morocco’s still trying to break our will, but won’t. gotta respect a country that won’t give up without a fight.
past few days we withdrew a total of 10,000 dirhams from bank money machines. today we tried to convert them into 1,000 euros so we could pay our london and france rents for august and september. bank said no, we had to go back to where we got the money and have them convert it. walked to western union. they said no, try the bank where we’d just been refused. told lady not to worry, we could always convert them in london. she said no we can’t – it’s illegal to take dirhams out of morocco. we’re looking at losing $1,200 american dollars because of money laws we knew nothing about. we taxi out to the airport to try their conversion office. man said sorry, you need the receipts of where you got it. told him we got it out of the ATM machines. he said those receipts would do. we’ve been throwing the receipts away, but searched her purse and found enough to cover it. gave them to him. he found out we were leaving tomorrow so said can’t be done today, come back tomorrow when we leave. i’m getting tired of bureaucratic backwash telling us what we can or can’t do with our own bread.
tried to taxi back from airport. our first night in morocco, as we walked to the airport taxis, a cabbie asked if we wanted a ride. said yes. he took us to his cab – which was at the back of the long line of waiting cabs. before we knew something was out of sorts, he’d thrown our backpacks in his trunk and told us it was150 dirhams. all the other cabbies descended on him screaming cursing yelling pounding the top of his cab.
so this time to prevent a ruckus we went to the taxi at the head of the line. cabbie said 120 dirhams. told him we’d just taxied the same distance out to the airport for 80 dirhams. he said too bad. asked other cabbies for 80 dirham ride and several said yes. they all started screaming at each other. we got in one cab and another cabbie came over, open my door and demanded we get into his cab. our driver started backing up, the other cabbie hanging on to the door… finally let go.
we caused a ruckus the first time by not knowing the rules. we observed the rules this time and still caused a ruckus. there’s no way to win in morocco. we’ve seen a dozen screaming mad shouting matches, and they’ve all been between taxi drivers. no physical violence though. where’s Travis Bickle when you need him?
as we leave morocco and fly to london, which is where we began our journey last august 2nd, there’s two framing facts of coincidence… flying to mid-60s weather in london last august, we’d left the 100+ degree heat of chicago, and flying into the mid-60s weather in london tomorrow, we’re leaving the 100+ degree heat here … and … my first day in morocco was spent with vomiting and diarrhea from food poisoning i’d gotten from eating at the madrid airport, and here my last day in morocco i’m again suffering from food poisoning and diarrhea. i love it when the author frames the action like that.
day after day after yesterday…
arrived london yesterday. passport control guy an arrogant rude snot. we smiled anyway.
