Kidnapped in Tangier
Kidnapped in Tangier
How I got kidnapped in Tangier.
Sounds so much like the titles of old movies. You have no idea how many movies were made through the 1940s and 1950s – Tangier’s Interzone era – that were based in Tangier. Most of them were spy thrillers. They had names like:
Flight to Tangier
1953, a spy story in which a plane flies over Tangir airport, crashes and explodes. Also referred to in No Country for Old Men.
My first flight to Tangier in 2019 was an epic flight, but happily not as dramatic as that. My plan was to work from the top of Morocco down to find a place I wanted to stay. From London, 3 ½ hours, on a clear sunny day I had a spectacular view of the Strait of Gibraltar – the gap between Europe and Africa that is the mouth to the Mediterranean.
The Rock of Gibraltar, Hercules’ European Pillar.
Below me I could see the Pillars of Hercules. On the European side was the spectacular cliffs of Gibraltar, an English territory off the coast of Spain. On the African side it is most commonly attributed to the peak of Jebel Musa in Morocco. The Pillars of Hercules is also the title of a book written by the insightful travel journalist and foodie, Paul Theroux. In the two days between booking my flight from London and boarding, I was lined up with a job interview in Tangier, and by the day after I was employed.
My second flight to Tangier was rather more dramatic. I arrived on the 1st of February, 2021. It had been a mammoth journey to solve my financial crisis after London’s second lockdown, resulting in a 10,000km detour.
But, I arrived on a Sunday night, spent the Tuesday at job interviews, and was working by Thursday. I planned to stay a couple of months, landed in a flat share for a few days, and left that same flat share exactly 3 years later on the 1st of February, 2024.
As with most people, it wasn’t me that chose Tangier. Tangier chose me. Even at this point, one might argue that I was already Trapped in Tangier.
Naked Lunch
Naked Lunch, based on a book by American author William S. Burroughs.
Written in 1959 by William S. Burroughs, an American writer of the Beat Generation who lived in Tangier for a few years. Judy Davis (Australian, in A Passage to India) and Roy Scheider (of Jaws fame) were in the movie made in 1991, a autobiographic journey and very psychedelic.
The share flat was a party house, which suited me perfectly. And thus I launched into a Tangier life, not so unlike the Naked Lunch, if a much milder version of it. I daydream wistfully about the lives of writers and creatives as I imagine them to be, and imagine their meetings where they excitedly discuss their creative endeavours and philosophise over the world’s problems.
As I learnt over time about these writers in London and Tangier while I partied and enjoyed Tangier’s nightlife, and made my way around the very same cafes and nightclubs that they frequented in Tangier – even living for a while across the road from the TangerInn bar of Jack Kerouac fame, I realized that I already was living an echo of their lifestyle. They probably did not spend a lot of time in academic and intelligent discussions. Reading the Naked Lunch suggests most of their time was spent high and/or drunk, and the movie suggests that William Burroughs doesn’t remember writing much of Naked Lunch.
My version of Tangier was much tamer than his, even including being kidnapped. I worked through the day, but the night times I partied. I remember all of my writing. In fact, I was everyone else’s reference, the one they asked, about what had happened the night before. I don’t get hangovers. I was a useful source of information, but the next day when I was inspired to a quiet beer and tapas for dinner, everyone else turned me down since they were always in various degrees of swearing off ever drinking again.
But the atmosphere of Naked Lunch somehow seems to fit. There is something about Tangier which engages. It still has that wildness of a frontier town. It is still a magnet for the creative. An extraordinary variety of amazing characters pass through Tangier, either briefly or for longer stays, many of whom make their way into my novels in some form or another. The magic of Tangier is that it’s a place where anything can happen, and it often does.
Espionage in Tangier
1965. A Spanish spy film about an agent with the code 077.
You guessed it, a version of James Bond, where 077 has to break a criminal gang in Tangier with a death ray and dastardly intentions.
077 - Espionage in Tangier
There are several spots in Tangier used for big Hollywood movies - 007’s Spectre was one of them – and some I need to add. I have now been in about a dozen movies filmed in Morocco, mostly in Tangier.
L’etranger is a French school classic written by Albert Camus in 1938, and made again into a movie, this time directed by Francois Ozon, released 31st October, 2025, set in 1940, and filmed in Tangier. Not a spy story, but a surreal crime in black and white noir. Not an actor, but a transformed me. Better than usual. For most of the extra roles - or background texture - they make me look like an old spinster!
