(…continued) 

We all left the restaurant and walked out into the street.

*boink boink* was the first sound we heard.  Well, it had been an hour or so since we’d last been asked about our musical instrument requirements, so it was worth a shot.

We all walked through small streets, passed by tiny shops the size of a shoe-box and down even smaller streets with even tinier shops with no lighting.  It was shockingly obvious that there are a lot of very poor people in the old parts of Tangier working long hours for little money. 

It was then we were led into an underground food market.  Nothing could’ve prepared me for the sheer horror of it and anything I write here simply just won’t do justice to it. 

Firstly the stench, frankly just bought tears to my eyes.  It was unbearable.  There were headless, bloodied, dead chickens, stacked onto counters that hadn’t been washed in years.  Old cracked tiles were stained with dried blood.  Fruit and veg were just piled onto the damp dirty floor.  It was absolutely incredible.  It was like the Moroccan version of Netto.

That picture to the right is really quite flattering to the place.  We quickly left and got back into the fresh air.  A *boink bonk* came from the street seller who’d taken a short cut and intercepted us again.

Frankly, it was almost a welcome relief to be asked if I wanted to buy his musical instrument. I nearly even bought it just to take my mind off the chicken and couscous that’d I’d eaten only half an hour earlier. 

We walked through more and more narrow streets and by this time, we’d picked up quite a collection of street sellers all hassling us.  We were ushered into a rug shop, “to learn about quality Moroccan carpet”. But it quickly became obvious that this was just a thinly veiled excuse for a hoard of carpet salesmen to give us the hard sell on some rugs. 

The owner of the shop, we think, was related to our tour guide. 

A few members of our tour group caved in against the hard-selling and bought a rug or six.  An hour or so passed and we were eventually all let out of the building.

*boink boink* ”Three Euro’s, would Sir like to buy?” *boink boink*

As we walked into the street, the amount of street sellers lying in wait for us had grown exponentially (big word that, eh), no-one escaped them and they were relentless. 

“Buy one for two euro?”, “No thank you”, “Ok, two for two euro?”, “No thank you”, “Ok, you buy two for one euro?”.  And so it continued. 

It was like being a pop star, surrounded by a scrum of people.  Only they weren’t asking an autograph, they were trying to flog you some old piece of tat.  It was quite a surreal experience.

Our party snaked through the alleyways with a tail of street sellers, before we were ushered into a Morocco style chemist shop.  It quickly became apparent once more, that we were in for the hard sell again. 

There was a very amusing ‘presentation’ about a variety of herbs and spices that they claimed would cure a variety of problems from snoring to obesity.  All of which happened to be on sale for “very good price”. 

Few people left without buying something. The owner of the shop, we again think, was related to our tour guide.

We left once more to a huge scrum of street sellers, all trying for one final push at a sale. 

*boink boink boink boink* The boinkage was increasing, so he was obviously becoming more desperate as time ticked on.

We made our *boink boink* way through the streets *boink boink* once more and headed for the *boink boink* tour bus.  As we all got on the bus, the sound of *boink boink* fading into the distance almost made me wish I’d bought the fellas stupid instrument.

Ho-hum.  It certainly was a culture shock and an eye-opening day.  There’s a huge difference between old and new Tangier, so make sure you go should you ever have the chance. 

Oh, and remember I said on the Ocean’s Thirteen post that I had a ickle bit of trivia about the new Bourne Ultimatum film? Well, some of it was filmed in Tangier! Told you it was only a teeny weeny bit of trivia, didn’t I!

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