day three hundred fourty a

I’m not quite completely worn out yet which is good since I’ll be on a plane in about twelve hours headed to Casablanca.

Things have been really busy the last couple weeks and I dislike not having written more. My life is getting interesting and I’d like to share more of it.

Had a couple big lessons the last couple days.

The most painful was on the national monetary policy. The ouguiya is a non-convertible currency. This means that unlike the dollar, euro or yen, the ouguiya is not traded on the open money markets. It is, in fact, illegal to take ouguiya out of the country. It has to be possible to convert money, so the ouguiya is pegged to the dollar at a rate fixed by the central bank. Whatever the dollar trades at versus other currencies can then be used to convert ouguiya.

The problem with having the central bank decide on the rate rather than an open market is that the central bank may or may not decide to respond to the real value of the currency based on trade.

In many situations this would be a problem because say for instance the bank fixed the rate at 100um = $1. If the buying power was actually 150um = $1 then before I buy something I’d just convert all my dollars to ouguiya and have 50% more buying power for free.

This disparity is present in Mauritania. The official rate is 254um = $1 and the actual rate is about 344um = $1. The problem is addressed in Mauritania by it being impossible to change money at the official rate. Anyone can change dollars to ouguiya no problem (since going at the official rate means losing 90um for every dollar) and in fact it is required for international businesses to change at the official rate.

Going the other way though is only possible if you have a check written in dollars from a company which has to change at the official rate. And even then it takes special permission.

Why does this pain me? Because I needed to change ouguiya to euro to make it to Paris to meet my family. The difference between the official rate and the black market (which is a bit of a misnomer since it is the only market) is 310um/420um cost me 165 euro ($200) for how much I was changing. Ouch, huh?

Other painful lesson?

The eurail and the train system in Europe are completely separate entities. The most important effect of this is that eurail passes are not sold in train stations, but only at certain special vendors.

The eurail system is also only available to people who are tourists. It is not possible to have a pass mailed to you in Europe. This included Morocco. Because of this there are not many vendors in Europe and the normally fixed price for outside Europe is inflated.

So, as you might have guessed I have no ticket for the train that I am hoping to catch. Furthermore, they don’t sell them in Morocco or in Algeciras, the Spanish side of the Strait of Gibraltar. The nearest city is Seville and that is 150km away.

This is completely my fault. I figured that the train system was just the train system and so I could buy a ticket in Algeciras or Casablanca. I also had read that the price is fixed and it was only on searching that I learned it is only fixed outside of Europe.

Given that I’ve been planning this for a month it really is just completely my fault. I could have gotten a ticket via the internet if I had just planned far enough ahead. Oh well, I am expecting the mistake to cost me quite a bit and it just means I’ll either have to eat less or sleep on the side of the road. =) I’ll manage something, I’m sure.

I’m still incredibly excited though. It is almost like a challenge. I have 400 euro and five days to make it to Paris to meet my family. Can I do it? =)

Love,
Will