Morocco: Sun and Pleasures, Inshallah

ANY moviegoer over the age of 30 has memories of Morocco. Of Humphrey Bogart, explaining his presence in Casablanca: "I came for the waters. I was misinformed." Or Gary Cooper as Beau Geste, with ketchup all over his Foreign Legion tunic, dying bravely in defense of the Late Show and his papier-mache fort. And there were Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, singing as they set out on the road to Dorothy Lamour:

We certainly do get around.

Like Webster's Dictionary, We're Morocco bound.

So are a lot of people these days. For restless jet-age pleasure seekers, Morocco has become one of the newest and chicest holiday havens. Tourism was all but nonexistent ten years ago; today it is Morocco's second biggest (after agriculture) and fastest growing industry. During 1969, 650,000 foreign tourists, 50,000 of them Americans, are expected to visit what Moroccans call the "Fortunate Kingdom." Many will come in the summer, when the sun is fiercer. But the big boom is now, in winter. These days, only the lucky find hotel rooms ("We just had to turn Charlie Chaplin away," a clerk at Marrakesh's Mamounia Hotel boasted last month, probably falsely). The rest have to make do with tents, trailers or sleeping bags slung somewhere along Morocco's 1,000 miles of beach. The squeeze in accommodations will be eased by new hotels currently under construction: two motel corporations, Ramada Inns and Holiday Inns, are furiously digging away.

But where to sleep is almost irrelevant. The country is what matters.

Cosmopolitan. Romantics are still drawn by Morocco's legendary reputation as a haunt of smugglers, spies, white slavers, gun runners and bearded bohemians. The country has been occupied at various times in its history by the Phoenicians, the Carthaginians, the Romans, the Portuguese, the Spanish and the French--but it has never been conquered. With a coastline on both the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, it is the westernmost nation in Africa, which may account for the fact that it was the first African state to sign a treaty of friendship with the U.S. --in 1787. And with only the eight-mile-wide Strait of Gibraltar separating it from Europe, its ambiance is understandably cosmopolitan.

The French, who spent 44 years trying to remake Moroccans in their image, succeeded in establishing a presence and atmosphere that still linger. They laid railroads and built 133 hospitals, constructed ports and power plants, at one point claimed to be opening a school classroom a day. But the roads led mainly to French industries, and the schools served mostly French children. Independence came in 1956. Now, under hard-working King Hassan II, Moroccans are still poor, but don't whine about it, and show no complex of inferiority. The nation is Arabic, but it permits full freedom of religion and takes a moderate stand in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

In Marrakesh, the 900-year-old "Red City," Winston Churchill spent long hours painting the vast expanse of date palms against the haunting backdrop of the Atlas Mountains. Now pleasant French nouvelles riches wear mink or sable coats as they trip down to the Mamounia Hotel's heated pool.* A few blocks away, in the teeming public square known as Djemaa el Fna, or Assembly of the Dead, robed Berber men and veiled women chew on fried locusts while they watch snake charmers toy with defanged black cobras, or listen to interminable tales of storytellers perpetuating the tradition of the Thousand and One Nights. In Fez, Morocco's ancient center of Islamic culture, the sleek, European-style Merinides Hotel shares a hilltop with the tombs of 14th century sultans. Outside the cities, cars on superhighways rocket past plodding camel caravans and occasional trucks.

Not-So-Rich. It is not only this cultural confrontation that makes Morocco a favorite winter playground for the rich. It is also the vistas, the warm climate (daytime temperatures rarely dip below 80DEG except in the mountains and on the coast) and the languid, inshallah ("as God wills") pace of life. "It's all very exotic," says Paris Couturier Yves St. Laurent, who has purchased a tiny villa in Marrakesh. "Here I don't work at all, or even think. This is my refuge from the world."

Eugene Paul Getty, son of Oil Billionaire J. Paul Getty, also lives in Marrakesh. Regular Moroccan visitors include Queen Fabiola of Belgium, Baron Guy de Rothschild, Barbara Hutton, Yul Brynner, David! Rockefeller, Lee Radziwill, Fiat Boss Gianni Agnelli and Author Truman Capote, who advises anyone contemplating a Moroccan trip to "have yourself vaccinated against typhoid, liquidate your bank account, and say goodbye to your friends. God knows when you will see them again."

