"Patente, paseport et les papiers du voiture, s'il vous plaît."
("License, passport and car documents, please")
The traffic cop holds the viewfinder of the speed camera up to me. It reads 68 kph above a fuzzy impression of a Moroccan number plate.
Having heeded the warning of a driver travelling in the opposite direction who had flashed his lights a couple of kilometres back, I find it hard to believe I could have been speeding.
I was also stuck behind a truck entering the outskirts of the village where the traffic cops had taken up position and we could hardly have been doing 50 in a 60km zone.
The truck driver, who has also been pulled over seems to be remonstrating with the constable's porky looking off sider. There's some wallet waving going on and what sound like shrieks of disgust or contempt.
We are on the road to Skoura from Ourzazate.
It's our last two nights with the car in the big, dry landscapes of Southern Morocco.
The cop utters something to me about an "infraction" and quotes some figure in Euros which I claim not to have.
He leafs through the passport and backs off to confer with the porky offsider in Arabic.
"300 Dirham!" (About $AUS40)...payable "immediatemente."
I hand over the cash, upset but relieved it's not more.
A moment later the young cop's porky offsider, who looks decidedly guilty, hands back my passport and licence - and a 100 Dirham note - "for tonight's tajine", he adds.
It's a well rehearsed, well staged scam. This is our first encounter with corrupt Moroccan police.
Nb. The pictures above were all taken on the N'Kob road in the Jebel Sahgro region, not the more touristic, Ourzazate / Skoura / Dades Valley road.
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