Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
As I updated the information in my guidebook, I found a striking and nonchalant in-
competence. My guidebook listed the hotel's phone and email data more accurately than
their own printed material. It's a 70-room hotel with, it seemed, barely a sheet of paper in
its office.
Roosters and the Muslim call to prayer worked together to wake me and the rest of
that world. When the morning sun was high enough to send a rainbow plunging into the
harbor amid ferries busily coming and going, I stood on my balcony and surveyed Tangier
kicking into gear. Women in colorful, flowing robes walked to sweatshops adjacent to the
port. They were happy to earn $8 a day (a decent wage for an unskilled worker here) sew-
ing for big-name European clothing lines—a reminder that a vast and wealthy Continent
is just a short cruise to the north. Cabbies jostled at the pier for the chance to rip off arriv-
ing tourists.
Morocco's new king is more modern, and with his friendly policies, Tangier is enjoying a
renaissance.
It's an exciting time in Morocco. Walking the streets, I enjoyed observing a modest
new affluence, lots of vision and energy, and, at the same time, no compromise with being
Arabic and Muslim. The king is modernizing. His queen, a commoner, is the first queen
