The first contact with the Moroccan authorities was of course on the ferry from Tarifa to Tanger to get the stamp into our passports. Normally one should be able to provide a plausible address in the hosting country. We couldn't since we could not find the address of our friends in Rabat in the bloody mobile phone. Fortunately, the officer was fine with our explanation that we intend to do a cycle trip through the North of Morocco. Ufff. The second thing is that the national security service controls cars and trucks at the entrance to all major and middle sized cities and towns. But we realised that they are normally not interested in us on the bike. The first real contact with the security service happened to me in Khemisset on the way to Meknès. I had checked in at the "hotel" (see corresponding blog entry). Right after dinner, someone knocked on the the door. Passport control. The person was in civil tenue and do not identify himself. We learned later that all persons accomodating foreigners have to make a declaration to the local police before midnight.

On the 31st of December, when we picknicked just in the outskirts of Meknès, a police car stopped, the agents wanted to know from where we came from, where we wanted to go and, most importantly, where we wanted to stay the night, because they said, the "area was not safe". This was after the killing of two scandinavian tourists camping in the Atlas mountains, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-46597369.

 

On the 2nd of January, things culminated. A man - again in civil tenue - on a motorbike stopped us on a remote country side road, saying that he was affiliated with the national security service that he had to warn us that the "area was not safe" and that wild camping would be dangerous. The same evening, when we arrived in the small town Had Court, we faced difficulties to find any accomodation and asked in a café (as we had done some days before). The barman and his colleagues confirmed that there was literally no room to rent, but promised to find a solution for us. Later the barman came and kindly invited us to stay at his place, but apologiesed that his wife wasn't there so he could not offer what Moroccans would call a decent dinner. We were grateful and of course no problem.

But then the trouble began. As a good citizen, the barman had informed the local police about our stay in  town. First, the police called him to talk to us: The area was not safe and not for tourists, no accomodation. One could still arrange for transporting us (plus bike) to Ouezzane. We kindly declined as we had the invitation to stay at the private home. Next, the police came to the café to check our passports - and whether we would change our minds. We stayed with our nice host and his two children. That policeman clearly had not seen any tourist for a long time, if any in his time in office. He did not know how to decipher the Moroccon stamps in our passports: We helped him to identify the registration numbers, point of entry etc...

 

Next morning, we had doubts about the best road to take to Ouezzane, the map indicated two. We asked policeman in a car and one was indicated to us, but that road seemed to be the worse of the two. So we turned around to take the other. Not a minute later the police was stopping us kindly asking where we eventually wanted to go. For Ouezzane, they stressed that the other road was the better one, since the the second was trough an area which wasn't safe...

Of course we turned around and took the first one again, since we did not want to offence the police, of course. It then turned out that we had unsollicited escorting almost all the way to Ouezzane which took us almost the whole day of cycling. The police cars (all civil) were always changing, sometimes stopping behind, then catching up with us, sometimes closely following us at our pace, i.e. 5km/h uphill....

When we stopped for cooking our lunch the police lady just controlled randomly cars at the next crossroads where she could allways have an eye on us and when we continued our way so did she. No-one ever spoke to us, or explained anything.

 

We concluded that the local officers were all instructed by the central services to take care of the tourists to avoid any incident follwing the muders of the two Scandinavians (which was very bad for tourism as many hosts confirmed). We also thought that the local agent in Had Court, who normally does not have any tourists in his area, was so scared, that he first tried to get rid of us - trying to fast forwarding us to the next touristic location. Since this plan did not work he organised this special escort the next day. We feel that the friendly barman hosting us was not only proving the proverbial Moroccan hospitality but also a big deal of courage by not ceding to the local police's pressure. Great thanks to him!

 

Funnily, but certainly unrelated to these events, I was stopped by the police on the bike the next day in a routine check at the entry to Chefchaouen. Passport control. Where I was coming from? From Ouezzane, Sir. Where I was going to? To Chefchaouen, Sir. Are you a tourist here? Yes, I'm a tourist, Sir. Welcome to Morocco, and have a nice holiday!