Taming Tangiers

If Tangiers, the northernmost city in Morocco, were situated just a few more miles north, it would reach Spain and the Mediterranean Sea would be landlocked, cut off from the Atlantic.

But it isn’t, and thus Tangiers guards the southern tip of the Strait of Gibraltar, which until the 1869 completion of the Suez Canal via Egypt was the only way out of the Mediterranean to the rest of the world.

Due to its key geographic location, Tangiers has come under numerous rulers, from the Romans to the Ottomans to squabbles between the main colonial powers (France, Spain and Britain). Spain and Britain, in fact, both retain little bits of land on the northern Moroccan coast.

Also owing to its status as a major port and main ferry docking for the millions of visiting Europeans driving down through Spain into Morocco, Tangiers has also historically been a hotbed of smuggling, crime and international espionage. While I didn’t see much of the latter, and while the city has been desperately (and apparently successfully) trying to clean up its image (much like New York did with Times Square during the 90s), there is no question that Tangiers retains some of that rugged frontier-town feel. Never have I had so many shady and seedy characters approach me with all kinds of illicit offers in such a short period of time as I have in Tangiers, and quite a few times I was warned by locals to be careful in the apparently unsafe areas in which I found myself (oh, the perils I go through for photography!)

And just off the coast, several container ships languishing indefinitely, their crews arrested and jailed after discovery of shipments of drugs on board. Given the easy availability of such on the streets of Tangiers, I wonder how many more ships slip through.

But all is not crime and seediness. Tangiers has also been a hotbed of artistic activity, from painters Matisse and Delacroix, to writers like Paul Bowles, Jack Kerouac, Tennessee Williams, William Burroughs and Brion Gysin to musical bands such as the Rolling Stones.

All in all an intriguing city full of intrigue.