(22) 29 March. Car Selling Part 1 - Leaving Morocco

Today has most definitely been an experience. I expect there are few people who can say they have bartered hard with Arabic second hand car dealers in the middle of a desert minefield. We are now part of that lucky (?) few.

The day started as planned at 4.30am so that we could get to the border in time for opening and hopefully make an early crossing. There is little to say about this long and steady drive, the prelude to the excitement to follow. We arrived, joined an already well established queue and waited. There is little at this remote outpost other than a petrol station, a small and faded building masquerading as a hotel and beyond the gate a couple of small official buildings. Beyond these buildings the road stops and becomes a sand track through 7 miles of mined desert before you reach the Mauritanian border.

The gates opened (somewhat late) and slowly we inched ahead as they waved cars on, one by one, for processing. After over two hours it was our turn and after parking up we checked out the protracted process for leaving the country - who to go to for what and in which order. It was then into our first queue outside one of the buildings for passport checks. I thrust Sue’s and my passports through the narrow window and waited for them to be processed. And then the ‘problems’ and the banter to resolve: we had no Mauritanian visa - we did not need one as we were not entering that country; we were selling our cars? – yes, but this was perfectly legal; it would be difficult to process the passports without a visa – I was sure a man as competent as he would be able to resolve that issue. And with that a packet of cigarettes was palmed through the window and our passports were returned suitably stamped. 

It was then across the road to the office that would remove the record of Sue having imported a car (there was no way to leave the country and return home without this being done). Sue went inside, I sat outside in the dirt and the sun along with a couple of casual and cheerful border guards, extremely tattily dressed and with a rifle that was in such a state it was probably more useful as a club than a gun. We spoke falteringly about the weather - my French was up to little else - although I did manage to blag a glass of mint tea off them on the basis that ‘Je suis Anglais’ and ‘en Angleterre nous buvons beaucoup de thé’. So different to their shady colleague a matter of yards away. 

We went back to the other teams, who seemed to be stalled at the passport control hut along with a big pile of cigarette packets by the window hatch. I stuck my head through the window and asked my shady friend if we had a problem. It seems that more cars and more people doing the same as Sue and I was something we needed to talk about. With that he waved me round to the rear of the small building and through the back door into his office, locking me in with him and shutting the window blind as scenes from the film Midnight Express ran through my mind. We were there in the tatty office, walls lined with dirty, A4 dot-matrix printouts of head shots showing Interpol’s most wanted - looking more like Roswell aliens than human faces - and within 25 yards of signs in Arabic decrying bribes, and between us proceeded to perform a dance of words: 

‘Have I offended you, sir?’. ‘Why would you think that?’. ‘Because you have not invited me to sit down and I am in your office.’

‘I would like you to bring be back some Mauritanian coffee monsieur.’ ‘Why would you want Mauritanian coffee sir when you have a cup of fine Moroccan coffee on your desk?’ ‘I think monsieur you are not as stupid as you pretend.’

It was all smiles and friendliness and eye contact during fifteen minutes of verbal sparring as we both tried to score points off each other. And it was also strangely enjoyable while all the time we both pointedly avoided discussing the guard getting a token cut of our profits yet nevertheless moved forward to a point of agreement on the fact. 

After more words and smiles and comments from each of us on how decent the other was my partner in corruption let me out. We could all now finish the process of leaving Morocco: the others had their cars deregistered, then customs and finally another police check. Then we drove into the desert where the dealers awaited…