Bonus 4ED: Morocco; 3/18/14, Mustaph has Ulterior Motives

The guidebooks clearly state that if someone in Marrakech other than a policeman offers to help you when you're lost, you should say no, but our search for the Saadian tombs has lead us so far into the maze of nearly (but not quite) identical narrow, brown streets, that there seems to be no other alternative.

Tall, thin, long faced Mustaph has clearly pegged us for the babes in the woods that we are, but he keeps up a constant stream of reassuring patter in very respectable English as we follow him and his black tracksuited form through increasingly dark and deserted streets. Despite his attempts to calm us, my anxiety, already at a pitch from the unfamiliarity of a new city, mounts.

Then, just when I'm almost certain that he's leading us to some dark alley to rob us and leave us for dead, we turn a sunny corner to arrive at his true destination: his spice shop, where he stops and smiles, saying, "Perhaps you would like to buy some saffron, or cumin?"