From 1923 until 1956, Tangier (and northern Morocco) was an international zone. It was divided up and owned by up to 7 different nations at one point. The echoes can still be seen in the Spanish architecture around the medina area, the French style from the French embassy and Café de Paris to Institut de Francais, and the American influence around The American School, the Italian section around Casa d’Italia.
Little wonder that so many spy movies were inspired by Tangier. Foreign movies are still a big business in Morocco, with Tangier gleaning a good selection, including Inception, Jason Bourne’s Ultimatum, and even a 007 - Spectre.
Cafe de Paris. A big scene in the Bourne Ultimatum was filmed here, one of the cafes I frequent.
One of the highlights of my life in Morocco has been the movie extra work. I have now been in about a dozen movies from all over the world, including some major Hollywood ones. Well, to be technical, “been in” is a bit of an exaggeration.
A better definition of the role of an extra is to create background texture. Typically we are needed for crowd scenes – filling in for crowds in cafés, restaurant, airports, busy street and the like. While the presence of bodies in the background is essential for scenes, it is actually impressive how little they are in detail. But then, much as I might love the movies and being a part of the creative process in action, I have to admit that I’m not very central to the plot.
And that is a good thing – based on my acting skills, I should not be hasty in giving up my day job.
Tangier Assignment
1955 – A secret agent in Tangier to uncover a drug ring.
My assignment was nowhere near as exciting, though for me it was just as dramatic. And nothing to do with drugs. In late 2021 when I was working through the first of my final drafts of my Indiana Jones-DaVinci Code type story – The Lost Labyrinth of Egypt, I realized that my story had a plot hole.
Not just a little one that can be fixed with a tweak hear and there. This one was the size of the galaxy!
I researched my story in 2016. Most people have heard of the labyrinth in Knossos in Crete and the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, but few have heard of the labyrinth in Egypt – not even most Egyptians.
The Classic Cretan Maze
I was inspired by the way Heinrich Schliemann found the location of the city of Troy in 1870 near Izmir in today’s Turkey by studying the stories of Homer and the Trojan Horse. To place the location for the Egyptian labyrinth in my story, I looked at the writings of Herodotus who described it in his Histories, having seen it in 420BC. While my story is based in fiction, and I don’t suppose to claim the scholarship of Schliemann, I considered 3 spots, and picked one that suited my story.
But archaeologists, as it turns out, are a very rude and inconsiderate bunch. Between my research and my “final” edit in 2021, they had found Herodotus’s labyrinth and published their findings. To be polite, they could have waited a few years for me to finish editing and publish my book of fiction!
The spot was the exact one that I had first considered.
But the site is over a rising water table, so I couldn’t even have my characters find a secret set of back stairs down to the labyrinth.
The island is just visible on the left, with Athens in the the background.
While I licked my wounds and sulked over my plot hole, I started on a new assignment, and gave birth to OzzyHopper. With a bunch of other interruptions at unfortunate intervals, it has taken my til this past summer to finally finish my final edit. But finish it I have, at my favourite Greek hostel, working to a backdrop of its own island and a glistening Mediterranean, nightscapes of the stars and passing ships, accompanied by mini Snickers bars, or shots of Amaretto as my mood was inspired.
I am now in that next phase that follows submissions:- of counting up the rejections in good old Stephen King fashion. In my case, I can’t make a stash of the physical letters on my pin board, but must count the digital messages via email.
That Man from Tangier
1953. A foreign woman falls in love with a Moroccan, only to discover that he’s an imposter. Not a spy story, but still trickery and deceit.
Unfortunately, this is way more common than a story of fiction would suggest. This plot is one that I have now heard so many times in Morocco – sometimes in their 50s and 60s besotted by a kid not even 20 in one case, with marriage plans and staying with the family. I’m not one to judge ages, but when the other party has designs only on the woman’s money and/or passport, this changes everything.
These women pay out 1000s of dollars to their ‘fiancés’ for different emergencies. The money so urgently required gets reassigned to other “needs” and the marriage may never eventuate. Of those that do, most woman find themselves in miserable situations that are difficult to get out of. When the only way of communicating is by sitting together on google translate, that is just one red flag. That is not “in love”. That is “in scam”.
