This bus bears the logo of the McDonalds of resort companies, Club Med. They have a all-inclusive hotel right on the great plaza, the Djemâa el Fna. Seems sort of sacrilegious to me, although I'm sure that Moroccans who benefit from its presence would disagree.

Check out the faces of the passengers. Do they look happy to you, like the smiling faces in Club Med brochures?

I think they're bored out of their gourds. Every night they suck down Mai Tais at the Forty Thieves' Bar and look for a date while the strains of Kenny G set the mood. And they ask themselves, "Are we having fun yet?"

Of course, they do manage to get some amount of exposure to exotic northern African culture. Take these colorful water sellers:

I love their "authentic" tribal dress. I think these costumes developed about the time the Club Met got built.

Tourists don't buy water from them. "Myron, you don't know who else has been drinking from those cups." Locals don't buy water from them either, 'cause it would be embarrassing.

So if they're not selling water, what are they doing? They're selling the right to aim your camera at them. They'll demand maybe twelve bucks a pop if they catch you shooting.

Then you got your "authentic" snake charmers. There's at least a half-dozen groups like this within a stone's throw of the Club Med.

At night, these guys will gather a crowd. No tourists were watching them when I caught this image—they were all on the Club Med bus. Or in the Forty Thieves' Bar, waiting out the midday heat.

The snakes look sort of listless and worn out. They're not particularly scary. Something about this scene saps all sense of the exotic, of danger. Maybe it's the guy smoking a cigarette, ignoring the snake at his side while he talks to his buddy with the fake Rolex. Just a bunch of working stiffs on their lunch break.

Hey, aren't snake charmers an Indian thing? Why are they in Morocco?

This actress is from an "Ali Baba" show. She's on her lunch break.

About 30 of them trudged up the street to a tent where they sat in rows, eating sandwiches. A tall scimitar-bearing Saracen in chain mail held his sandwich in front of his face when I pointed my camera at him. "Hey, foreigner. No baksheesh, no picture."

I think Ali Baba was an Arabian character. Apparently Moroccans feel they have to import exoticism from the East.

Finally, there's these stupid caliche rides. Nothing Muslim about a caliche. They wouldn't be practical in the sands of the Sahara. They're too big to go into the Souks.

I can't believe tourists are so gullible as to be taken in by this kind of thing.

Wait a minute! That's Jean in that carriage.

OK. She's in it because she just loves carriage rides. For her, authenticity has nothing to do with it.

And I guess you know that since Jean was getting a ride, I was too. I hate to admit it, but there it is.

That's our driver, Kalim, in the baseball hat. He took us around the perimeter road just outside the ancient walls of the Medina.

Kalim undertook to point out the sights along the way, while taxis and buses swerved around our caliche, honking their horns. Now, the city walls are pierced by fourteen gates, called babs. Kalim knew the names of all fourteen, and he made a point of telling us their names. Oblivious to the surrounding traffic, he would turn in his seat when we passed each and intone "Bab Nkob. Bab Nkob." (Honk, screech, insults.) At the next gate, he'd repeat the performance: "Bab er Raha. Bab er Raha." Each name exactly twice.

The only other feature he pointed out was "Bus Station. Bus Station."

Thanks to Jean, I always wind up doing this stuff, and you know—sometimes it's fun. But it always feels stupid. Let's face it. It is.