Travel, in the news business, is often preceded by the words "how quickly can you get to...?" It's one of those questions editors have perfected for backing you into a corner - you tend to say "Tuesday" instead of "sometime in 2015".

I'd got the call in Cape Town late on Thursday ("how soon can you be in Morocco?") and it was just on the respectable side of midnight on Wednesday when I stepped off the ferry to Tangier, laden with camera gear, computer, luggage and a suit-carrier. Forget all you've read about rough 'n ready foreign correspondents; photo-journos don't travel light.

The trip had been a long one, with the first few days spent running around obtaining visas. Seeing that this trip would also entail visiting Spain, I needed a Schengen visa for Europe and then one for Morocco.

I'd been filming in Switzerland just two months before, so in the interests of getting in the air as quickly as possible, I decided that Zurich would be my point of entry to Europe. The passport went to the Swiss Consulate on Friday morning and was returned first thing on Monday. From there it was a same-day courier to the Moroccan visa-handling agency in Pretoria: the lady said she'd meet me at OR Tambo on Tuesday... in time for me to catch my flight to Switzerland.

And thus it came to pass. So far, so good.

After a night in Zurich, it was on to Spain. The flight was delayed for a couple of hours and I only reached Malaga in mid-afternoon. From there it was a series of bus trips until I reached Tarifa, from where the giant FRS high-speed ferry leaves every two hours for Tangier.

The last ferry leaves at 10pm and I just made it. Paid for my ticket, had my passport stamped for leaving Spain, bought a couple of vodka miniatures to dilute a bottle of Iberian orange juice and sat back for the ride. Which wasn't much of one because the Mediterranean was dead calm.

What nobody tells you - probably because the crew are Spanish and couldn't be bothered - is that you have to present your passport to the on-board Moroccan immigration official before you disembark. I was too engrossed in my Smirnoff and orange to notice my fellow passengers meandering forward before returning to their seats.

The ferry docks and I lug my stuff into Africa, only to be stopped by a copper demanding my passport. No problem, I dig it out.

Where's the immigration official's stamp? What immigration official's stamp? The one on the boat, he replies. I trudge back on board and track down The Man. I thank him humbly because every traveller knows you don't argue with border officials - they don't usually carry guns but can summon people who do.

It's disconcerting arriving anywhere in the middle of the night. Try it in a relatively deserted seaport in a North African country whose government has recently gotten into a diplomatic huff with yours because it believes you are supporting a violent separatist movement in a disputed territory. Travel broadens the mind but it can clench other parts of your anatomy.

Another trek and I discover Morocco's equivalent of the South Africa minibus taxi... a battered blue and yellow Fiat Uno that takes me to the El Minzah Hotel, a five-star (though not by South African standards) establishment on the Rue de La Liberté in the heart of the French Quarter. If the Mount Nelson is regarded as the grand dame of African hotels, then the El Minzah (which shall forever-after in my mind be known as the "Old Minger") is the dowager duchess - a faded beauty rather like Camilla.

Note to travellers in North Africa and Spain: take a travelling kettle or water-heating element. They are not provided in hotel rooms and you have to phone room service for tea, coffee or a pot of boiling water. I tried this at 4.30am at the El Minzah and an hour later the hotel plumber arrived to look at my shower.

No complaints about the breakfasts the old girl dished up. Forget having bacon on the menu - as with most Muslim countries, pork products are taboo - but the buffet of local fruits, pastries, cold meats, cheeses, scrambled eggs, mushrooms and lamb sausages made great companions to that other Moroccan staple, mint tea. There is something delectably Arabic about breakfasting on stewed apricots sprinkled with sesame seeds and drinking sweet mint tea out of a glass.

I'd arrived too late for any exploring so thought I'd take a bit of a walk before getting down to business ("Find us a boat," my contact had instructed me at Zurich airport. "It must be big enough for about 25 people. And secure us permission to go offshore no further than one kilometre." All very Dogs of War.)

