N31

Issue 36 - 1/7/2008

31 North Africa Times

Travel

A Taste of Tangier By Hussein Shehadeh

D

uring our whole holiday in Spain, Tangier lurked on the horizon, enticing us with its magic. Wedged, like a white spot in between the blue-black headlands of Africa, the town seems so close that you could reach over the Straits of Gibraltar and touch it. Having stared long enough across the water there is nothing to do but to buy a day-return ticket for the little catamaran ferry, which throughout the week sails tourists back and forth between two worlds; Tarifa, Europe’s final bastion in southern Spain and the gateway to Africa, Tangier. Actually you can’t experience Morocco in this way. Morocco takes time if you are to satisfy your soul and your senses. Your nose has to be able to get used to how the scent of the spices of the souq mingle with the stench that emanates from the gutter. Your eyes have to adjust their depth of field to the intensity of African colours. And your ears must modulate to the tone of the call of the muezzin to prayer and to the quietness, especially if you come straight from the roaring and crashing of Spain. You can only manage to begin to think about it as the catamaran whistles over the Strait in just 35 minutes. We had barely rubbed the salt water from our eyes before Tangier appeared up the slope, dirty white under the midday sun. Outside the customs building wait the taxi drivers and self-proclaimed guides, ready to swindle the day’s load of blue-eyed tourists. They know better than anyone else the Berber saying that No is the brother of Yes, and they live by practising it. On this particular day, however, the waiting flocks are surprisingly mellow. Perhaps the niceness of Europe has crept across the Straits of Gibraltar since my last visit six years ago. Perhaps they are charging their batteries for Friday prayers later in the day. Or perhaps it is because we are so determined to make our own way up to the centre of the city and obviously know the way. Whatever the reason, none of them make any serious attempt to hang on. The only driver to make any real effort ends up shaking our hands and wishing us a nice day before we set off out of the harbour district, heading straight up the Rue de Portugal, following the outer edge of the medina up towards the Boulevard Pasteur. The boulevard is Tangier’s main drag, situated in the border area between the old and the new. We

withdraw a few dirhams from a cash dispenser and sit at one of the pavement cafes to take a look at what is going on. If you are lucky enough to be in Tangier at dusk you can have the best seat in the stalls as Tangier’s young women take an evening stroll, clad in long djellabas with their dreamy eyes and under the constant surveillance of their mothers. We order mint tea which, with its delicate spices has a reviving effect. While we enjoy our strong sweet brew we exchange a few remarks with the chap next to us -- a keen bodybuilder home on holiday in Tangier from working in London. When sloppy mint leaves are all that remain at the bottom of the glass we precede to the town’s massive souq, the gateway to the old part of the city, the medina. It is here in the narrow alleys you will, find genuine variegated Moroccan street life. Here, northern Europe’s dream of Arabia Felix comes alive. Among the obligatory carpet dealers, sandwich bars and small electronics shops, international shoe shop chains have edged their way in over recent years. And in the heart of the medina, in the small souq - otherwise the haunt of Tangier’s population of petty criminals and genuine bandits - a smart fashion shop has opened its doors. While we are wandering around absorbing all this, eating chicken sandwiches and drinking coke, we are offered assorted items from marijuana to Viagra and various other odds and ends. There is no end to the approaches these unorthodox salesmen use. Rock bottom prices or pretended sudden recognition of a person they have never seen before. It is mid-afternoon and the stores begin to close for Friday prayers. By the mosque at the end of the medina near the harbour, we can see the faithful washing themselves before they enter the holy chamber. From here, we proceed to the kasbah -the former citadel at the top of the old town. The further up we go, the fewer the shops and the tourists. In the quarter behind the old fortifications, the atmosphere is friendly but reserved. This is where people live, so we decide to walk along the outside of the wall along the slope down to the beach. Here old men stand staring out to sea; teenagers meet to talk, play football or fulfill a romantic assignation. Small children play in the sand occasionally posing for pictures and collecting the dirham fee they have come to expect every time somebody takes their photograph.