Morocco - Smir and Tetoun
Moxie - Beck Family Adventure
Mike, Denise, Asia and Aranya Beck
Thu 30 Jun 2011 15:56
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35.45.17N 005.20.43W
 Another courtesy flag.
 The Marina and immigration offices in Smir.
Having cleared customs and checked into the marina it
was time to relax a bit.
We popped over for a few hellos on the opposite
pontoon and a couple of beers. The first person we met was local chappie
Mohammed and his camel Abdul. Mohammed tried to sweep the girls up and on
to the camel however not wanting to be scammed I insisted to know the price
beforehand. Dos Euros he said pointing to each of the girls, I agreed and
no sooner had we nodded then the girls were aboard Abdul. I'm not sure if
you have ever seen a camel getting up but it consists of 3 awkward movements
each tilting the riding position to 45 degrees front or back. Aranya was
in histerics at these gangly antics and then all and sundry were off down the
pontoon 30 metres or so and back again. Not having any small change and
not expecting any change from Mohammed from a tenner, I sent Denise back to
Moxie for the agreed 4 Euros. When she arrived back she was
ushered upon Abdul with the two girls and another 40 second camel ride
followed. Denise then paid Mohammed, apparently there is high
inflation in Morocco and dos Euros had now inflated to cinco Euros
and we were scammed into handing over 15 for the rides. Lesson
learnt, he who negotiates must also pay.
  Unfortunately for us we had berthed next to a Rock
Sailing school / skippered charter boat that was loaded with girls here for a
party. So until 3 in the morning we had 5 girls dancing in next doors
yacht cockpit, very poor very loud singing and music blaring. Not to
mention the ringleader, in her best drunken northern accent, chanting 'No
sleeping on the boat, no sleeping on the f-ing boat' on a fairly regular
basis. I was considering to repeat the chant at 6:30 am accompanied by a
fog horn would be fair alas I too needed sleep at that hour. The school
owner took until well after lunch the next day to unblock both heads (loos) that
had been crammed with paper overnight.
 Rally organisers Derek, Lorraine and Dona.
Saturday we joined rally participants for a (late)
complimentary breakfast at a local restaurant, it was a basic affair which we
could have added to however stupidly we'd only come over from Gib with 100 or so
Euro's. We tried everything given us, couldn't quite finish the mint tea
though I'm afraid. It is very sickly sweet. The local currency in
Morocco is the Dinah however we didn't want to be stuck with any of these and
everyone was accepting Euro's at 10 to 1 in any case so that was easier.
We borrowed from the kid's reserves and ended up with almost 150 Euro.
Life would have been easier had the Marina accepted credit card alas this is not
the case. Also diesel is only 75p per litre but we could not take
advantage.
We went for a wander down the surprisingly empty beach
at Smir. I'm not sure when they make any money around here (other than
camel handlers that is) as there was scarcely a tourist to be seen. Mostly
the beach was decorated with empty deck chairs a few deck chair fee
collectors. There was also quite a lot of small pieces of rubbish
everywhere, bottle screwcaps and the like but also we found a small piece of
glass and a tear off tin can top (lovely for kids feet). The deck
chair lads seemed to be raking their turf and disposing of the debris, I guess a
clear patch of sand passes for an oasis these days. Good news was that
Aranya found a little jellyfish and without too much effort a discarded plastic
cup was found to collect it into. This was to be our entry into the
biggest fish caught competition in the rally.
 Deck chair wardens creating a litter free patch of
beach.
Saturday afternoon consisted of games. Horsie
racing, higher or lower card pyramid, tug of war, hoola hoop, Macarana dancing
and most hilariously belly dancing. The belly dancing was won by a very
large man off one of the gin palaces. Apparently he'd been to lessons and
it was amazing to watch how much control he had over his stomach rolls. I
was in fits of laughter and admiration, for one thing you don't expect an
overweight gazillionaire to take his shirt off and dance for the commoners,
but mostly you certainly don't expect that he'd actually be hands down the best
belly dancer in town.
 Hoola hoop competition.
 The horse races
Later there was a mass BBQ - 3 x 44 gallon drums,
fancy dress and prize giving followed later in the evening, Aranya won the
largest fish caught competition and was presented with a very impressive
trophy. Asia and Aranya tried out for the Hoola Hoop but were hands down
knocked out by their new friend Maya, 6 - a guest on the gin
palace.
 66 gallons BBQ setup
 Aranya with her 'Biggest fish caught' trophy, Asia admiring the
specimen. As we suspected Aranya was the only successful fisherman of the
Rally.
