TANGIER

Friday, 14 October 2011

Did you know that people who live in Tangier are known as Tangerines? A sweet choice, but Tangier turned out to be a bit of a lemon for Rab. It is nothing new for her expectations of a place to fail to match the reality and here was a case in point. Tangier was once regarded as a mysteriously glamorous place where spies met beautiful women and romance bloomed. Maybe it was so back in the day, although I doubt it, but it certainly doesn’t fit that bill now. It is in a word (or three) a Third World City. The buildings crumbling, are chronically short of paint, rubbish lies in the streets, water is supplied to parts if the Medina by way of a hose in a trough of water. There are very few signs of glamour and of course the street vendors….. well, they didn’t bother me any more than flies do in summer in Australia, but they really bugged Rab.

But to start at the beginning: Rab had elected to take a guided tour through the Medina and Kasbah ending with an hour’s spare time in the souk to look for bargains in leather. The predicted temperature was 30C which had me a bit worried because of these damned heart medications of mine, but fortunately as we were coming in a sea mist was developing and blowing in over town. By the time we got off the ship, it was quite nippy as the wind carried the vapour in over us. That eventually evaporated but it left the day somewhat cooler, although it was still muggy and humid as we moved around the town at a fair clip, following Aziz in a long drawn out string of oldies and wrinklies, some limping along, many with canes. Up hill and down dale we went, often travelling in circles. I have a good bump of locality most of the time and I was orienting our voyage by way of a steeple – or maybe a mosque’s tower that pointed skywards in the middle of our travels.

The tour had started a little late because, as ever one of the simple minded aboard the coach hadn’t obtained a ‘visitor’s pass’ – a small square of bureaucratic paper handed out by Moroccan Immigration officials on the ship. We couldn’t see that this slip of card had any value, but they were there and we were told we’d need to hand them in when we returned. These delays are inevitable when travelling with a crowd and although most people are at the coaches promptly when required, there is often a laggard or two who selfishly hold up the rest of the party. I often feel that I’d like to see these people left behind, but I guess there’d be a deal of trouble if that was done. To make matters worse, the bus had a number of the very loud folk who tended at the best of times to talk loudly. Now separated in the bus they shouted their witticisms and collapsed into paroxysms of mirth at what was not funny by any normal standards. Let me give you a small example of their wit. As we walked through the Medina I spotted a photo opportunity – an old man snoozing under a lemon tree. As I took a picture (the shot wasn’t that good in the end) one of these jokers quipped “I ‘ope ‘e isn the nightwatchman.” And all his conies collapsed with laughter. Was I just being a miserable old grump in failing to see the joke? What would be funny even if he was the nightwatchman? And if he was, when would he sleep except during the day?

Having finally loaded our full 35 assorted wags and physically disadvantaged senior citizens we finally set off through the mist and drove through the city. Nothing remarkable really there although we did see the Café de Paris, the centre of all the espionage and monkey business during the War – not very glamorous now it looks like a seedy old run down caff. Traffic regulations wouldn’t allow us to stop at the main vantage point which would have let us look out over town, so we wound our way onwards past the Royal Palace and the house occupied by Malcolm Forbes which is now a museum housing the many thousand toy soldiers which were his hobby. I’d have loved to see them, mainly to try to understand why a grown man should get pleasure from such a hobby, but that wasn’t on the tour.

The coaches stopped at the top of the hill, where the Medina – the fortified area of the city – was situated and de-bussed. Aziz, the guide, set off at a fair clip towards the fort but diverted through the Kasbah which surrounds the Medina. We realised fairly early on that the reference to uneven surfaces and slopes understated the position. The roadways and paths were full of traps and holes and the slopes were steep. At one stage a kid on a bicycle came rocketing down a very steep ramp (what it was doing there, I can’t say) and locked his wheels, skidding amongst our group, luckily missing all the walking sticks propping up so many of the oldies. As it turned out, Aziz was determined to keep to his timetable and route, irrespective of the ability of those who followed him. There were few stops and those that were taken were merely to allow the stragglers to catch up. No photo stops to speak of, so I had to either by-pass what looked like some really good potential shots or stop and catch up. Rab didn’t like that because she is a tripper and faller like her Mom and needed me to clutch on to in the event of a fall coming on. And her knees were playing her up so she couldn’t get into a canter or gallop – or even a fast trot.

