It's easy to be suckered in Morocco! Despite being forewarned of typical high pressure sales techniques, we walked right into a trap, and succumbed.

Omar asked if we wanted to stop at a nomadic Bedouin trading post, and we agreed, not realizing what we were in for. We were ushered into a building and up the stairs to lavish showrooms adorned with carpets and other items and offered mint tea by a tall, imposing man dressed in beautiful robes and turban. Once tea is offered you're stuck, as it's considered impolite to refuse it. He told us that he and his tribe traveled by camel every year, across the Sahara Desert from Timbuktu in Mali through Algeria to Morocco, three months one way in the spring, three months back in the fall. They rode 50 kilometers a day unless there was a sandstorm, in which case they'd only ride 25 km. I asked him if he knew that in English and other western languages, "Timbuktu" means a place very far away, though few actually know where it is. He laughed and said no, he didn't know that. Our host and his young assistant then proceeded to lay out carpets one after the other, although we hadn't expressed interest in buying rugs. I was fascinated by his technique of measuring the carpets, his arm undulating gracefully and speedily from elbow to bejeweled finger tips across the rug. When we protested that we weren't in the market for a rug, our friend feigned great disappointment. "Please, you must take something back from my people to your people, as a token of our friendship. If not a rug, then surely something else?!"

He saw Burger looking at a heavy necklace with large polished amber stones and other beads and some silver, and quickly took it out of the display case. The beads were supposedly once used by Bedouins as money, he told us. Then the bargaining began: he wanted "only" 1600 Dirhams ($190) for it. Much too much, protested Burger. He quickly dropped to 1000 DH. Burger countered with 500 ($60), in retrospect surely too much. Flamboyant show of mocked insult. But he'd take 600.

We said no thanks and started to walk out. As we started down the stairs he agreed to our offer, and we were stuck with something we hadn't planned to buy. But now we have a Bedouin memento for our eclectic art collection. The moment money changed hands our host disappeared without so much as a good-bye.

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