It all sounds more dramatic than it was and I am pretty sure these people only try to intimidate strangers to see how far they can go to get the most money off them since they are not familiar with these tactics and the culture. I don’t think any of these people I had encountered there would have gone beyond shouting. It’s just a routine. I presume they do this kind of show with every foreigner. Poverty is very high there and people do whatever to get by.

Once in Tangier the city traffic reminded again that I was in a different country, a different continent. There were barely any markings on the roads and there seemed to be no rules applying either. At one point I had stopped at a gigantic roundabout entering it at my green light. In the current situation according to the rules of traffic that I knew (International Vienna convention of road traffic..) I was supposed to be the only one in the roundabout but all of a sudden a car was speeding into the roundabout from my right completely ignoring my presence. He had had a red light and at least 50 meters of sight to see me and slow down. Streets also didn’t seem to be for cars only. A road like any other in downtown London or any other city was crowded with people walking any direction while traffic was flowing. A red light didn’t necessarily mean stop and a green light go. Everybody seemed to be doing as they pleased.

Turn signals were of course rarely used. Double solid lines were crossed like they weren’t there. Traffic signs were almost 100% ignored except for speed limits. Interestingly nobody was speeding in the city. I had read that the police had recently gotten new speed cameras which they were using heavily to get some money. Maybe that’s why. Police was showing a lot of presence. Officers were patrolling the streets and side walks not worrying about the constant traffic violations. At every other bigger street there was one police officer being accompanied by two soldiers with big machine guns. I wondered why.

There was always somebody around trying to make a few Euros.

(Check out where the silver Peugeot decided to stop for the red light..)

I kept riding through the city but just couldn’t find anything that would look like a city centre or a point of interest. Maybe there was one but I just really couldn’t find it but overall the city didn’t look very inviting to me anyway.

Tangier is split into two parts. An old town and a new one. My friendly body guard from earlier had told me that the older part was inhabited by the poor people and the more wealthier ones lived in the new part. And while the old part looked dirty and run down the new one didn’t look any better. Everything was very dirty and if it wasn’t the main road then there was a lot of garbage next to and on the street.

What particularly influenced the appearance of the city was the fact that there were very few signs of advertisement in the whole city. Only a hand full of posters and no big neon signs screaming for attention which would make the place seem more alive according to what we are used to in the western world. Despite people walking around it seemed empty and like a little village rather than a big city.

Along the beach I parked the bike and sat down on a wall towards the sea. I was eating my dinner. A bit of bread and a can of sardines.

A while into my break some guy was walking towards my bike and looked at it curiously. As this was not the first people showed interest in my bike I didn’t think much of it. I continued eating my dinner and watched the sun set.

Strangely they guy had put on a yellow reflective vest and kept standing there next to my bike for as long as I was eating my dinner. When I returned to my bike to get on he approached me and let me know that he had actually been watching over my bike to make sure nothing would happen to it and that he now expected a compensation for it.

But this time I knew better and just told him that I didn’t have any money. Until I was ready to actually start the engine ten minutes passed during which he kept explaining to me how much he helped me in this passed hour. The guy was probably very poor because who else would “waste” their time like this but still I wasn’t going to give my money to everybody who wanted it. So I left him behind and went on exploring the city. People constantly trying to get money from you is just something that you have to get used to looking like a tourist.

I hadn’t planned to stay in Africa for long. In fact my ferry was going back after sunset.

On the way back to the ferry terminal the streets where completely empty except for maybe one car or pedestrian every minute. First I was wondering if maybe there was a curfew or something I had missed but then I remembered that my friendly body guard had told me that Ramadan had just ended and people were now all rushing home to eat.

This van driver below must have been particularly hungry because he just decided to not take the time to go a full circle in the roundabout but just enter the wrong direction to save time..

At the ferry terminal where I was once again offered “help” by some locals -which I declined without any consequences- I used the waiting time for some bike maintenance. One of the body covers on the back of the bike had become lose and I fixed it using the tools I had brought with me.

