Usual Suspects Head for Casablanca

Story by MIA TAYLOR: Travel /The patriot Ledger, August 22, 1998

Five stars!” exclaimed 50 years -old Mohammed Chraibi, standing in his brown Djellaba and sandals and gazing at the tiny Moroccan village of Bhalil, his home town and a place he ranks second to none.
Nestled in the Moroccan countryside in a narrow mountain Valley, Bhalil is a picturesque community of about 1,500 where the homes are awash in pastel hues of pink, yellow and blue. Just 30 minutes from the bustling city f Fez, life in Bhalil remains simple . Most of the residents live in two or three room stone homes perched on the valley walls. A river clusters of women gather to wash laundry.
About 40 families live in caves carved from the mountainside hundreds of years ago. Chraibi, the village’s only tour guide, is one of these cave dwellers. He, his children and in-laws share a cave furnished with the amenities of modern life, including a radio, television and refrigerator.
Like many of the gracious people my husband and I encountered on a visit to Morocco, Chraibi welcomes strangers into his home for tea and conversation a moment’s notice.
For many Americans, Morocco conjures up image of dusty desert towns, mysterious men wearing blue turbans, veiled women and Humphry Bogart’s Casablanca. Recently because of the Persian Gulf War and explosion of terrorist bombs at tourist sites in Egypt, travel to North Africa and Islamic countries has taken an intimidating air.
But morocco, at the westernmost edge of Africa, has remained apart of these tensions. A lot of this protection comes from The Rif Atlas mountains, which are natural barriers to the out side world.. More of it comes from the laid-back attitude of its inhabitants.
The country is only slightly large than Texas, yet it offers much more just vast expanses of desert. our visit included long walks along scenic beaches, treks through remote mountain villages, rolling countryside dotted by olives trees, and bustling cosmopolitan cities where snake charmers and storytellers still hold court.
what makes a trip to Morocco special is the ongoing dance between old and new , and the warm, gracious people who bring the country and its varied traditions to life.
Which brought Chraibi to the second five-star item on his list- his mother-in-law was waiting to serve us some of Morocco’s famous mint tea.
Her grand son, a lanky boy with deep, sleepy brown eyes, led us up a narrow winding path through a clustered homes perched on the hillside. After several twist and turns. the path emerged in a small clearing amid a row of cave entrances. Each cave opening is tucked between two protruding stone walls which create small semi-private front yards.
Between one of these sets of stone walls is chraibi’s home. The entrance to the cave is at the end of a neatly kept walkway of smooth square stones. Tall pink flowers line the path. The doorway is surrounded by vines of flowers dangling from the hillside above. A wooden door frame is painted turquoise, and the village’s pastel theme is continued on the interior walls, which are turquoise and yellow.
Just inside, to the left, is an archway covered with a hanging curtain. Through it our hostess emerged, carrying a steaming silver tea pot.

Mint tea, the most popular drink in Morocco, is made by adding a few strings of mint to green tea and then saturating with sugar. Nearly every visit in Morocco, whether to a home or a store, begins with the tea ceremony.
The tea is poured by holding the pot far above the glass so that bibles rise the surface of the beverages. There is always a second pour, to fill your glass. No matter how humble the household, the teapot is invariably silver.
In Morocco’s big cities is not unusual to see a woman striding confidently down the street in a miniskirt. But most women in rural villages remain veiled and shy away from peering eyes and camera lenses. Chraibi’s mother in--law is a mix of both worlds. she dresses in long skirts and wraps her head in a scarf. but shyness is placed with a welcoming, curios attitude toward the tourist, she invites into her home.
We noticed that she had three small, circular, swirling tattoos on her face. One on her chin, an other on her tip of her nose and a third on her forehead. With Chraibi interpreting, we learned that Berber women tattoo their hands, feet and faces to attract a mate. If women wants to get married quickly, she begins tattooing her chin early as 13 years old, Once engaged, she tattoos hen nose. upon getting married, a tattoo is added on the forehead.
The tattoo design is drawn on the skin first with a pen or pencil. Then a pin is used to prick the skin in the design. After that, black ashes are spread in the bleeding pin-pricked skin. when the skin heals, the black ash design is trapped inside.

---

Thought rural Morocco we enjoyed several encounters, with people like chraibi and his mother-in-law thanks to the way we chose to travel.  Instead of a travel package tour, we hired a car and a driver who spoke both Arabic and English fluently. We arranged our trip through a small travel agency in Virginia, owned by Hassan Samrhouni, a native on Morocco whose extended family continues to live in his home land.

Our adventure began with our guide 26-years old Abdellah Mouhsine, greeting us at the airport in Casablanca. Mouhsine drives tourists around Morocco to support the parents and siblings. He learned the trade from his father, who spent the bulk of his life working as a tour guided retired at 50. The responsibility of supporting the family then fell to Mouhsine, the oldest male in the family.
After inquiring about our comfort on the five-hour flight from New York, Mouhsine had our luggage whisked to the car for us and within moments we were headed toward our first destination, Rabat, the capital of Morocco since 1912.
Rabat is a fairly modern city, with broad, tree-lined avenue , cinemas, bookstores, blocks of apartment buildings and more a million inhabitants. spending a day or two there is a nice way to ease into a visit to Morocco.
We visited the Imperial palace, the marketplace, the 12th century Hassan tower and mosque, and the lavish tomb of King Mohammed V. the present King’s father, who died in 1961.

