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.