out "Jesus F*g Christ!" when he hit his head on the roof of the jeep. That *really* pissed off our driver (Jesus is an Islamic prophet), and he actually skidded to a stop. We didn't know what he was going to do then. I'm not sure if it was then or before, but he decided that he could take us to Chez Julia if we paid him 200dh. Since we didn't want to be robbed of our money we argued for a while as he drove around. (We didn't know if he was going somewhere else or back to main road as we asked him to. Then he decided he wanted 400dh if all of us wanted to go there. Naturally that really pissed us off. He wanted us to pay him before we went any further, which we thought was ridiculous, and of course by then we assumed he would charge us 200dh as often as he liked. We didn't trust him at all and we were stuck. We managed to get him to take us to signpost for Chez Julia and we got our luggage off the car before we paid him. Dave rushed ahead to the hotel while the others got out and tried not to pay. (They were threatened with violence so they forked it over.) When I caught up to Dave we met Julia, an older woman who spoke French and German only but managed to convey that she had just one room. We felt bad for the kids, but we were terribly relieved. If there was a town with a few more hotels (as she claimed), we couldn't see them. This was the edge of civilization as we know it. Inside, I shook with anxiety and fear for what this could have been. We felt so fortunate to have made it -- and for getting the last room. I told Dave I wouldn't bounce back quickly from this. I mean, a good night's sleep wouldn't do the trick.

We were also starving as it was late and we hadn’t eaten dinner, and we managed to convey what we could eat and Julia tried to help us understand what could be prepared at that hour. We ended up with a couscous "cake": cold cooked couscous pressed into a bowl and turned over, then topped with criss-crossed raisins and cinnamon.

We were put in a lovely rooom in a set of connected buildings made of straw and clay washed in bright colors and with colorful weavings and upholstery.

It was a welcome change from the last two places we’d stayed, and was a welcome respite from the monotone desert houses around Merzouga. This was breakfast our first morning.

We don’t know if there were other nice places since they all look the same from the outside. It’s a very simple town very much at the edge of civilization. There was no produce to buy and when I ordered a vegetable tajine I was told I couldn’t get one anywhere in town. So I got an egg sandwich, which was delicious. (I believe it also made me sick all the next day since I haven’t eaten an entire egg in years.)

This is Merzouga with the dunes beyond.

The next day as I was upstairs at the Internet cafe waiting (forever) for my camera's photos to download, I walked over to the window and saw the American kids getting into a car on their way to an excursion. I ran down to find out how they'd made out in their search for a hotel, and they told me that the owner of their hotel knows they guy who drove us around. (The driver owns a hotel in Rissani.) He suggested we go to the police in Rissani. He was upset that an event like this could create problems for tourism, upon which they are so dependent.

Well, our dune outing wasn't going to start until 3pm and we had nothing better to do, so we headed over to the police station. We told our story, pretty sure they would ignore us or only just pretend to do something for these silly Americans who clearly had nothing better to do, and who make enough money to travel far from home. There were conversations in Arabic between the many guys in the office, some Internet searches, and phone calls. We couldn't really tell how much of whatever they were doing was related to us. Finally, one officer asked us to follow him into an office, where he asked to each write a statement about what happened. Then the officer called Mohammed, the driver, and put him on his cell phone's speaker phone to see if we recognized his voice. We couldn't. (We had spoken with him in English and Spanish, so his Arabic didn't sound familiar to us, and besides, we were attempting to recognize his voice over a crappy cell phone speaker.) That didn't matter. He was being asked to come to the station. We were shocked. The police could ask someone to come to the station and know that he would comply? Anyway, I was starving, so I went off in search of food, and figured I'd be back within the half hour it took for Mohammed to arrive. I didn't want to see him. But I was also really nervous about seeing him on the road between the food places and the police station, even if there was a slim chance of meeting because of the direction I was going. And still i was nervous about seeing him the police station. When I returned, Mohammed was waiting in the reception area of the police department. I said "Bon jour" (what else to do?) and moved past him back to the office. The officer was translating Dave's report into Arabic and transcribing it into a journal. He was assisted by another officer who helped him get the Arabic right. The translation basically went from English to Arabic via French. When he finished Dave's he worked on mine. Dave got extra credit for his level of details because he's a lawyer. In writing the introduction of my statement the officer asked me some personal questions such as the names of my parents and if I was single. I looked at Dave because I didn't know what to say. (It's expected that couples travelling together in Morocco are married.) Dave said "It's okay, we talked about this when you were out and we were working on my statement." The officer asked if we were going to get married, and Dave said he hoped so. The officer, a blushing type, put his head down to write and said "Inshallah" ("If Allah wishes it"). At the end of my statement the officer asked what I wanted to be the outcome of this. I said I wanted our money back and I wanted Mohammed to be charged.

Soon after, Muhammed came in and offered to give us back our money, but it was amid a disruptive discussion. He was apparently giving his statement, but it became an argument with Dave and me. I said I couldn't go through this again and got up to leave. (Really, I felt like we were going to rehash the entire night again, and it was too much for me.) Also, we needed to get back to the hotel for our trip to the dunes. I left and Dave stayed to finish things up. In the end, Mohammed apologized to Dave, and the police made him give us back not only the 200dh but also the 20dh we'd paid him on the bus. Mohammed said he wanted to apologize to me, and Dave said he didn't want Mohammed anywhere near me.

We had only positive experiences in Merzouga after that first night, and we were terribly impressed by how seriously we were taken by the police. Of course we expressed great appreciation to them directly.

I told Said, our camping guide that Dave was over at the police station finishing up, and that gave us the opportunity to tell him what happened so he could tell Julia. We wanted her to know so that she could make sure these things got reported, to try to make sure this behavior wasn’t tolerated. We weren’t sure how much they understood, but they seemed to understand the gist of it and were upset at how Mohammed’s behavior could affect tourism. In fact later at our campsite Said asked us to retell the story since he said he wasn’t sure he’d gotten it the first time.