The Sally Fields movie Not Without my Daughter in 1991 may be set in Iran, and an extreme variation of the scenario, but it is based on a true story crossing significantly different cultural boundaries. Don’t get me wrong - I absolutely loved my life in Tangier. But don’t be the “Woman Trapped in Tangier” by “That Man from Tangier”. Keep such scenarios for the screen and be the free one who comes to an amazing culture for a wonderful stay.
The Sheltering Sky
1949. Novel by Paul Bowles, writer and musician of the Beat Generation who lived in Tangier for 50 years.
1990. Starring John Malkovich. An American couple’s emotional and physical journey through northern Africa/Morocco.
This book seems to be a kind of rites of passage, invariably battered as it is handed around new foreigners who arrive in Tangier. The final scene of the movie was famously filmed in Café Colon, one that was my daily coffee routine, lining up with my back to the café wall to watch the street and life pass by in classic Moroccan style.
This one seems to echo all the amazing places that Paul Bowles, Jack Kerouac, Mick Jagger and all Tangier’s visitors frequent:- Café Colon, Gran Café de Paris, Café Tingis and Grand Café Centrale in Petit Socco, and of course, Café Baba and Café Hafa.
Mission in Tangier
1949, WWII French spy thriller about secret documents.
Hidden passages and secrets always gets me tingling with new story ideas, and Tangier is full of them. But this mission had nothing to do with France, or WWII, and was rather more sedate. I have eaten and cooked Asian food ever since i spent 12 months in homestays in Japan at the age of 18. When asked what are typical Australian foods, my kids used to just shrug their shoulders and shake their heads. “Rice?”
So sooner or later my taste buds start hunting for those Asian flavours. Sushi is popular in Tangier, but it has little to do with the Japanese food which is based around being fresh. The most popular types in Tangier are pizza sushi and deep fried sushi. After a few disappointments, I decided on a mission:- to try making my own.
This wasn’t a new thing for me. One of my souvenirs after my years of living in Japan was home-made sushi, a routine for many years on Boxing Day. It turns out that the important ingredients were available in Tangier, so I set about making sushi ready for dinner late one afternoon. This was not very long after I had arrived and while still getting to know my housemates. Mid-process, my flatmate got home, hungry and ready to eat. Curious about what I was making, he took up a piece and swiped up some wasabi…
Now, I need to explain at this point two things. If you don’t know, wasabi is a green horseradish, and usually very hot. But I had found in Tangier that it barely had any heat at all. What I hadn’t factored in was that it was a powdered version mixed up and extremely mild to suit the Moroccan palate. What I had on the table was from a fresh tube, just bought and opened.
And very strong.
My flatmate scooped his piece of sushi heavy-handedly into the green paste so the sushi bite itself was barely visible, and whisked it into his mouth before I could explain.
A moment later he exploded. His face turned purple. He raced into the kitchen, and then into the bathroom, with a load of colourful language following him through the house. With more exclamations he reappeared, only to fly out through the front door with a huge clattering and banging. For hours I waited for him to turn up for dinner, until I was starting to wonder if I had killed him with wasabi.
Many hands make light work - getting everyone else to do the work at one of our rooftop-balcony sushi parties.
As it turns out, after his first explosive experience my flatmate loved the sushi. He would regularly announce that we should have another sushi party - me hosting, of course. Sushi parties became a regular feature on our balcony through our Tangier summers. The best bit for me was that I had everyone make their own sushi – not only a lightening of the load, but also a source of a great deal of entertainment while everyone. tried to make their first roll without it exploding everywhere. My flatmate even insisted that my sushi was the best in Tangier. Touched as I was, I rather thought he was just being nice. At one point I decided on a mission to find the best sushi in town. The mission was very short-lived. My sushi may have been very basic and home-made, but the flavours were right, and a summer institution had been created.
The Woman from Tangier
1948. Spy mystery involving a dancer and missing money.
While I did get labeled the ‘Dancing Queen’ of Tangier – you must understand that this had nothing to do with any talent, but more for entertainment value because of my enthusiasm. I believe it translated to a much more glamorous concept in my head boosted by the confidence of a drink or two than the reality of those watching.
I have three party tricks. Dancing is not one of them.
I make origami kangaroos. (Skills perfected during major feats of procrastination as a uni student.)
I have a very fluent vocabulary in swear Darija, the Moroccan Arabic (Unfortunately my nice words are rather more limited.)
And sushi parties.