I managed to get some shots that may be OK once I have had a good look at them, but I hated losing so many. If only he had shortened the route and moved at a slower speed I am sure that he would have had a happier crew. Thank goodness it was a cool day. If it had been 30C as forecast we would have had some more serious problems I am sure. As it was we were sweating as it was so humid. Actually, now I think about it, Aziz did have one stop – at the tomb of a holy man. His speciality, we were told, was to enable women who were having problems in conceiving to bear children. I wondered, silently so as not to upset Aziz’s sensibilities what the old boy got up to in his rooms to achieve this desired result. Reckon he might have had a bit of fun. At one stage we went through an archway and emerged on a terrace overlooking the ocean – or it would have if the sea mist hadn’t obscured the view. Cut to our clowns: “Not much of a view is it?” – all fall about laughing. How funny is that observation?

There are clearly no Occupational Health and Safety regulations applied in Tangier. The edge of the terrace was crumbling – the Medina wall leaned at a very dangerous angle over us and of course there were no railings anywhere. An Alsatian dog, looking remarkably well for a Kasbah dweller chased some cats over the rubble. There was a surprising number of cats about, some looked skinny and clearly were living on the garbage that was abandoned in the alleys; others looked as sleek as any other well groomed animal and we saw one sitting on it’s own stool on a cushion.

We finally left the Medina – through the Ali Baba gate – and entered the Kasbah proper. The alleys were slightly wider here and we could see people in their minute houses as we passed – no lights on – perhaps there were no lights to put on. There were very small shops too – tailors seemed to be popular, working in areas not much bigger than a cupboard. All very exotic, but by then we were all tiring badly and were more keen on getting to the end of this odyssey than looking at the curiosities on the way. The final straw as far as Rab was concerned was when we finally emerged – uphill from the Kasbah – into the equivalent of Piccadilly Circus (on a somewhat smaller scale of course, and without the statue of Eros). Dodging the traffic we headed further uphill, walking in the roadway because there was no pavement as cars whirled by hooting at these darned foreigners clogging the road because they didn’t know the rules of the road. When we finally crested the hill, we were almost immediately above the street we had just come out of – and our path took us now back down the hill to the next street. We could have avoided that last trying trek if we had just stood where we were.

At this stage, Rab spat the dummy and sent me forward to ask Aziz when on earth we were going to get back on the bus?????? “No worries”, he said (perhaps he had met some Australians previously), “Just five minutes to the café where you can sit and rest.” And so it was, back we went down the street, through the ‘fresh food’ market – some amazing smells there from ‘fresh food’! and the fruit on show looked a little tired, as if it had made a long trek across the desert from the oasis where it was grown. The Ooohs and Aaahs from the assembled throng made me wonder what their reaction would have been if they had seen Queen Victoria Market in Melbourne. Exiting the market via the ‘fresh chicken’ section with it’s hanging corpses we finally arrived at the seedy run down café which had certainly seen better days and Rab collapsed into a waiting wicker seat to sit out the one hour free time for shopping which was part of the tour. I got her a cold Coke, calmed her down and in the fullness of time suggested gently that it might be an idea to look at the sandals, slippers and handbags in the leather shops. She was still reluctant and the ice was only broken when a vendor who had persistently tried to sell us some of his brassware finally agreed a price for a brass bottle, which was 50% of his first asking of 25 euros, showing that my bargaining skills are very rusty. Cooled and calmed and having recovered her equilibrium, Rab went on to enjoy a bit of shopping, garnering two pairs of slippers, a handbag and a leather purse and by the time we got back to the ship she was her normal cheerful self.

We didn’t want to wait for dinner at eight in the Waldorf, so we headed for the back deck again. It was too cold out there so we ate in the bistro – a really good Caesar Salad, freshly prepared and very tasty. While we were eating the ‘strange bloke’ came in clutching two very large Moroccan stringed musical instruments. I say he is strange because he looks in his late teens or early twenties, with black shoulder length greasy hair and a vacant look in his eye. Four days out – or was it five? – he still hasn’t changed his dirty red T-shirt which he wears irrespective of weather. We wonder if he has weather-proofed himself in some way. He said he hadn’t bargained and had paid €250 for one and €200 for the other. Looked to us as if he’d been done as it seemed one of the instruments is a string short, rather like the purchaser?

– and so to bed.

PS I didn't mention the fez or tarboosh. I always fancied one of those, but Rab sad it was silly! A vendor fancied my old, made in China, falling to pieces Australian cap, so we did a trade!! He complained about the fraying later, but I told him it was too late. The deal was done:-)