---

The remote, 15th-centry Muslim village of Chechaouen was our second destination. this is a charming village where the houses are painted in contrasting shades of blue and white. In addition to its striking physical beauty, Chechaouen is place that has barley been touched by tourism and a result provides a peaceful view of traditional small-town Moroccan life.
Just outside Rabat, Mouhsine surprised us with a stop at the musee Dar Belghazi. a Museum in dark wooden balconies. The building is on a lush plot of land with large drooping trees. tucked behind a tall stone wall, the whole place was reminiscent of once-grand plantation in the southern United States whose glory days have come and gone.
The museum was dimly lit and the display somewhat haphazard, but it contained a vast and impressive collection of Morocco antiques. It was a good introduction to the quality craft that produced in Morocco; during our visit, we were barraged with dozens variation throughout the country.
One of the most interesting parts of the collection waste intricately embroidered Morocco wedding belts. Morocco brides used to sew these dazzling multi-colored belts to wear as part of their wedding attire. Throughout the wedding day a bride change outfits and adjust the belt to reveal a section of color that match the current outfit.
The tradition of making wedding belts ,one antiques dealer told us, has been abandoned in favor of slightly more modern attire. The wedding belts remain have become collector’s items.
After leaving the outskirts of Rabat, the road to chefchaouen taken you through the Rif mountains, which rise immediately south of the Mediterranean coast and run parallel to the shore. We drove though orchards of olive trees, passing herbs of sheep and children trotting along on donkeys..
That evening, as the sun set , we snacked on homemade bread dipped in freshly pressed olive oil. We discovered this treat just before arriving in Chefchaouen in one-room, mud-roofed building, the building contained an olive press operated by Koutbi abdel-Latif; Mouhsine had spotted Latif’s olive press and decided it was a good place foe us to rest.
Though Latif’s did not speak English with Mouhsine our translator there was no problem. The owner was more than happy to stop his work, offer us some mint tea, give a demonstration of how olive oil is made and pose for photos.

---

The next day, after an early morning walking tour of Chefchaouen, we departed for Fez.
Located in northern Morocco. Fez has a population of half million and is divided into three parts. Old Fez, a Muslim immunity dating back to 9th-centry, is filled with bustling narrow alleys that remain inaccessible to cars. New Fez, a 13-centry imperial city, is dominated by the royal palace. The third section is the Mellah or old Jewish ghetto.
We spent two days discovering Fez’s secret-mostly in the old city, which is completely encircled by a 10-mile wall punctuated with grand arches and entrances. Hiring a guide to navigate old Fez’s unmarked winding, maze-like alleys a must. Mouhsine found us one who had grown up there.
Old Fes is the most complete medieval Islamic city in the World. Our first venture into its twisting and turning alleyways was like a walk back through time. On one corner was a blacksmith’s stall, and the alley was the man who repairs teapots. On another corner, rows of men who sharpens work in tiny stalls that the cobblestone walkways.
Every neighborhood contains its own bakery and Koranic school each morning before school, young children scurry through the streets, transporting trays of freshly mixed bread dough from home to local baker. While they’re at school, the dough is baked in a large communal brick oven. On their way home for lunch, the children stop at the baker’s to retrieve the finished product for the family’s after noon and the evening meals.
In the dyers marketplace liquid pools of deep blue and magenta bathed the alley. old jeans were being dipped into steaming buckets of dye, reemerging a crisp shade of blue or black for continued use. Vibrant magenta bundles of freshly dyed wool and jeans hung side by side to dry.

---

After Fez, we headed for the Sahara, to visit the Morocco of travel books and Hollywood movies, but on our way, we again ventured off the beaten path.
Mouhsine had been promising us a traditional Moroccan barbecued lunch since the start of the trip, and he chose to share this treat with us in a dusty crossroads reminiscent of the old west. A trading post for desert travelers, Zeida has only one short main street, where Moroccans shop, play soccer or simply sit and watch the cars, people and time pass.
We picked out a piece of fresh lamb dandling in front of a butcher’s stall and took it to a young man down the street who barbecued it at a roadside grill while we sat at a picnic table and watched.
The meat was coated in spices and grilled to perfection.
We also had a pot a lamb tagine, which is similar to lamb stew. the meat , served in a delicious light brown broth amid fresh vegetables, was so tender falling off the bone.
We sopped up the broth with freshly baked bread and washed our meal down with a bottle of coke and a pot of tea - all for about $10.
As dusk settled, we arrived at the oasis town of Erfoud.
Here the houses are built of clay the same color as the desert sand. Group of women shrouded in black or purple veils scurried by mysteriously. Lush green palm trees learned grandly over the main road. This was the Morocco of romance.
Early one morning, we hired a land rover to take us into the desert to watch the sun rise. In the cold , predawn darkness we scrambled to the pot of a steep sand dune.
For hours we sat mesmerized-first by the vast expanse of stars in the deep blue sky above us. and then by the moles of dunes before us that became less and less a shadowy mystery as the sun crept over the horizon.

---

Our final afternoon was spent exploring the seaside village of Essaouira, one of the most enchanting town on the Moroccan coast.
The old town and port are circled by 18th-century battlements perched on a rocky shoreline. overlooking the sea. A sandy bay sweeps to the south, and wooded hills loom to the east. The population is a mix of fishermen and craftsmen, tourists and youth.
Orson wells filmed some of “ Othello” and jimmy Hendrix and Cat Steven lingered on its streets. we spent the afternoon walking along cobblestone alleys lined with whitewashed houses and peering into woodcarver’s shops.
That evening, we dined on grilled seafood at a portside picnic table. The cook was the fisherman who had spent the day catching our meal. We enjoyed several plates of shining crispy sardines, grilled calamari, a red shellfish similar to lobster, salad and soda- all for about $15. we had so much food that we sheered it with a solitary man sitting next to us.
As the sun set, we chatted wit the fisherman, our neighbor and Mouhsine, learning more about life in Morocco