Strolling along the Boulevard Pasteur, I'm looking around thinking "no way... no, no way, bru!" I mean, I've come thousands of kilometres and at someone's great expense to visit Hillbrow.

Not the Hillbrow of the new millennium; the Hillbrow of its heyday in the late 70s and early 80s - the Hillbrow that older generations of Joburgers recall with great fondness. It's slightly seedy yet it exudes incredible vigour.

On returning from my morning walk, I acquired the services of a local fixer through the hotel's concierge - essential for the first-time business visitor to the city. They're priced at R415-R420 an hour but it's money wisely spent if you get a good one.

I'd kept Aziz on the run throughout the day, and just after sunset I met him on the sidewalk and we took a lengthy stroll down to the beach and then back up the long hill to the French Quarter.

Like Hillbrow, Tangier comes out at night and the place becomes bedlam. The sidewalks are packed and crossing the road tests the survival instincts of even the most hardened Cape Town jaywalker... especially since you automatically look right when stepping into the road. It's more difficult as a pedestrian to get used to cars travelling on the other side of the road than as a driver.

The main streets are lined with tea shops but their clientele is exclusively male. I'm told there are some where women are permitted. No problem for foreign women, says Aziz, they're accorded honorary male status for the duration of their stay.

Aziz has also pointed out a number of restaurants, mainly tourist traps, but I tell him I want to go somewhere Moroccans eat. He takes me into the backstreets - and, like in Hillbrow of yore, I feared no evil - and shows me the El Dorado. It's cheap, he says, and the food is good. I bid him goodnight and go in.

The menu is in French and Spanish and, while I know my viande from my poisson, that's about it. I decided to go for meat but, with none of the staff speaking English, I went for the one thing on the menu that looked suitably local - cervelle marocqui. I can tell you that the sauce was great but calves' brains taste like snot - thank heavens for Heineken.

The most popular local brew is Spéciale Flag, which tastes a bit like Amstel. Casablanca is a bit maltier and slightly more expensive but very drinkable nonetheless. Moroccans don't drink much and one backstreet bar was quite shocked when three South Africans cleaned out their entire stock.

Apart from the medina- more of which later - there is nothing really for business visitors to do in Tangier but eat and wait for government officials to make up their minds. But food is something the locals do very well indeed.

The street food is particularly delicious and inexpensive. None of your chi-chi little shwarmas here - in Tangier they jam them with lamb or chicken and all the accompaniments such as chopped onion, tomato, sweetcorn, gherkins and tzatziki before folding them closed and toasting them in an oversize pannini press. The result is more of a 750-gram roti than the dainty little dough pockets to which we have become accustomed. The average cost was 25 dirham (about R25).

At the top of the medina is the Grande Socco - the traditional market that is Tangier's prime tourist trap - and the street restaurants here are just as awesome. You can sit down and enjoy a steaming, fragrant tagine but, be aware; few of these establishments are licensed to sell alcohol.

One hears horror stories but I didn't get Tangier Tummy in the eight days I was in the city.

Ah, the medina! History tells us that Tangier was one of the home ports of the notorious Barbary Corsairs, bloodthirsty pirates and thieves. That legacy has been left to the city's traders, most of whom sell vastly overpriced, mass- produced goods that only kitsch-crazed tourists could want.

The medina is less than two minutes from the El Minzah. It's the "Old Town" that features narrow, winding brick-paved streets and alleyways with overhanging balconies. The fact that every window at ground level and door has thick steel bars and security gates tells you all you need to know about the inhabitants of this area.

It has its undeniable character and charm (just as Joubert Park had, many years ago). I spent an interesting hour drinking mint tea and nattering in a jeweller's store but couldn't help thinking I'd been fleeced when I forked out 300 dirham for an "ebony and silver" bangle.

What the hell, I'd been gypped out of a lot more than that in the preceding week - including by one enterprising soul who lurked outside the hotel and then approached me, saying he was one of the waiters. He'd noticed me at breakfast, he said, and would I like to join him for a cup of tea...