Th after effects of this session of teaching how to make origami kangaroos included my friend hallucinating that she was one…
Trapped in Tangier
1957. Again involving drug smugglers, and murders.
This seems to be a theme in Tangier, although not at all related to me being Kidnapped in Tangier.
Taxis in Tangier have mostly been good and honest guys, with the bad ones surfacing maybe once in 12 months. One of the first phrases I learnt in Darija was how to say “I live here – Ana skna hna”.
Of my party tricks, swearing in Darija is one I keep for special occasions. It is very unseemly for a woman to swear. However, just occasionally I am gratified and able to show off my fluency when I get that rare taxi driver that insists on taking me for a ride, so to speak.
This last time in Tangier – maybe misplaced excitement at the upcoming African Cup next month with the football bringing many extra visitors to Tangier – but the rare bad taxi driver seems to have become a rather more common theme. I had a bad one 6 times in as many weeks.
There were fixed meters that ran double time, the one who couldn’t follow the straight route on the map to the biggest roundabout in Tangier and detoured slowly through the suburbs and backstreets of Casabarata. Even though I said I lived in Tangier and knew exactly where I was, he seemed to think I didn’t. I presumed he was making a detour around jammed traffic on the main road.
Another insisted I had to pay extra for the other share passengers he didn’t pick up because of my address – which is just not true.
This particular one already had two passengers when I got in. The meter was ticking over way too fast. I tried to point this out to the passengers, but across languages they didn’t get what I meant.
When they got out I asked where my meter fare was. He was all smiles, and nods, and that’s their fare not yours. Finally he put it onto ‘free’ and kept saying cheerfully ‘hamsin’. I settled. 15 dirhams was an ok fare for my destination. Then my brain clicked over. I realized that 15 was hamstash, but he had said hamsin. He was wanting 50 dirhams.
That was it.
Read from the right hand side:- kif
“Stop. Kif” I want to get out.
The meter had not only been clicking over double time, but he was wanting to charge almost 5 times the fare.
He would not stop.
We went two more blocks with me saying in every language I could ‘Stop, let me out.’
I started shouting out the window.
People on the street looked at me, but the driver would not stop.
I started banging my hand on the outside of the taxi door, and continued yelling. He still would not stop. People on the street were looking, but there was little they could do. And I really don’t know what he was thinking. He clearly imagined that if he didn’t stop, somehow that would mean I had to pay him the fraudulent fare he was demanding. It was already way past the point where I was going to pay him anything!
Two more blocks and he had to slow slightly for a roundabout.
I opened the door, the taxi still moving, me still shouting and yelling.
I had no intention of jumping out of a moving taxi, but he didn’t know that. Probably he worried that if I hurt myself there would be masses of annoying paperwork which would be way more of a hindrance to his day, and that he’d have to stop and police would be summoned taking time away from catching his next victim. I don’t think it had occurred to him even then that his actions could end nowhere good. Finally – after the roundabout – he slowed to a stop .
The instant the taxi stopped, I was out. And then I had my chance. I let fly a colourful string of Darija swear that would have impressed my teacher.
I needed to let off steam so I walked the rest of the way. My route was along the beach, so I used the sand and the sea to calm myself.
Where I found my happy place, a long walk along Tangier Marina Bay beach.
So, yes – technically – I was Trapped in Tangier. I got ‘kidnapped’ by a taxi driver who would not let me out of his car.
Now I can laugh at another misadventure. I really feel like I have been in half the movies that were made in the 40s and 50s. To be honest, the spy stories have always fascinated me and I would love to get a hold of them to watch – so far I’ve only managed to see a couple.
I was a fan of Helen MacInness who wrote spy stories starting in 1939, with insider secrets and research from her husband who worked in MI5. I have been mentored by the spy author (Sandy McCutcheon), who was himself mentored by John le Carre, major spy writer in the 70s. You may have heard of some of his stories which are still being made into movies, such as Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, and more recently the series The Night Manager with Tom Hiddleston (who was in Tangier in 2013 for Only Lovers Left Alive, a gothic fantasy comedy-drama also featuring Tilda Swinton, Mia Wasikowska, and Jon Hurt).
Now, I am off to watch that movie – Only Lovers Left Alive – and to leave you to imagine how that one might possibly relate to my life in Tangier.
Dawn start to a filming day in Tangier - Chris Pratt series, September 2025