My good intentions to make an early departure fell apart (again) when I got taken to the souk for a lesson in advanced haggling. As a Ballymena man, I didn’t think I had anything to learn but these guys are good. I finally left Nador around lunchtime but only after getting a strict lecture about not stopping for anything on the road, especially that day. My route to Guercif was taking me through the foothills of the Rif Mountains. The main crop of the Rif is top quality cannabis; conditions are so well suited that it actually grows wild in some areas. As a result the Rif has always been a fairly lawless place and there is a bit of a tradition of lone travellers getting stopped and pressured into buying. The transactions have not always gone well with quite a few European travellers either being robbed or ending up in a Moroccan prison on drugs charges. I felt that my route was far enough away from the drugs centre to be safe but I did feel a bit spooked at times in the lonelier parts through the hills. There were quite a few men at the roadside selling contraband fuel, smuggled over the nearby Algerian border, but there were also quite a few just standing looking at the road. I’m sure they were all perfectly friendly people but once you get an idea into your head…..
I bought my fuel legally at full price in Sata and rode on to Guercif where I booked in to the luxury of the Hotel Milano and didn’t complain at the tourist price of 200 dirham – 20 euro. Noaam would have been horrified.
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