Vagabond
Everybody Comes to Rick’s My Love Affair With Morocco
By Janis Turk
I thought by now I’d be immune to Cupid’s arrows, too old to fall in love again. Yet I catch myself humming “As Time Goes By” and quoting lines from Casablanca once more. So this is love!
Here on the coast of northern Africa, I’m snapping photographs of a Moroccan drugstore in Tétouan with a French Canadian writer for a pharmacy magazine. Like something out of a Bob Hope movie, we are on the road to Tangiers. The landscape is green like Ireland. The Rock of Gibraltar jets toward the sky from a sea of liquid lapis. The highway is dusty and crooked, like the Canadian’s easy smile. I am giddy. On the bus, with my face pressed against the window glass, I crinkle my nose like a child. It’s true; I am in love. But not with the writer — with Morocco.
It often used to happen like this — love at first sight — back when men, not cities and countries, were the object of my affection. Naturally, such romances were generally rather short-lived; it seemed I liked riding the streetcar named desire more than actually staying put once I go to my stop.
As a traveler, for years the same was true of places. Oh, they were grand, and I adored them all — London, Paris, Rome, Madrid — but for me, the joy of travel was about the planes, trains and automobiles, hotel lobbies, the babble of foreign tongues, unrecognizable foods, funky bathrooms, friendly waiters and the Greenwich Mean — not necessarily the place itself. As Robert Louis Stevenson writes, “I travel not to go anywhere… the great affair is to move.”
But that all changed when I met Morocco.
Disembarking at the Casablanca airport, on the kind of rolling staircase that Ilsa and Victor Lazlo climbed in the rain, I fell. Madly, truly, deeply.
Sooner or later everybody comes to Rick’s.
Indeed, I had arrived.
My Moroccan miracle began in my kitchen with a long distance call from a stranger with a heavy accent, asking, “Are you coming to Tangiers or not?” She was under the impression I knew what she was talking about. I didn’t. But like all good gifts in life, when they come your way, you have only to say “Yes!” So I did. The woman told me I’d be getting an e-mail soon and abruptly hung up.
Several days later, I received a message telling me to call Royal Air Maroc to make flight arrangements from JFK to Casablanca a week from Tuesday.
A week later, I stood at the gate in a very long line with women wearing djellebas and dripping with little children and young husbands who wore too much cologne. I prepared to spend the night squished in a little seat with my knees tucked up under my chin, with lots of screaming babies to keep me company in coach.
Just as I was beginning to wonder what kind of madness had caused me to take off for Casablanca without even the slightest idea whether someone would meet me at the airport, a flight attendant tapped me on the shoulder. The New York office president of the airline just happened to be on board and heard I was too, so he upgraded my seat to first class. Champagne flowed, a delicious dinner arrived on hot china plates; and, when we landed the next morning, the elegant airline executive handed me his card and said if I had any trouble during the trip, to call and his office would be at my service. He secured my connection at the airport, and soon I was on a chartered bus from Casablanca to Tangiers with two Canadians who had come in on the same flight. They, too, were scratching their heads, puzzled as to why we’d been invited.
As it turns out, the Minister of Tourism was hosting an international conference, and we had been chosen as delegates representing North America. I still don’t know how they ever got my name.
I stayed in the El Minzah hotel, one of the loveliest and most traditional inns in Tangiers. It was as magical as a movie set, and I kept thinking the ghost of Humphrey Bogart might appear any moment. Sir Winston Churchill and Hollywood stars such as Rita Heyworth, Rex Harrison, Rock Hudson, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Errol Flynn, Anthony Quinn, and Gina Lollobrigida all slept here. The El Minzah bellmen wear customary Moroccan costumes, complete with funny pants and fez, but that’s the only hint of commercialism I found in this classy hotel, and I have to admit I rather liked it. The place was enormously enchanting.
Built in the 1930s in a Hispano-Moorish style, El Minzah stands three stories tall, with archways and balconies encircling an Andalusian courtyard. Resting high on a sloping hill in the middle of downtown, the hotel has an arresting view of the city. Buildings huddle together in the shade, and a sliver of shoreline sparkles in the sun. Just around the corner is a marketplace where shiny silver sardines are sold in baskets alongside brass teapots and Aladdin-style lamps.
For the next several days, I was whisked about the region, visiting the kasbahs of ancient cities and shopping in souks (marketplaces). I dined in resorts along the sea—like the modern Mövenpick Hotel and Casino, which reminded me of a Club Med, but with an African grace that softened its trendy edge. Not too far from Spanish-governed city of Melilla, there is a seaside paradise at the foot of the Rif mountains on a white sandy beach. There, at the Sofitel Thalassa Marina Smir resort, my new friends and I had brunch on a sunny verandah.
