I had to earn a stamp outside of the Schengen area for bureaucratic reasons, I really wanted to go to Egypt, but at the time it wasn’t a safe place to visit, so we settled for Morocco…

I was an inexperienced traveler when we booked our flights to Marrakech, I had only traveled around Italy. No one could prepare me for North Africa. It was the first time I had set foot in a third-world country, except I wasn’t given a heads-up. I also had no other place to compare it to except America and Italy. After skimming a few websites about what to see and do in Marrakech, it seems like I only read things that annoyed me, such as women needed to cover up, and booze wasn’t allowed. I was already over it before I arrived because I REALLLLLY wanted to go see the pyramids in Egypt.

We flew from Pisa to Marrakech, the flight is a little over three hours. When we walked out of the airport, it just looked like we were in a desert, with loads of agave-looking plants. We were approached by a man in traditional djellaba, he insisted that we follow him. I was totally sketched out by this guy and told Sam that I was ready to ditch him. He wanted to ‘help us’ find an ATM to get Moroccan dirhams for the trip. He showed us the ATM then demanded cash for his ‘help’ then insisted that we go get tea with him… He took us through the town, along narrow streets with no street signs and insisted that we should join him. I wanted to tell him to fuck off but Sam insisted that this man had good intentions. (Sam has experience in foreign countries because he lived in India for a year.)We finally arrived at this home, and there was an entrance with some tables and loads of rugs and we continued to walk inside, more tapestries and some cushions to sit down in… The man had some of his friends bring out traditional clothing and some tea. They insisted that we try on the clothes and they took photos of us. I wanted to get the fuck out of there. Then they started talking about prices for their clothing and rugs… My blood was beginning to boil. This was not a man wanting to have us over for tea, he was clearly trying to hustle us. He had just seen that we went to the ATM. This dickhead ignored me saying absolutely no thank you that we needed to leave. Somehow he convinced Sam to pay €90 for a fucking camel pubic hair poncho!!!!! I was outraged!!!!!! Then the prick had the nerve to tell me to leave cash for the tea that THEY insisted we have. I started crying because they were so aggressive and they took all of the cash we had just taken out of the machine. Plus for us €90 for an article of clothing was NOT in our budget. Thus far I was not impressed with Morrocco. 

The hotel we stayed in was really nice, very ambiguous… I felt like I was on another planet. Tea was the drink that was flowing everywhere, and I noticed that it started giving me a raging headache. The kind of headache you get from very cheap box wine, except I knew for a fact that I wasn’t drinking because the area that we were in did not allow alcohol. I felt cheated, no more tea for me. After strolling the streets, we exuded tourist vibes apparently because anyone you made eye contact with was demanding money. So then immediately I decided to wear a head scarf and glasses to try to blend in. The marketplace seemed endless and had so many varieties of tea sets, spices, jewelry, rugs, tagines, clothing, bags, clay pots, hats, silver trays, and vegetables. There were also street performers with monkeys or cobras doing little stunts for money. 

We found an amazing restaurant called Le Jardin, we ended up frequenting because they had these summer rolls with dipping sauce that I can’t seem to forget about even now 10 years later. After dinner we went for an evening stroll, I am normally pretty spot-on when it comes to directions. Somehow after dark all of the streets started to look the same and the alleyways appeared to be closing in. It felt as if we were in a labyrinth, all the buildings have the same similar color so at a certain point it seems like we are walking in circles. Plus all the signs are in Arabic, including the stop signs, but most streets have no names or signs indicating what direction you are going in. For the first time in my life, I was lost. After a few hours, I was frustrated with myself and my natural GPS abilities. We went down a road we had not walked down and it started to sprinkle on us. I noticed police cars up ahead and was somewhat relieved that we could ask where exactly we were. As we approached the car I could see two uniformed police officers getting a tarp out of their trunk and a man dressed in traditional Moroccan clothing. The civilian turned to us, looked at Sam, and in French said “Monsieur, l’homme est mort”. It was the first time I had seen someone dead on the streets. The cops began to cover him up in a clear plastic tarp to protect him from the incoming rain. 

As we continued to walk the rain was picking up speed. We turned down a certain street and I saw women sitting on the sidewalk, almost spaced out in a single file, cradling their babies, sleeping, but with one hand extended out, palm facing up so that bypassers could drop some coins. It all became too much for me, I was stricken with sadness plus the dead corpse on the street only moments before. How could the fate of these people have been a series of misfortune that lead them up to this point? My feelings were too big, I made a mental note to never complain, my birthday was also the next day and I was taking inventory of my life in general.

Someone recommended that we go visit a nearby town called Essaouira. It was almost a three-hour bus ride. This time I was armored with ammunition, ready to tell the hustlers to back off as soon as they approached with their schemes. One man managed to stick to us like gum on the bottom of a new pair of sneakers. He insisted that he wanted to show us a place to stay for a good price. Sam didn’t want to be rude, we followed him as he weaved in and out of small alleyways. But I already knew this song and dance, I was not impressed at all and I knew how this would end. He took us to a bed and breakfast and I wasn’t sure if I was annoyed that now I owe this stranger money for merely showing me the place, or if it was because it was my birthday and I wanted a place on the beach of my own choice. I told the man ‘No thank you!’ but he demanded money anyway. I was furious! 

We went to search for a place by the water and to decompressed from the now full-time job of shutting down hustlers. It’s what I imagine it’s like fighting off a group of zombies. We went and found a place to eat and explored the town when evening came we found a nice place to watch some live music and met a very nice man who ended up telling us about a huge annual music festival we had just missed, that we should come back and exchange contact information. It took me a minute to trust this man but when he left without asking for a cent, I started to change my mind about this place. Knowing everything I know now, I would go back and do things differently.