Why do locals turn right where tourists go left?

You're following someone who lives here. At an intersection where you'd go straight — the wider, lighter path — they turn sharply into a dark passage half the width. Three turns later, you're where you needed to be. The walk took four minutes. Your route would have taken fifteen.

Residents navigate by a mental map built over years that has almost no relationship to what a visitor sees. The wider street is not necessarily the faster route — it's often the commercial route, congested with shoppers and carts. The narrow dark passage is the residential shortcut, empty because it goes nowhere a tourist wants to be.

The navigation is also social. A local walking through a neighborhood where they're known moves differently than a stranger. Doors that look closed are actually open. Passages that look private are actually shared shortcuts tolerated by the families who live along them. A resident nods at the woman on the step and walks through what you would perceive as her front garden. You cannot follow this route because you don't have the social permission.

Direction-giving reflects this. When a Moroccan says "it's close," they mean close by their route — which involves knowledge you don't have. When they say "straight," they mean the general direction, not a literal straight line. The mismatch between your spatial logic and theirs is not imprecision. It's two completely different maps of the same city.