Masters in ripping off tourists

Surrounded by tourists who can afford a vacation, expensive brands and restaurants, you want to have a piece of this wealth if you live in poor surroundings. In order to get this, the fantasy of the Moroccan have no limits that what they have proved to us within the 2 week trip. We were surprised that we had so many "friends" in a country, which we haven't visited before. The simplest one is to get money for being our guide through the narrow alleys in the Medina of Marrakesh even if we did not ask for it.

This started when we looking for our hotel. It did not even take 10 secs and we had 5 kids who helped us to find the Riad Hadika Maria.

And of course they wanted to have money for it. They wanted 2 euro each and were shocked when we said no. More clever is the technique that they say that they are gentlemen, that only want to help and don`t want money.

The guy who said that to us at least 10 times at the end wanted money anyway and was not happy to get only 3 Euro for 15 minutes. Next day when we ran into him again, he was really aggressive towards us as we were not paying him enough money and we gave him another 1.5 Euro just to get rid of him. Of course he was again not happy but we ignored him. Even officials don´t mind to take some money. Coming back from shopping in one of the exclusive supermarkets...

...we realized that we were parking wrongly and that one of the tires of our car was blocked. All other cars – parked incorrect as well – were fine. Well the guy who had the key to unblock our car wanted 10 Euro.

During the whole discussion we realized that one of the others took the shopping car, which was empty by then, however the coin for it was of course gone. And before leaving Morocco we had to go through security… I had to put my cell phone, keys, and coins into a box. Although the detector was making noises when I passed, the officer said it was fine and handed me my cell phone and keys personally. Well, it took me some time to realize that he did not hand over the coins. Maybe he thought this was the tip from rich guys… Unbelievable!

School on Wheels

In our second week in Morocco we were guided by the recommendations of our hosts. Pascal owner of the Jardin du Draa in Zagora...





... advised us to visit Fatima the owner of the fabulous Le Petite Riad in Ouarzazate.






Fatima recommended then La Perle du Dades in Boumalne where we met the owners Francoise and Jean Michel. They renovated an old Kasbah and created a little oasis...






at the south end of the Dades Valley.







Moreover both of them are wonderful hosts. On our very first night they invited us to their kitchen table. We met their friends, ate olives, salad de Moroccan and had a nice aperitif. We loved it.







The only issue was that none of the French spoke English or German. Thus we used our poor French skills and if needed we talked with our hands and feet. As we tried so hard they even invited us to take place at their dinner table with their friends – amongst them Pierrot a former professor 81 years old who lived in Kinshasa for several years.

The food was spectacular, the wine as well and we all enjoyed it very much. As we liked it very much we stayed 3 days instead of 1. During all those hours spent with their friends we found out that Francoise aka Fanfan and Jean- Michel worked as teachers with kids who had difficulties and took them with a 4x4 around Africa. It was important for them to get them out of their comfort zone and show them different perspectives so that they could start in France again. They did it for almost 15 years. It was a shame that we could not follow all their stories due to the lack of language skills. However what we understood was already fascinating enough. We wished, we had paid more attention to Madame Buhl / Monsieur Klein when we had had French in school. Fanfan and Jean-Michel have written a book about their experience with the kids in Africa. Of course you can find it on Amazon.com: L’école mobile.

A Cup of Tea in the Desert

How do you manage to get an invitation for a cup of team in the Sahara? Very simple, you decline every invitation for a desert tour on a camel or with the 4x4. Those tours are offered to you long before you have seen the desert in the middle of nowhere by the Berber people. Those nomads stop you in the middle of a road and start making you offers and want to offer you a very special tour. If you finally made it to the desert you don`t stop you just go on – you even ignore the offer of a sweet 10 year old who wants to show you the dunes for some Dirham. But those you can already see from where you are. You drive towards the dunes on a pad till you get stuck in sand. Till the tires of your small little rental car get stuck in the desert sand and you need help. In our case we got help from Jan.






She came from a close by very traditional Berber camp without electricity and water.








She called also her Berber host Abdullah and with their help we got the stuck car out of the sand. And as we go to know each other, we were invited to the Berber camp to have tea with them and had a nice conversation.






We found out we had some things in common with Jan. While she was studying she was 1 year in Berlin – so she spoke German, later she lived nearby Cork and now she returns again and again to the desert in morocco for vacation. The world is incredible small. We promised that we recommend this nice place as an oasis of tranquility and we keep our promise with pleasure: Iguiditours.