We're off on the road to the land of casbahs, desert and Imperial Cities

Sunday, December 29, 2002

By Judy Kline

CASABLANCA, Morocco -- Mention Morocco and two words that spring to mind are "Casablanca" and "casbah." Both words invoke romantic fantasies and images of intrigue. Unfortunately, neither is a particularly accurate representation of this fascinating country.

	The Gazlean Mosque is seen through the arch of Bab Bou Jeloud in Fez, Morocco. (Rick Sammon, AP)

Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman never got near Morocco. The 1942 film was shot entirely on a Hollywood back lot. In Casablanca, the closest artifact of the movie is a bar in the Hyatt Hotel, re-created in detail to match the set and entirely for the benefit of tourists.

As for that second romantic connection, casbahs were originally the homes of extended families that grew into small enclosed towns. Constructed of mud and straw, they resemble adobe fortresses. In the older casbahs, rooms are narrow with small windows, and the buildings are susceptible to leaking roofs and insect infestation.

The truth about Morocco is better than the fiction. Only 6 1/2 hours by plane from New York, it is exotic, safe, scenic and, yes, mysterious.

Morocco has always maintained close ties with the United States. It provided us with our first foreign embassy after the Revolutionary War and assisted us in fighting the Barbary pirates. Although describing itself as a constitutional monarchy, Morocco is more accurately an absolute monarchy. Once a French protectorate, it still maintains close ties with that nation and French is taught in all elementary schools.

An Islamic country, it is surprisingly modern and liberal. In its large cities, women generally go around unveiled, and Western dress is common. Women hold high government jobs and serve as ambassadors. Although there are Moslem extremists, they are under close government surveillance, and any hint of trouble is dealt with quickly. Morocco is striving for membership in the European Union.

Situated only eight miles across the Straits of Gibraltar from "the Continent," Morocco is a major tourist destination for Europeans who wish to escape cold winters, so many that it can be hard to find availability on tours originating from the United States during January and February.

Most tours to Morocco begin in Spain and include only the northern cities of Casablanca, Rabat, Meknes, Fez and Marrakesh. They are known as the Imperial Cities, because at various times in Morocco's turbulent history, each served as the country's capital.

All are certainly worth a visit, but travelers who see only these five cities will miss the essence of Morocco. That is found in the south, where the heart of the country beats in the grandeur of the Sahara and the High Atlas Mountains.

Casablanca is a large metropolis, designed by the French with a Spanish name. Now the second-most-populous city in Africa behind Cairo, it is surrounded by shantytowns filled with people who have come to the city to find jobs. For many, this may be a futile search. Unemployment is a major problem for Morocco. Many of its brightest young people work abroad sending money home to help support their families.

Casablanca, still French at heart, is merely an entrance to the rest of the country. "Casa," as it's more familiarly referred to, is crowded, littered and filled with motorists whose main objective in life seems to be scaring pedestrians.

	If you go .... MoroccoBACKGROUND: Morocco requires only that U.S. travelers present a passport for entry. No vaccines are required. Simple precautions that apply to any desert climate should be taken. These include taking long-sleeve, lightweight clothing and drinking plenty of water while there. The High Atlas Mountains are high but present few altitude problems unless you are planning to hike. Royal Air Maroc offers daily service from John F. Kennedy International Airport. Brendan Tours is one of the only companies to offer 10-day tours of the country from March to the end of November. If you are in Spain and want to add Morocco, the cost can be as low as $979. For a complete description of their tour, visit their Web site: www.brendantours.com/search.html. The Moroccan National Tourist Office has full-color brochures. You can reach them at 20 E. 46th St., No. 1201, New York, NY 10017; 1-212-557-2520; www.tourism-in-morocco.com. Bargaining is an art in Morocco. Never pay the first asking price. Sometimes the reply to "How much?" is "400 dirham, how much will you give?" Negotiation is part of the fun of a Moroccan visit. Being told, "You bargain like a Berber" (the native people) is a high compliment. In shops, bargaining is always accompanied by mint tea, an addictive concoction heavily laden with sugar and poured from a height of about three feet into small glasses. Don't expect to bargain in the upscale fixed-price stores of Casablanca. WEB SITES: www.mincom.gov.ma is the government site. www.lonelyplanet.com/destinations/ africa/morocco/index.htm#top includes attractions, activities, culture, when to go, and related Moroccan links. SUGGESTED READING: "Culture Shock! Morocco" by Orin Hargraves (Culture Shock; $13.95) is a good and entertaining read even for people not booked on a tour. Paul Bowles, an American expatriate who spent much of his productive life in Morocco and died in 1999, has written several haunting books on the country. "Their Heads Are Green and Their Hands Are Blue" (1963) is a collection of short articles. His 1949 novel "The Sheltering Sky" was made into a 1990 movie starring Debra Winger and John Malkovich and was released on DVD in September. More information on Paul Bowles can be found at www.paulbowles.org -- Judy Kline