All the while, I moved as if in a dream through dinners and dancing with delegates from all over the world. How good to be reminded how kind people are and how lovely the world can be. Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists came together to talk and tell stories, to learn about one another, to share, to laugh and sing. There we were: no borders, no barriers, no strife. Flying high on a magic carpet of joy and goodwill, it was hard to believe that not so far away wars were raging, and it was even harder to understand why.
In Tangiers, most of the waiters speak Spanish (as well as Arabic and French), so that became the common language for our table, but we laughed in every language. We drank in the stars over the Straits of Gibraltar and dined on a cruise ship while native dancers entertained us with tambourines and drums. I danced to sassy salsa music with a banker from Geneva, and then sang “New York, New York” with folks from Egypt and Lebanon.
One afternoon, in the tents outside the convention expo area, a camel driver invited me to a place not far from the city of Arfoud at the edge of the Sahara called the Kasbah Xaluca — quite possibly the most amazing hotel on the planet. There they can also arrange to let you caravan with Bedouins and sleep out on the desert in tents. Others invited me to Marrakech and Fez, ancient cities of mystery and magnificence. Next time, that’s where I’ll go. I only wish I had a thousand and one nights to spend there.
In the afternoons I had tea with an old man who sat cross-legged in the lobby at El Minzah. He gave me postcards and a wristwatch and good stories. In the evenings I shared a glass of wine in a Spanish tapas bar in the hotel with a Dutch woman who sold paintings all day on the patio. I spent an afternoon with an expatriate American from California who took me to brunch on the cliffs overlooking the spot where the Mediterranean and the Atlantic kiss, their colors commingling in the sunlight — blue and seafoam green. The hotel there is called Le Mirage, a place of Elysian loveliness and civility, with broad steps cascading down to the sea.
Nearby, we visited the Grotto of Hercules. The wall of this cave has a window-cut into the stone creating a perfect silhouette of the continent of Africa.
Of course I’m well aware that I’m being given a highly elite sneak-peek at Morocco. Yes, resorts and cruise ships are lovely, but that’s not what I cherish about this land. The people, the places, the things that are my Morocco — these are what feed my thirsty soul.
Last night I had pizza with two college students — sweet kids, clearly in love. Curious about America, my family and my faith, they asked, “What do most Americans think of Muslims? Do they understand that we are no different than they are? We’re peaceful people. We hate violence. We were horrified by 9/11, too!”
Walking back from the pizzeria, streetlights winked at me and the sea breeze caressed my skin as I considered those kids and their Coca Colas and realized how much I love Morocco.
When I was in my twenties, I once was stranded in a Mexican airport for eight hours, so I passed the time talking to a man who ran a gift shop in the terminal. He told me, “Little adventure girl, you cannot run scurry, scurry from love. If you have no love, you are not living in all the world.”
Now, years later on the road to Tangiers, I remember those words. But today, I am no longer scurrying away from love or even journeying blindly toward it. I am here in the moment, loving my life, living in all the world.
In the morning, they’ll round up the usual suspects at the Casablanca airport, and I’ll fly home, but one day I will return to my Morocco.
Something tells me this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
IF YOU GO …
Le Mirage
P.P. 2198 Tangiers, Morocco
Tel 212 39 33 33 32
E-mail: mirage@iam.net.ma
Web site: lemirage-tanger.com
El Minzah Hotel
85, Rue de la Liberté
90 000 Tangiers, Morocco
Tel:+212 (39) 93.58.85
+212 (39) 93.78.44
Toll Free: 0.8000.37.44 (Morocco only)
Fax:+212 (39) 93.45.46
E-mail: (General Information) info@elminzah.com
Reservations: reservation@elminzah.com
Web site: www.elminzah.com
Kasbah Hotel Xaluca, Arfoud
Ctra. Arfoud a Errachidia,
Apartado de Correos 205
Marruecos, Morocco
Tel: 00212 55578450/51/52
E-mail: xaluca@xalucamaadid.com and
lluis@xalucamaadid.com
www.xalucamaadid.com
Sofitel Thalassa Marina, Smir Resort
Route de Sebta, BP 76893200
Tetouan, Morocco
Tel: (+212) 39/971234
E-mail: H2959@accor.com
Moevenpick Hotel & Casino, Malabata
Route de Malabata, Baie de Tanger
90000 Tangiers, Morocco
Phone +212 39 329300 50
Fax +212 39 941909
E-mail: hotel.tangier.casino@moevenpick.com
www.movenpick.com