We decided to stay on for an extra day and ventured into
Tetoun. We shared a taxi to get there with the boat next door, it cost 6
Euros in total for the 40 odd kilometer trip. Immediately upon arrival we
were adopted by a friendly English speaking local that was 'not a
guide' but he happened to be going to the market and was happy to show
us. If we wanted we could follow along or we could make our own way.
He was nice enough and the rouse was superficial so we tagged along with Mr
Notaguide who pointed out that he was Ahsmatic and proudly showed me the
blue inhaler several times.
 The entrance to the marketplace, after this point it got dark and
narrow.
We entered the market streets tentatively behind
Notaguide, the walkways are very narrow 6 or 8 feet wide in places, an open
sewer seemed to be weeping and meandering path around the joints in the cobbled
path. Each new turning brought us to a new 'department' with different
streets clustering different trades. We passed rows of tiny barbers shops,
butcheries and fresh produce stalls (many of these simply a crate on the path
with someone squatting next to it). There were bakeries and cake
stalls with huge piles of colourful and tasty looking treats but complete
with one or two large black wasps or flies testing the quality, and a flea
market where all manner of worthless rubbish (in European standards) was being
plied, grubby second hand Barbie dolls and the like.
 The street market in Tetoun
Finally Notaguide seemed to need a rest, "Why
don't you pop into this building to admire the view from the rooftop
terrace, you can see all of Tetoun". With many repeats of I'm not buying
anything we agreed and entered the carpet shop. Many, many carpets were
rolled out and displayed before us, "just to show us the quality". The
girls were laughing as even if Moxie needed a nice new carpet, we simply had no
spare cash, and how long was it going to take them to put all of those carpets
back? Anyway they were very very nice people, not pushy and we left
without any animosity, without a carpet and hopefully with enough money for
the marina fees.
 The must see view from above the carpet
shop.
Next up was the outdoor tannery and leather goods
stores. We were hopelessly lost by now in the myriad of dirty streets and
Notaguide having gotten us completely lost and out of our comfort zone. I
was beginning to think that we should have stopped at the bakery so that we
might have been able to drop breadcrumbs along the way. I decided
that Notaguide was going to earn his expected reward simply by showing us the
way out. We visited a pharmacy come spice store where we were given a
rather interesting lesson on medicines and uses for the various herbs and
spices, again we managed to leave comfortably and without purchase, then
through the shoe stalls, jewellery alley and finally back to daylight near the
Kings Palace.
 The tannery.
We arrived back at the taxi rank where notaguide seemed
to hand us over to notataxitout. Denise by this stage was somewhat
overcooked and ready to hightail it home, we then somehow employed
notataxitout to negotiate the cab home for us. Notaguide was now
demanding payment for his free services in order to buy some new ventalyn and
was rather offended by my, thank you for your generous free gift of
time, now as a small gesture of our appreciation please accept a couple of Euro
so that you can go and have a sit down and a nice cup of coffee. I think
his words were somewhere along the lines of what is this? Shortly followed
by a rather convincing look of shock and disbelief, his eyes
indicating that he might die on the spot without immediate medication
and demonstrating once again the empty puffer. He was very nice and
not threatening though. I gave him 5 Euro which to be honest he had
earned, but is not a good starting point for negotiations when paying for a
'free service'.
Getting a taxi home was interesting, we'd earlier been
warned it would cost at least 10 Euro to get home. Having
explained to him that we had arrived for 4 Euro, Notataxitout negotiated with me
until we agreed that a fair fare was 10 Euro. He took my money in
hand and we went to the front of the taxi rank queue. Much shouting,
waving of money, throwing money, forcing open doors etc later the driver simply
drove off. These antics were followed by the next couple of cabs and four
or five behind that simply drove off as we approached. Not a taxitout was
running ahead to catch one before it left, my money waving in his
hand. I could see a corner looming and got a bit worried, catching up
and getting the cash back. I'm sure it was all a show but eventually a
driver agreed to take us for the agreed price and notataxitout requested a Euro
for his services, I happily paid as I thought the whole charade was rather worth
it. The driving was somewhat erratic, the cab, an ancient Mercedes
has no seatbelts and the driver spoke not a word of English. However the
scenery looked familiar and we arrived back at the Marina safely. I asked
Asia what she thought of the driving and the answer was' a bit like my go-cart
driving really' those were exactly my thoughts too.
After paying the marina fees which thankfully were half
price for the two nights of the rally, we left Smir with almost 15 Euro to
spare. So my heart rate slowed down now that we were in the clear, we cast
the lines and were promptly called back by customs, I'd forgotten to get our out
stamps on the passports. Anyway without further fuss or error we set of
for the Spanish Enclave of Ceuta 15 miles away on the African coast directly
opposite Gibraltar.
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