Like at many other places in Spain there were wild cats roaming around the harbor.

On the ferry I met a fellow motorcycle rider who was in Morocco with his family this time by car. He ownes the two biggest bikes I know and told me of their handling. They are the Honda Goldwing and the bigger version of my BMW F650GS, the BMW R1200GS. We exchanged stories about our trips and Morocco and also exchanged contact details in case I was coming to Morocco again.

We arrived back in Spain almost at midnight and I had to start looking for a place to sleep. Of course close to the ferry port there was no hostel that wasn’t completely booked and I didn’t want to pay an amount of money for a hotel for a day that would allow me to stay at a hostel for a week so I decided to look for a place to camp.

At the hostel the next day I got up later than I wanted. I was exhausted and needed the rest. I quickly went online to book a ferry ticket from Spain to Tangier, Morocco. Like for most of my trip I hadn’t done any planing for going to Africa. I had been warned by people I met on the trip when I mentioned I wanted to go to Morocco. It is supposed to be one of the most westernized locations in Africa but at the same time it’s also supposed to be a host for Al Qaeda extremists wanting to cross over to Europe. Generally I was just not a safe place was what I heard. Lastly I was warned by the hostel receptionist to be careful and never follow anybody who offers to lead me somewhere to help me because it could be a trap. Anyway I only had a few hours until the ferry would leave Europe from Tarifa the most southern point of Spain and it would take me exactly that long to get there. It was going to be another race to catch a ferry.

Not off to a good start some guy who had stopped in front of me at an intersection just outside the hostel decided to release his breaks and slowly rolled backwards hitting my front tire. Not being deterred by me honking repeatedly he seemed surprised when he felt a bump. I didn’t see any damage to my tire and I was late already so I didn’t worry about it much and just kept going. The bump hadn’t been strong enough to cause damage to the wheel and my tires had almost reached the end of their life span anyway so it was more important to me to catch the ferry.

I arrived in Tarifa on time and got in line to board the ferry.

I was surprised to realize once more how few people including the police in highly touristy places were speaking any English at all. I decided for myself that I would learn Spanish as soon as possible (over the course of the next few years..).

The formalities on the Spanish side were easy. Show your passport, get on the ferry, find a seat and enjoy the ride. It felt less organized and strict than crossing from the UK to Spain.

Everybody was very friendly and the officer checking my passport was more interested in my “muy bueno” bike than my documents. It seemed as though he was about to quit his job and join me on my trip.

I boarded the ferry …

… and was surprised to see that I was the only motorcyclist on the ferry.

From one of the sun decks I waved Europe goodbye…

… and said hello to Africa.

It only took about two hours to reach the other side. All passengers were asked to disembark the ship and so did I.

However when I showed my passport to one of the Moroccan officers he informed me that I was missing a stamp in my passport.

Well, “shit” I thought. But not to worry, I could get the stamp on the boat. In fact I was supposed to get it there. Apparently this had been common knowledge. Everybody had to get a stamp in their passport on board so that it was clear how one got to Tangier. Another friendly officer approached me and asked me kindly to follow him. He would lead me to where I could get me stamp.

He was wearing the boat company clothing and there was police right next to him so I complied and he indeed brought me to where I got my stamp. 

He was extremely friendly to a point where I felt bad for having had such bad suspicions in the first place – and he reminded me a lot of Basile (John Cleese) from Faulty Towers. Not just the way he looked but also the way he tried to appear like he had control over everything but didn’t seem to be terribly important in reality.

When I got back to my bike though he asked me for money for his services. A few “little Euros for Hassan” he said. Ah. So that’s why he was *that* friendly. I probably would have gotten my stamp on my own but maybe not as quick and stress free and since I simply didn’t want any trouble I gave him a few Euros. A system that probably always works for him. After all who would want to cause a scene entering a foreign country hoping to be allowed in after not having the proper documents and already having paid over a hundred pounds for the ferry crossing.

I was now allowed to leave the ferry and get in line for customs.

