Moroccan Rugs and Con-men

Back in December, I went on a few vacations. Over the course of five weekends, I was in five different countries (Spain, Morocco, England, Texas, Yankeeland). This is the story of the second weekend: Morocco.

With a Thursday holiday and a Friday 'puente' (bridge) linking the X with the SS, I felt the obligation to make a trip somewhere. Somewhere turned out to be Morocco, which, only is a 35 minute (or 3 hour, depending on how busy the port of Tangier is, but 35 minutes is promised) ferry ride away. The original plan was to see Fez, the heavily recommended arts center of Morocco with its medieval labrythny Medina and Fez-donning locals. That changed, however.

We met these two interesting guys from Italy/Germany and Morocco/Barcelona who spoke, respectively 7 and 4 languages, and ended up taking a trip into the Sahara on camels, riding by light of the stars and staying in a Berber tent among the "tallest sand dunes in the world." This was great fun (once in a lifetime experience) and was accompanied by a 15 hour trip back that led us through dunes, arid desert, high steppes where shepherds lost in time herded their flocks of sheep through the treacherous tundra-covered passes, the Atlas mountains and a snowstorm that would close the roads to all traffic shortly after we passed, fields that harvested plastic bags, the chaotic Moroccan coast, the strait of Gibraltar, Jaco-like (Spring Break '05 what?!) Tarifa and back to Cadiz.

Although the geography class went as smooth as butter and the Arabian night in the Sahara was unquestionably cool, the damage was done beforehand. Apparently our two eclectic friends were some sort of con men/scam artists/ crooks/ evil sneaky Africans, whatever you want to call them. I went with English Alex and Tammy, a friend from high school. She and I left Morocco with 7 rugs and about $8000 in debt. $6700 of that was mine.

Now, this wasn't just some splurge purchase (I don't have that kind of money to spend) but a "sure thing" investment gone horribly awry. Even Alex thought it a good idea but hesitated to pull the trigger. Tammy settled at 2 rugs and kept them both as expensive gifts for herself that she hoped would value greatly one day. Mine were straight up money-making schemes. If you knew me in college I'm sure this is somewhat predictable. But c'mon - even I've never done anything on this scale before...

When the rugs got back to the states, my brother took them to some rug dealers who surmised that $1000 for all 5 rugs would be a "good price." At that point, I Sherlock-Holmesed that somewhere in their story, these guys must have been lying.

Not sure if it was that they said they bought rugs themselves and sold them in a shop in Barcelona where people pay "4-5 times the prices we pay here in Morocco" or when they told us that "you can only buy 6 legally, but Rassack (the septalinguist) orders them to all his family and friends and basically circumvents the system" or when they asked "do you have a student card? You can get a big discount on the student card at the rugs stores" (not true), but they got us. I assume that despite all appearances, these guys were neither buying rugs to sell in Europe nor were they even going back to Europe at all. My guess is these guys basically hunted down tourists and brought them to the rug store, where they received a commission for the overpriced sale.

The worst part is my instinct said no, but my desire to make money to pay for a car/apartment upon my return, a trip through Europe, or typical things for a career commencer to need, overwhelmed it. Instead of starting out with some bling in the bank, I'll start out my job next fall with good-ole' consumer debt (albeit on a 0% interest credit card until Jan 15), 5 rugs, a lesson learned, and a damn good story to tell my grandkids.

The most interesting thing about the whole trip is that we thought the two were long-conning us. We just didn't think it was the rugs. In fact, halfway through the trip, Alex and I decided to write a fictional story about three tourists that do the identical trip and in the end, decide the guides are conmen and turn them over to the Algerian police. Who turn out not to be police but the "real bad guys." Realizing their error too late to save them, the tourists are forced to get over their guilt quickly to save themselves. Think of it as a slightly more boring Michael Chrichton thriller, with likely underdeveloped relationships and a lack of drive amongst the characters, whose sole desire in the story is to find out if it's a con or not.

Until quatralinguist Tony pulled a fast one on Tammy and stole a kiss through a dirty trick, however, the story coincided with reality - we weren't sure if we were being conned or not. In the end, I guess we were - but it wasn't really a long con. We had been conned at the rug store, and they went through the motions afterwards to thank us for our business...