The city's main attraction is the Hassan II Mosque, the largest outside Mecca and one of the only mosques in the country open to non-Moslems -- for a $10 fee. Built over five years by a force of more than 30,000 laborers, it is a magnificent sight, incredible in size and architectural detail with space for 80,000 worshippers. Its official cost was $800 million, but its site on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean and the problems posed by erosion put the final tab closer to a billion dollars. All the money for its construction came from public donations.

Rabat is now Morocco's capital and the seat of its government. Well-tended, landscaped and maintained, it is not typical of the rest of the country. Its casbah is charming, filled with blue and white houses, cobblestone streets and wisteria cascading in brilliant splashes of color. Rabat is Mediterranean in feel. Even its ancient fort, with walls that helped protect the city from Viking raids, doesn't feel Moroccan.

The city of Meknes lies between Rabat and Fez. Meknes once rivaled Versailles, and its palaces were used as a source of building material by later pashas. The granary still stands intact -- a massive architectural wonder that evokes the grandeur of the original city.

In Fez, however, the uniqueness of Morocco become apparent. Fez is the most complete medieval Islamic city in the world, and its medina (market) is on the United Nations list of World Heritage Sites. Although it is possible to visit Fes el Bali alone, you may be lost for several days. Its streets are narrow, twisted and filled with the cries of balak, a warning that you are about to be run over by a donkey and should dive quickly into the first available opening. Tour guides, both official and unofficial, are everywhere, to lead visitors through with constant and welcome warnings of "Watch behind you! Watch your head! Don't step in that!"

The medina is a photographer's dream come true. Tiny stalls are jammed together under dappled sunlight streaming through woven awnings that shade the streets. Clucking chickens await their fate. Goat heads and legs are proudly displayed in tantalizing fashion on the ground. Stray cats sit expectantly awaiting a free handout.

In the spice market, the smells and colors are overwhelming. Spices are used for both cooking and healing so the variety available is unmatched and often unidentifiable. If the wind is blowing in the wrong direction, odors of the tannery assault the senses in a less fragrant manner. Silk embroidery thread is hand spun and then looped over nails in the walls by men running back and forth like shuttles. Tailors work on electrified pedal sewing machines in shops barely large enough to contain a customer.

Occasionally, a familiar item, such as a box of Tide, appears on the shelves, but mostly the medina is a world apart, a glimpse into the past. Children and women dressed in more traditional garb jostle for position or passage, beggars squat in the shade and at each turn is the sound of people haggling over the price of every item, eye to eye, arms flailing.

Fez is located in a fertile agricultural area in the Rif ("reef") Mountains known primarily for the production of marijuana, or kif. Distribution, sales and smuggling are handled by rival gangs and broadly tolerated by the government. Spain alone is believed to receive about 350,000 kilos of hashish, which is only about one-fifth of the total annual crop. Since Islam forbids the use of alcohol, kif is often a substitute, especially for young unemployed men who while away the day at outdoor cafes.

Marrakesh Express

After visiting Fez, most tours dash across country to Marrakesh in the west.

A popular '70s song celebrated its express train, but its main draw is Jemaa el Fna Square. This huge open-air market is famous for the variety of its entertainment, from dancers to jugglers and snake charmers. Marrakesh also has a medina, but after Fez, nothing compares. And with temperatures hitting 105 to 115 degrees in summer, it is the hottest place in all of Morocco, even in the early morning and evening when most touring occurs.

Once they have seen the Imperial Cities, most groups immediately return to Spain. But to get to the heart of the country, head south out of Fez. Here lush landscapes and cedar forest give way to more rocky and arid stretches.

