As someone who has spent a lot of time wandering the wondefully intriguing maze that makes up the old Medina of Fez, I am constantly amazed at the number of travel writers who keep rolling out the old myths about faux guides and being hassled by touts. While it was true there was a time when these people seemed to congregate around tourists like bees around honey, those days are long gone.
Aware that tourism was an important and ongoing part of the Moroccan economy, the government wisely brought in the "tourist police" to crack down on the problem. These days the faux guide is a rarity; the exception, and not the rule. It is almost impossible to walk through the medina without seeing the "tourist police" in operation. Usually they travel in pairs, one in uniform, the other in civilian clothes and they discharge their duties in a friendly and efficient way.
The official guides are registered and carry identity tags that must be displayed at all times and I have even seen one of the best of the official guides being reprimanded for having his id card under his coat and not on top.
Yet, still the myths about faux guides continues. Although talking about Marrakech, the latest travel writer to project the past into the present was Jeffrey Tayler, who, in a piece in the Atlantic Monthly wrote...
Morocco’s main attractions can weary travelers as much as enchant them. The imperial cities of Fez, Marrakesh, and Meknes boast tiled tombs and ornate mosques set among medinas, or old quarters of cities, of medieval squalor as well as medieval allure. The moonscape crags of the Atlas Mountains demand of climbers powerful lungs and legs of steel. The oases of the deep south, with their towering casbahs, groves of palms, and fields of feathery alfalfa, stand amid Saharan wastes where the temperature can reach 120 degrees. Most wearying of all are the aggressive teenage faux guides, who, touting their services, can turn a stroll down a spice-scented lane into an excursion as tranquil as a stint of trading on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. While living as a Peace Corps volunteer in the medina of Marrakesh, I thought I would lose my mind or have to quit the country, intrigued though I was by it...
But wait a moment - "living as a Peace Corps volunteer" - for the record I checked and Tayler's stint was back in 1988. A lot has changed since then, Jeffrey. Maybe you deserve a trip back to Morocco and I can promise you it is not as "wearying" as it was back then.
Tags: Morocco, Fes, Maghreb, news
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