Chapter 2 - Morrocco and Local Authorities

I am sitting on the canape in the men’s salon in the fancy house of our super-nice host Mustafa who is again out for his work as a driver – even though it’s past midnight now. Madita is jumping around in the back of the room and as much as I can tell is dancing to Babaji, a punjabi non-sense song – but it is only a guess, as she is wearing her headphones and the scene is quiet besides some bubbling or giggling sounds she makes from time to time. Jano and Daniela are already sleeping inside the women’s salon while I review my last days... Our start in Morocco has been charming. Somehow our naïveté, our special language talents or the fact that we always laugh, giggle and smile when we are confused seems to work wonder on the local authorities. So far even the grimmest looking officer sooner or later had to laugh back when dealing with us. And so even our first car check is over super-fast, as the grandfatherly officer with an impressive mustache opens our trunk which is extremely stuffed, all on top a pot with left-over rice from the last dinner. Daniela sternly states “Grande catastrophe” (though I would have preferred “Grande de malheur” with original Madita-Pronounciation) and I volunteer and pull one neatly rolled-up foam mattress out of the mess – giving sight to: well, even more mess. He obediently bends down to inspect the hole I have created, nods slowly and gestures us to close the trunk: Grande de Bonheur! Today we even got the officer of the Mauritanie embassy to laugh - it took us only four trials before we could complete our visa-application (1.Do not forget your photos at home 2.Bring lots of photocopies of whatever you can or cannot think of 3.Be ready to have an address even in a total foreign country to you, if in doubt choose “Hotel Sahara” – that always works 4.Never write your application in red). At some point he disbelievingly asked me – You are all travelling together? Who is the chef of this group? Additionally I learned that the Mauritanians seem to translate “Unmarried” with “Célibataire”... poor buggers there.

Well, let’s hope that we can keep the charme up – supposedly we gonna need it ;)

Our first stop-over: Chefchaoun, a truly magical place!