Morocco

TRAVEL

by WILLIAM BIRD

MOROCCO is a land better suited to the lethargic insouciance of a Huck Finn than to the energy and enterprise of a Tom Sawyer. People with impatient natures had better avoid it. The pace of life is set by the donkey and the camel, not by the motorcar or the airplane. After a few days here I began forgetting to wind my watch at night, and as I write this I am not quite sure whether it is Wednesday or Thursday, nor does it seem to matter.

Getting to Morocco from America is not easy these days. For those whose time is limited, the plane trip (Pan American or TWA), changing at Lisbon to a Portuguese plane for Tangier, is the only satisfactory solution. It costs $375 each way, with a 10 per cent reduction if you buy a roundtrip ticket. There are no passenger liners running to Moroccan ports from the United States. Freighters will sometimes consent to take a few passengers — it depends on the whim of the captain. The Elwell Line has two or three ships a month for Lisbon, Tangier, and Casablanca. If they agree to take you, the fare is $300. The trip takes about 18 days.

The French have a twice monthly service from Marseilles and occasional sailings from Bordeaux, but these are often booked solid for months in advance. An alternative is to reach Algeciras or Gibraltar by train or motor, and thence take the daily ferry to Tangier or Ceuta. (Although the Pyrenean frontier is closed to Frenchmen, it is open to Americans.)

Tangier is, so far as I know, the only place in the world where exchange, whet her of gold or currencies, is entirely free. Two moneys, the Spanish peseta and the French Moroccan franc, are legal tender, but the moneys of every other country in the world are readily exchanged at rates which vary from day to day with the supply and demand. A dollar today buys 40 pesetas in Tangier, against 16 in Spain. It buys 340 Moroccan francs, although in French Morocco (as in France) it will buy only 214. One who wishes to visit French Morocco will do well to touch at Tangier first to change his money. Each traveler is entitled to take 10,000 francs from Tangier to the French zone, and also to transfer 50,000 francs by the intermediary of a bank.

Tangier, moreover, is well worth a look. It is an inextricable tangle of races and civilizations, the latest models of American automobiles honking their way through seething masses of Moors, Berbers, and Arabs. Moslem women, white-shrouded, their black eyes peering through slits in pink veils, hurry ceaselessly to and fro on mysterious but obviously urgent errands. The town awakes at dawn with the shouting of muezzins from the minarets, calling the sons of the Prophet to their devotions, and with the clatter of numberless market donkeys, each carrying a burden bulkier than himself. All day and every day (most particularly on Sundays) the city is filled with strident noise and clashing color, and far into the night may be heard the wails and moans of singers and stringed instruments in the Moorish cafés of the Old Town.

Tangier is an all-year resort, never hot in summer and never cold (though often rainy) in winter. But the tourist will not linger long here. French Morocco, a country nearly as large as France, though with only a sixth of the population, will absorb most of his time. It is a land of endless variety and inexhaustible charm. Its climate is enviable — “a cold country where the sun is hot" was Marshal Lyautey’s description of it. Even in midsummer you will want woolen clothing, and a topcoat at night; and even in midwinter the noonday sun can be so hot that you will be glad to adopt the custom of the siesta. Except in July and August, however, if is seldom uncomfortably warm.

The French wisely left the old Moroccan native towns intact, building a modern city alongside each. You stroll through the new cities of Fez, Rabat, Casablanca, Marrakech, with the feeling that you are in a French provincial town; suddenly you pass through a gate and find yourself in the Baghdad of Haroun-al-Raschid. Nothing in these native Moroccan cities has changed for centuries. Cobblers, coppersmiths, jewelers, grocers, perfumers, spice merchants, drapers — all ply their ancient trades at the very stands built by their ancestors of the Middle Ages.

Nowhere in the Near or Middle East, so far as I am aware, is anything so “Oriental” to be found as the old cities of Fez or Marrakech. Yet Fez and Marrakech are widely different. Fez is aristocratic, sedate, medieval. Its ancient medersas — Koranic universities — are frequented by scholars from the entire Moslem world, while its souks, in a tangle of narrow alleys covered with lattices to keep out the blistering noonday sun, are beyond question one of the wonders of the modern world. In Marrakech, the capital of the South, the incomparable attraction is the Djemaâ-el-Fna, a market place dozens of acres broad, where camel trains arrive each morning from the Atlas, bringing fruits and grains. The Berber peasants camp here all day amid scenes of indescribable noise and confusion. Snake charmers, acrobats, dancers, musicians, entertain them, while native storytellers find eager listeners for theirmodern versions of the Arabian Nights.

If you have brought your own car, you may have great difficulty these days getting fuel, except at the black-market price of a dollar a gallon or more. More dependable are the railway and the motorbus, which, though not rapid (I told you not to be in a hurry!) will take you to most of the places worth seeing. From Tangier to Fez takes a little over eight hours, for a distance of less than 300 miles. Fez is worth a long visit, both for its own sake and because it is a convenient center for excursions to the holy city of Moulay Idriss, where no roumis or non-Mohammedans are allowed to reside, to the Roman ruins of Volubilis, or to the hot sulphur springs of Moulay Yacoub.

One may then make a leisurely progress to Casablanca, with stops at Meknès, the ancient Berber capital, and Rabat, seat of the Sultan and of the French protectorate. From “Casa” (which touristically is perhaps the least interesting of the Moroccan cities) there is a reasonably fast train to Marrakech (four hours). And here we are on the edge of the desert, and almost in the shadow of the Great Atlas range.

Except in the hottest months, a visit to the AntiAtlas (beyond the range) is recommended. This area was subdued only a few years before the war, and has seen comparatively few tourists. It is a land of wild beauty and unspoiled native life. Detailed information about transportation and lodgings (which often will be in government-operated hostels) can be obtained from the Syndicat d’Initiative in Marrakech.

On the material side, I have found Morocco by far the cheapest country I have visited since the war. My wife and I had a comfortable room and bath in Tangier for $1.50 a day, and throughout French Morocco prices were a shade lower. We could have found adequate accommodations for as little as $1.00 a day, or we could have enjoyed something approximating luxury for about $3.00.

But everywhere, there is a shortage of rooms, and the unexpected guest does not easily find one. The most satisfactory method was to have my hotel manager wire or telephone ahead to the next town on my itinerary. Sometimes we learned that the town was “full up,” but always we were able to make arrangements for a few days later, at the price of staying where we were for that much longer than we had expected to.

Meals vary widely in cost, according to one’s tastes. We usually chose to have a Continental breakfast served in our room, at 25 or 30 cents each, and took our other meals at reputable European restaurants. (It is important to watch one’s diet, drink only bottled water, avoid fruits that cannot be peeled and salads.) An average lunch or dinner for two, with half a bottle of excellent Moroccan (or, in Tangier, Spanish) wine, would cost from $2.00 to $3.00. In the larger cities there are Moorish restaurants, operated chiefly for tourists, where one can enjoy the native couss-couss (farina with various meats and sauces), méchoui (roast lamb), and almond pastries, but in these establishments the prices are considerably higher.

In other days, I am told, one could rent a Moorish villa, hire a troop of native servants, and live like a pasha at no greater expense. Those days, alas, are gone, but the present is good enough to spare us the pain of lamenting the irrecoverable past.