In Marrakech, just like in all other touristic places in Morocco, there are many people on the street who see tourists as walking bags of money. These guys can "accidentally" meet you at the bus station, chat with you for a while, offer to take you to your hostel (or say the hostel is bad/closed/far away and recommend a ho(s)tel they have connections with - or that pays them a higher fee for bringing in tourists) and then require you to pay a "tip" afterwards. I was aware of these practices - unlike two Brazilians I met at the hostel, who actually paid 10 euros to the guy who brought them there - so I told all of the men who approached me that I didn't want their help and tried to walk away. These men were very persistent though: even when they were walking in front of me and I deliberately took a wrong turn to try to shake them off they would still come after me. These men were not aggressive (I only felt unsafe once during my entire travel), but rather EXTREMELY annoying.
In the end I managed to shake off both of the men who tried to be my guide, but at the corner of the street of my hostel I met another man who walked the last few meters with me. Of course I gave him no money for doing this, but the bed in my hostel suddenly cost 1 euro more than other people in the same room had to pay for their bed: probably the commission that this guy earned on me.
Another thing that was new to me was the fact that I had to speak French more often than I would have liked to. My desperate attempts to change the conversation with a random stranger on the street to English failed miserably.
Me: "I'm going to meet a friend."
Random man on the street I was talking to: "Yesss. French."
Despite not having spoken French for at least 5 years I managed to make myself clear at all times. I'm sure that "Vous pouvez prener une photo de moi?" (at the last second I kept myself from just saying "picture" with a French accent) is not 100% correct, but the other person got what I meant.
Let's talk business
As mentioned in my other post, I bought a painting in Chefchaouen. Here is the full story.
It was my first morning in Chefchaouen and I was planning to first go sightseeing and buy souvenirs in the afternoon. When I saw a small shop with some beautiful paintings I thought it wouldn't hurt me to look around and get informed about prices and went inside.
One of the artists, a man with a grey beard in a white garment who told me he was from a small village in the Sahara, proudly showed me his paintings of camels and the desert, but of course I was more interested in the paintings of Chefchaouen. He showed me some more paintings and I complimented them in my "thanks, but no thanks" style until he showed me a painting that I absolutely loved. He told me the price was 30 euros and I told him it was too much for me. I wasn't planning to make a counter-offer but the man told me there are no fixed prices in Morocco and that I couldn't offend him with my offer, so I offered him 5 euros. He said it was not enough, put the painting down and showed me some micro-paintings with the price of 8 euros (5 euros after 10 seconds of saying I was not interested) but they were too small for me so I started leaving the store. The man walked back to the painting I liked so much and noticed my hesitation while walking away. He then surprised me by asking me for my final offer out of nowhere. I was too surprised to answer strategically and gave an honest answer: 10 euros. Of course he wanted to make this 15 euros quickly and almost started begging for "a liiiiittle more", but when I told him that it really was my final offer and started to leave the store again the man said that my price was ok and so I had to buy this painting.
I'm happy that I got this painting and I do think I got it for a reasonable price, but I wasn't too happy that I had to carry it with me all day while climbing up and down the mountains around Chefchaouen.
Another strategy that can be used while talking about prices in shops is the guilt trip. I wanted to buy a mirror for my sister and walked into a store to look at one. A man (not even the owner) walked up to me, introduced himself as Mustafa and asked me how much I wanted to pay for this mirror. He refused to make an offer first, so I told him I wanted to pay 4 euros. He asked 20 euros. The mirror wasn't too special in my opinion, so I wanted to walk out the store, but the man blocked the entrance (in a non-offending way: again, people are not unfriendly, just very much focused on earning money) and asked me to pay a bit more. I offered 5, then 6, but wasn't going to spend more than this because there were many other shops as well which offered reasonable alternatives. Mustafa gave me a hard time and the store-owner came to support him and just when I was thinking we wouldn't reach an agreement the owner started packing the mirror. I wasn't sure what price we agreed and the owner said "let's make it 7 euros". I felt a bit angry because I never agreed on this price and then Mustafa said with a nasty and disrespectful tone "you're really going to make a problem out of 1 euro?". This is a very mean strategy. Of course 1 euro is like nothing to me now that I have a full-time job and I can easily pay 1 euro more. So in the end I did pay those 7 euros, but I left the store with a bad feeling, because I felt I paid too much for a product that I might not have even wanted to buy.
