To give you an introduction to Morocco, I’m going to describe my first experience with a cab driver. I had walked to the Mosque earlier in the day with some friends and had to be back on the boat at 1:00 to go on my trip. It was a long walk, and I didn’t want to risk getting lost, so I decided to take a cab. I flagged down what is known as a petit taxi, or the smaller, cheaper taxis in Morocco. After struggling with the language briefly, we established where I wanted to go and started haggling over the price. He started with $10.00 US, steep no? I told him 40 Dirham (a little over $5.00 US); he immediately dropped to 60 Dirham, etc etc. We ended up at 45 Dirham. I had cut his original price by not quite half, and was happy with it.
So I get into the cab and notice in the corner of the window, barely large enough to read is a fare rates sticker. 1.70 Dirham to hire the taxi, and an additional 0.20 Dirham for each minute there after. So yea, I overpaid by a lot. The story continues though, he proceeds to drive about 100 meters and pull over. “No, no,” I say, and he keeps driving. He then offers to take me on a tour of the city. He wanted to show me all these nice places apparently, but I needed to get back on the boat and knew it was a scam.
The cab drive is nice enough, and he is extremely friendly throughout the trip. We arrive at the port, and I pull out 100 Dirham to pay him. He takes out a 5 Dirham coin, and tries to tell me its 50 Dirham. We argue about this for a while, and he finally pulls out an additional 50 Dirham bill to give me the correct change. Welcome to Morocco!
p.s. The cab fare should have been somewhere around 10-20 Dirham.
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