But there are also the not-so-rich. Lydia Bach, a blonde, 27-year-old language teacher from Decatur, Ill., and Mary Jo Ostrom, 29, a fashion illustrator from nearby Galesburg, have vacationed together in southern Morocco for six years; they deliberately travel around Marrakesh in filthy old market buses rather than tourist coaches, "to be with the people" as well as to save money. At the bottom of this season's tourist barrel is a colony of about 270 U.S. and Canadian hippies who are living in sleazy abandon in Marrakesh's medina, or "old city," on 500 a day.

Kefta Lunch. "The hippies come here for the pot, of course," says a young visitor from New York--and indeed Morocco is a hashhead's delight. Kif, raw leaf marijuana, is openly (although illegally) sold for $4.50 a pound and widely smoked in public in clay pipes that can be bought for 100 a dozen in any souk, or shop. With or without the assistance of kif, Morocco is a delight. In winter, a venturesome visitor can swim in the morning off the beach at Essaouira on the Atlantic, lunch on kefta (skewered minced steak with herbs) in Marrakesh, and ski the afternoon away at Oukaimeden in the High Atlas Mountains. He can be back in Marrakesh in plenty of time to catch the show at Ksar el Hamra (the Red House) and dine on magnificent bstilla (a flaky, cinnamon-sprinkled pie stuffed with pigeon livers and eggs). He can accompany this with a bottle of Boulaouane rose, or any one of several inexpensive Moroccan red wines. (They are far superior to their middle-class French cousins and deserve to be exported.)

Nongastronomic tourists may settle for sightseeing: hiring a car and guide (average rate: $25 a day) to visit the ancient walled city of Taroudant with its elegant Moorish Dar Baroud Palace, or crossing over the Tizi n'Tichka pass, a three-hour drive from Marrakesh, into the picturesque "casbah country" with its fortified villages built of clay that melts like chocolate in a heavy rain. Or they may spend the day shopping in the souks of Fez or Marrakesh, haggling for bargains in brightly patterned Moroccan rugs, ornate silver jewelry or silk brocade caftans--the flowing, T-shaped garment traditionally worn by Moroccan women relaxing at home.

Dancing Girls, Fat. For total relaxation, few hotels in the world can compare with La Gazelle d'Or in Taroudant, where seclusion and discretion are maintained with almost maniacal determination. At $30 a day per person, a maximum of 40 guests sleep in cottages covered with bougainvillea and liana and surrounded by vegetation so dense that it is impossible to see from one cottage to the next. There are no radios at La Gazelle d'Or, no television sets; phones can be switched off, and the only prod to physical activity is a swimming pool--unheated. Compare that with the kind of activity available at the Club Mediterranee's 650-guest "vacation village," 45 miles away at Agadir on the Atlantic. "You name it, we do it," says Manageress Marcelle Fayt. "Sailing, riding, tennis, yoga, judo, camel riding, Scrabble, swimming, sunning, pingpong, desert safaris, deep-sea fishing, drinking, eating, kissing and frugging." All in two weeks, for $240 a person, including round-trip air fare from Paris.

For all the possible pleasures of a holiday in Morocco, some Americans may be disappointed. The fabled beauty of its dancing girls is mostly that--a fable; the "girls" are often fat, old, ugly and gold-toothed. Architecture buffs, searching for prime Moorish specimens, would probably be better off in Spain. Moroccan architectural wonders tend to be small except for the mosques, which non-Moslems are forbidden to enter. Transportation in Morocco, other than by car or bus, is a problem: trains are notoriously slow; intercity plane service is sporadic. But the biggest problem, for Americans, is getting to Morocco in the first place. Pan American flies nonstop from New York to Rabat, the capital, only once a week. All other roads to Morocco detour through Paris, Lisbon or Madrid. Which is just fine, as far as tourists who have already discovered Morocco are concerned. Says Cynthie Sorlin, wife of a French attorney and old North African hand: "The time to be here is now--before the mob arrives." It will be arriving soon.

* The Mamounia can be provincial. Minor annoyances: guests are not permitted to go from room to pool in bathing or beach clothes, and there are never enough beach chairs.

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