On the last night at dinner Sergi,
our guide, talked a bit more about a tour he is proposing to IMT. He has designed a Southern Morocco tour. They would subcontract the
motorcycle rentals to an outfit in Marrakesh, where the tour would begin. By
flying into Marrakesh this would eliminate the Spain-Morocco border crossing
“experiences”. He claims that South Moroccans
are different than North Moroccans. Although
poorer in that much of the land is not particularly arable they seem to be more
friendly, genuine and
perhaps even happier. We
agree with his premises. We saw many southern smiles and would consider
returning to see more. Besides, we were just getting the hang of camel riding.
Nearly 19% of the rural Moroccan
population live in poverty. It was suggested that we avoid giving money to
children in these areas as their parents may send them out to beg instead of
going to school. Various barriers exist to prevent children from going to
school resulting in an illiteracy rate in excess of 50% in some rural areas. A
better gift would be a pen to take to school.
I suppose if there is one aspect
of Morocco that we found unappealing is the haggling way of doing business with
tourists. We have run into this before in Turkey and have been told they
consider it part of their culture. We do know that they markedly inflate prices
for tourists because we have done some comparison shopping in “non-tourist”
shops. There is no haggling there. No “part of the culture” there. After a
while it feels like these friendly people are simply out to cheat you and they
are very good at it, detracting from the whole experience. If there is no
written price on the item, watch out. This is compounded by the pestering
“hawker” technique of selling which is often annoying. Some people may enjoy
this “game”. We do not.
It was interesting to compare this
tour with our past guided tour of the Balkans with Adriatic Mototours. Although
there were some differences, we would easily entrust both IMT and Adriatic to
again provide us with a guided motorcycle tour. Perhaps even more interesting
is to compare our unguided tour of Northern Europe last summer with both of the
guided tours. We managed to book our own accommodation and design our own
routes fairly easily. We also had the time to pursue our own agenda. Yet
undoubtedly we missed many interesting activities. Also someone who was conversant
in the European “language du jour” would have avoided/alleviated numerous minor
frustrations we encountered on our own. An interesting side note occurred last summer
after Doug gave our Northern Europe presentation to the attendees at the
Beartooth Beemers motorcycle rally in Red Lodge, Montana. A fellow motorcyclist
came up and asked if we would be interested in leading a guided tour of
Northern Europe! So I guess it is all in one’s perspective. . .
By the way, on the return trip after
three days we did finally recover our “delayed” bag (containing all our
motorcycling gear!). Apparently it took a side trip to Amsterdam. Had that happened on the way there it would
have been a disaster!
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| A Moroccan Smile. |
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