I hope you all enjoyed reading this and can learn from my experiences in Morocco to be better prepared when you go traveling to a similar country yourself. Soon I want to write a blog with travel advice by the way. So if you're interested in that, stay tuned! ;)
In the end I managed to shake off both of the men who tried to be my guide, but at the corner of the street of my hostel I met another man who walked the last few meters with me. Of course I gave him no money for doing this, but the bed in my hostel suddenly cost 1 euro more than other people in the same room had to pay for their bed: probably the commission that this guy earned on me.
Another thing that was new to me was the fact that I had to speak French more often than I would have liked to. My desperate attempts to change the conversation with a random stranger on the street to English failed miserably.
Me: "I'm going to meet a friend."
Random man on the street I was talking to: "Yesss. French."
Despite not having spoken French for at least 5 years I managed to make myself clear at all times. I'm sure that "Vous pouvez prener une photo de moi?" (at the last second I kept myself from just saying "picture" with a French accent) is not 100% correct, but the other person got what I meant.
Let's talk business
As mentioned in my other post, I bought a painting in Chefchaouen. Here is the full story.
It was my first morning in Chefchaouen and I was planning to first go sightseeing and buy souvenirs in the afternoon. When I saw a small shop with some beautiful paintings I thought it wouldn't hurt me to look around and get informed about prices and went inside.
One of the artists, a man with a grey beard in a white garment who told me he was from a small village in the Sahara, proudly showed me his paintings of camels and the desert, but of course I was more interested in the paintings of Chefchaouen. He showed me some more paintings and I complimented them in my "thanks, but no thanks" style until he showed me a painting that I absolutely loved. He told me the price was 30 euros and I told him it was too much for me. I wasn't planning to make a counter-offer but the man told me there are no fixed prices in Morocco and that I couldn't offend him with my offer, so I offered him 5 euros. He said it was not enough, put the painting down and showed me some micro-paintings with the price of 8 euros (5 euros after 10 seconds of saying I was not interested) but they were too small for me so I started leaving the store. The man walked back to the painting I liked so much and noticed my hesitation while walking away. He then surprised me by asking me for my final offer out of nowhere. I was too surprised to answer strategically and gave an honest answer: 10 euros. Of course he wanted to make this 15 euros quickly and almost started begging for "a liiiiittle more", but when I told him that it really was my final offer and started to leave the store again the man said that my price was ok and so I had to buy this painting.
I'm happy that I got this painting and I do think I got it for a reasonable price, but I wasn't too happy that I had to carry it with me all day while climbing up and down the mountains around Chefchaouen.
Another strategy that can be used while talking about prices in shops is the guilt trip. I wanted to buy a mirror for my sister and walked into a store to look at one. A man (not even the owner) walked up to me, introduced himself as Mustafa and asked me how much I wanted to pay for this mirror. He refused to make an offer first, so I told him I wanted to pay 4 euros. He asked 20 euros. The mirror wasn't too special in my opinion, so I wanted to walk out the store, but the man blocked the entrance (in a non-offending way: again, people are not unfriendly, just very much focused on earning money) and asked me to pay a bit more. I offered 5, then 6, but wasn't going to spend more than this because there were many other shops as well which offered reasonable alternatives. Mustafa gave me a hard time and the store-owner came to support him and just when I was thinking we wouldn't reach an agreement the owner started packing the mirror. I wasn't sure what price we agreed and the owner said "let's make it 7 euros". I felt a bit angry because I never agreed on this price and then Mustafa said with a nasty and disrespectful tone "you're really going to make a problem out of 1 euro?". This is a very mean strategy. Of course 1 euro is like nothing to me now that I have a full-time job and I can easily pay 1 euro more. So in the end I did pay those 7 euros, but I left the store with a bad feeling, because I felt I paid too much for a product that I might not have even wanted to buy.
I hope you all enjoyed reading this and can learn from my experiences in Morocco to be better prepared when you go traveling to a similar country yourself. Soon I want to write a blog with travel advice by the way. So if you're interested in that, stay tuned! ;)
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