24 HOURS IN TANGIER

An unfortunate incident scuppers four students' freewheeling travels through Morocco.

As I sprinted up the city’s main boulevard, sweat dripping from me, I glanced back over my shoulder; he was still there, running along the opposite pavement wearing a desperate and determined look. I turned to my companions, the terror on their faces was obvious and I could only imagine my own face was as wide-eyed and worried as theirs. We took a right and bolted into the first shop we saw in an effort to lose our would be assailant. We found ourselves in an electrical appliance store and hid alongside a tall fridge-freezer, hearts pounding. The owner gave us a genuinely confused glance, it wasn’t everyday he saw four student backpackers cowering behind his white goods.

Tangier, 2001. Myself and three other Erasmus students, fresh out of our teens and supposedly studying in Valencia, Spain for three months, had hopped on a ferry to Morocco in a naive and heady frenzy of exotic pursuit, south-bound into the Orient and the legendary city of Marrakech. We’d arrived the previous night with grand plans to travel the country figuring our already reduced grants would stretch even further in a seriously cheap place like Morocco.

The city of Tangier had seen it all; for more than 2500 years, people had inhabited this strategic point on the straits dividing Europe and Africa. Almost every power that had ever had interests in this corner of the Mediterranean had left its mark. Phoenicians, Romans, Visigoths, Arabs, Portuguese, British and Spaniards among others had all been and gone. More recently, in 1923 and up until Moroccan independence in 1956, the city had been declared an ‘international zone’ controlled by the resident diplomatic agents of France, Spain, Britain, Portugal, Sweden, Holland, Belgium, Italy and the USA. During this time it became a haven for freebooters, artists, writers, refugees, exiles and bankers. In the days of what legendary writer William Burroughs called 'Interzone', every kind of questionable activity was carried on; smugglers, money launderers, currency speculators, gunrunners, prostitutes and pimps formed a significant part of the Moroccan and foreign population. Flash forward to 2001 and nothing, not even the guide books colourful painting of the city’s history, had prepared us for our imminent culture shock as we skipped our way over the strait of Gibraltar.

Midnight. We stepped ashore into a balmy February night and were immediately accosted by a man offering us his services who we dutifully followed. Old men sat in doorways smoking long pipes, unseen people wailed, two wretched street cats fought over a scrap of meat and hypnotic music was coming from a broken upstairs window, it’s torn curtain flapping in the warm night breeze as we made our way along the dirty earthen alleyways that criss-crossed the Medina like some crazy spider’s web. It soon became apparent that we weren’t being led to our requested accommodation we’d earmarked in the Lonely Planet, instead our guide, wanting to capitalise on a potential commission, had taken it upon himself to take us to another place which upon entering clearly doubled as a brothel.

At first light we were up and out of the “hotel”, tired, hungry and happy to have survived the night. The plan was to catch the overnight sleeper train south to Marrakech, giving us a day to kill in the city. We wandered the Souk, ate pastries from a tiny family-run bakery, drank mint tea in Parisian style cafés and watched the world go by. By mid afternoon we were bored and headed down to the beach to while away an hour or two.

It was here, on the long sweep of sand to the east of the city that we got mistakenly wrapped up in a potential drugs transaction with a man who went by the name of Monir. When he realised we weren’t interested he exploded. We ran for it and he followed in pursuit, intent on doing a deal at all costs and it was a few minutes later that we found ourselves holed up in Morocco’s answer to Currys-PC World.

Spooked by the experience we bottled it and headed back to the port and the 6 o’ clock sailing to Spain. The city had beaten us as it had so many others during its two and half millenia. We'd been lucky to make it out in one piece and we knew it. Morocco would elude us this time but I knew I’d be back, and this time I’d be ready; white goods would definitely not be on the agenda.