In the higher elevations of the Middle and High Atlas Mountains is the land of the Berbers. Morocco's original inhabitants, these mountain dwelling people have light skin and frequently blue or green eyes, leading some to believe they are of European origin. Fiercely independent, Berbers have lived in tribes for thousands of years, unaffected by the coming of the Carthaginians, Romans and Arabs.

Although the desert dwellers eventually adopted Islam, they kept a few of their own religions touches, such as the belief in djinns, spirits much like ghosts and the source of the English word genie. The French were finally able to subdue the Berbers in 1934, but only after a thousand Berbers withstood French assaults and bombardments for a month.

Their tough descendants still inhabit the Atlas Mountains. Many women continue to display the facial tattoos that identify their tribes.

The desolate south

The land becomes more desolate in the south. Black tents of the semi-nomads dot the landscape. Families irrigate their small field using skin buckets on a levered pole dipped into wells, the same method used in ancient Egypt. Red casbahs that blend into the color of the earth slowly crumble and return to their source.

On the edge of the Sahara is the one-street town of Erfoud, where urban life is left far behind. At night when the winds whip up, clouds of sand often black out street lamps. Erfoud seems to exist for the sole purpose of providing tourists access to the Sahara. (In Moroccan, Sahara means "desert," so saying Sahara Desert is repetitious.)

People come to Erfoud to see the sand dunes of Merzouga, but actually getting to them is another adventure. Visitors race across the sand in 4-wheel-drive vehicles with suspensions that have seen better days. After an hour, they reach the beginnings of the Sahara. A small hotel sits in the middle of nowhere offering camel rides, escorted walks or overnight stays in its few rooms or nearby tents.

Here, the major entertainment is playing the hypnotic gnawa music on drums or sand skiing, a potential Olympic sport in which one person pulls another by his legs down the dunes on his butt. Watching the sun set and the colors change on the sand, visitors begin to appreciate the desert's vastness.

For centuries, caravans of salt, gold and slaves crossed this desolate stretch. Paul Bowles, an American writer who spent much of his productive life in Morocco, wrote a wonderful book called "Their Heads Are Green And Their Hands Are Blue." In it, he wrote of the Sahara: "there is a hushed quality in the air, as if the quiet were a conscious force. ...Then there is the sky ... solid and luminous, it is always the focal point of the landscape."

In the Sahara, as perhaps nowhere on earth, people feel insignificant.

Nearby Rissani is a charming walled city, which hosts a weekly Berber market. As in Fez's medina, people still arrive on their donkeys (left in the Berber equivalent of a parking lot) proudly dressed in their tribal clothes to trade their produce, crafts, goats and gossip. The passage of time has caused hardly a ripple in Rissani.

From Erfoud, they head south to the Todra Gorge. Known as the Grand Canyon of Morocco, it attracts local tourists who bring their children to picnic and splash in the clear stream. There is a wonderful restaurant near the beginning of the gorge, where diners can perch on couches and gorge themselves on couscous and tagine, a tasty layered Moroccan stew-like concoction, while gazing up at the towering 950 feet cliffs.

Near the end of the Dades Valley is the town of Ourzazate (that's roughly "whars-i-zat"). The town is a major film-making center because of its beautifully restored casbah, oasis, and predictably wonderful blue-sky weather year round.

From there, the road to Marrakesh becomes breathtaking, both literally and figuratively, as it winds up through the Tizi-n-Tichka Pass. After gradually rising from the Rif Mountains to the High Atlas Mountain, the road now descends via a series of switchbacks into the valley that shelters Marrakesh.

Here, in summer are the wadis (dried riverbeds) of streams that in spring make the mountains burst into life with flowers of every color. Even in midsummer, the area is green enough to support herds of cattle and the pink blooms of oleander. At the occasional overlooks, vendors appear magically from behind the rocks to sell fossils and beads.

Then it's downhill all the way -- about 7,000 feet downhill on a road with no guard rails or emergency off-ramps. But don't close your eyes. This ride alone is worth the time it took to get there.

Morocco is a realm of stark contrasts of culture and geography. From sand beaches washed by the Atlantic and Mediterranean, to its forests, desert and high mountains, the country is rich with traveler delights. Its people are friendly. Its buildings, the source of Spain's Moorish architecture, are awesome. Its costs are inexpensive. Morocco remains remarkably unchanged from the way it has always been.

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