There the police told me I was missing another form which however I wasn’t supposed to have already received and they issued it to me straight away asking me to complete it. It was in Arabic and French. Well, “shit” I thought. But despite the grim faces of all the 8 or 9 police officers one was kindly translating the form for me in one go. Hoping I would remember everything from the top until the bottom of the page I started filling it out and handed it over to the guard. He then told me that I now had to go to the police station right around the corner to get the OK from the police. I was a bit confused since he pointed me behind the gates. I was supposed to walk into the country, passing the gates to get my documents with my bike still waiting outside. I was just hoping they would not scream at me to stop asking me what I thought I was doing entering the country. But it seemed nobody could care less what I was doing and so I walked to where I understood I was supposed to go. Around the corner two men approached me telling me that I should follow them, they would lead me to the police. “Hmmmmm” I thought. No uniforms. So I declined saying I knew where to go, which I didn’t. I just walked towards the next building which seemed like it could be a police station. Naturally it was not marked as such. The two guys joined me asking friendly questions about where I was from, why I was here and how I liked it. They were doing their best to make a good impression. The way they were walking ahead of me still trying to guide me to where I needed to go, together with the questions they were asking in a polite almost professional manner made me think that maybe they were police after all.

I entered the building to see there was nothing inside. Like the whole port area it seemed completely deserted. It was dirty and there was no furniture inside except for a medieval metal detector and an airport x-ray. Another non-uniformed person was sitting there all by himself. Confused I put my camel-back with my documents plus my Swiss Army knife in it on the conveyor belt and walked through the metal detector frame. Any other metal detector would have played the sweetest tunes with my metal pieces in my boots an biking trousers and the Swiss knife sure wasn’t considered a toy in Africa either but in complete silence I just grabbed my bag and kept going my two body guards following me. We reached the end of the room where behind a wall another non-uniformed man was sitting asking for my passport. Well, “shit” I thought. What now? Risk losing my passport to a stranger in Africa? But what other options do I have? So I handed it over. The guy looked it, and started entering some information from it into his medieval computer. It took 10 minutes during which one of my body guards tried to make a conversation about his country Morocco, how friendly people are and what I should visit. I thanked him and told him how friendly I had been received so far. When the man behind the computer had completed his evaluation he handed me back my passport and said I was good to go. No stamp, no additional documentation. I was wondering how the guards outside would now know I had actually been to the computer man. I didn’t saw a radio in the empty room and the officers outside didn’t have a computer. But again I didn’t really have an other option than just walking back outside to tell the border police that I had indeed payed computer man a visit. However when I exited the building four non-uniformed men approached me getting very close to me making it difficult for me to keep going. The oldest of them who was about 50 told me with a stern voice that now I had to pay the youngest of the four for the services of my friendly body guard. Thankfully he even told me very firmly the following steps and how much I had to pay. “You pay name-of-the-youngest two Euros. Body-guard-guy helped you with your documents. You should pay name-of-the-youngest five but better would be ten. You should pay him ten Euros. And you only give it to name-of-the-youngest, not to me an not to any of the other ones, only to him. You only give him the money. I will not take it. Give *him* the money.”

Well, “shit” I thought. How about I give nobody money for nothing? I told them that I had just given the other guy at the boat my last coins and I had just come to Tangier for a few hours so I didn’t bring any additional cash with me. They didn’t want to hear any of it and didn’t back up either. But again their strategy worked. The foreigner didn’t want any trouble. I ended up giving them two euros. They were very displeased with the amount but I kept walking back to the border gates and they did not follow me there. However my friendly bodyguard seemed to have no trouble walking past the gates freely and followed me now also asking me for money. Turns out the guys up at the police station didn’t even belong to him and he was visibly disappointed that I had paid them and not him. Though it might have been just another trick to get me to pay him/them again but I didn’t think about it much. I handed my documents to the border guard and was allowed to enter the country. So I got on my bike and once I was on it ready to go I told him one last time that I didn’t have any money for him and impolitely left him behind driving through the gates into Morocco.