EXCERPT FROM SARA’S JOURNALJune
10, 1999
Hotel El Muniria, Tangier, Morocco
Nothing’s Changed Since the Beat Generation
"How much to take us to the Hotel El Muniria?"
"40 francs, monsieur."
"In Dirhams."
"30 Dirhams." The price is already coming down. One Moroccan Dirham is one-sixth
of a Canadian dollar. "Well, alright, just take us to the hotel then." We have
no idea how far it is.
Moments later, beyond the great stretch of pavement that is the port of Tangier, the
big grey Mercedes makes a sharp right into an alley way and climbs a hill towards a
labyrinth of steep, dark tunnels. "Monsieur. Where are you taking us?" But
there, on a wall, is a small, peeling sign, Hotel El Muniria – and in English –
"the friendliest place in town". We’ve arrived at our overnight palace
– not more than 800 metres from the ferry terminal. If we had taken a city taxi, a
"petit taxi" as they’re called here, instead of the go anywhere "grand
taxi" – in fact the most expensive way to travel the country – the trip
would have cost us maybe 3 Dirhams – 50 cents. Live and learn.
William Burroughs wrote Naked Lunch in room #9. I had this impression that the
friendliest place in town might be the grandest place in town. Instead it’s a
mint-chip-coloured hallway with a series of schoolroom doors, red. The paint is shiny
alkaline on cinderblock cement. Our room is #5. Next door is room #4, where Jack Kerouac
and Allen Ginsberg hung out. Will my poetic novel blurt itself tonight? Our room boasts a
small table and two chairs, an armoire lined with a newspaper from 1987. The
bathroom’s a mess of tiles, with windows looking across at a large new establishment.
On the roof is a terrace. The proprietor, a pretty, crinkly-eyed woman in flip-floppy
shoes, takes us there to show us the view. Beyond the decapitating clotheslines, the
blocks of dirty-white lowrises and their antennae is the beach, where Muslim women and
their children stroll in the 40-degree heat. The women are covered with their long robes
and headscarves. Beyond the beach gleam the ferries, and the sparkling Straits, and beyond
that ripples the leaning bump of Gibraltar and the surrounding hills of the Costa del Sol.
