Riads au Maroc
A Prince of A Place
Morocco

A storyteller, straw hat pulled over his djellaba hood, leans over his crooked cane towards the circle of Moroccans who labor to catch every word. Sometimes a story will go for weeks, each night’s ending a new beginning, like Scheherezade who transformed the sinister king in "One Thousand and One Nights." Faces, some veiled, bunch around magicians, healers and fortune tellers lit by hissing gas lamps. Robed women hunch over other women’s hands, embroidering intricate designs on them with henna pushed from a syringe. Marrakech’s nightly Djemaa el-Fna festival is in full swing.

Like locals, we bring coins to the Djemaa el-Fna. These entertainers earn their living from tips. They have since this festival began—back in the Middle Ages. Pictures, by the way, are extra—extra coin and extra hassle and so are the touts. Few, however, pull at our sleeves. We’ve learned the old-Moroccan-hand look, but we aren’t old hands. Ruth Anne and I are old school chums out for something more intriguing than attending our thirty-fifth high school reunion. Morocco’s the closest far-away-place we could manage. Thanks, however, to a Marrakechi we’ve never met, we bag the royal treatment and are acclimatizing fast.

Our Prince, as we like to think of him, suggests total, but gentle immersion. Actually, all he did was recommend a riad, but that was enough. Riads are the traditional city homes of well-to-do extended families and, of late, tourists. Ours is deep inside the medina, Marrakech’s walled city, over a mile north from the action-packed and challenging Djemaa el-Fna. Ten miles of rose-colored ramparts, built in the twelfth century enclose the medina. That’s when Marrakech became an imperial city, but she’d been an oasis for gold-carrying caravans since time out of mind.

Staying at Riad Laïla is like staying in time out of mind. Arriving after midnight in the dark medina, I struggle to keep up with the cab driver our Prince sent for me. I reach Riad Leïla breathless. At the end of a dark anteroom, the interior courtyard materializes, magical with moonlight and scented by jasmine. A lantern’s flame shimmers on a small pool. Narrow stone steps lead to the sprawling high-ceilinged room where Ruth Anne awaits my arrival.

Another stone stairway climbs to the roof’s terrace where the next morning we breakfast on café au lait and honeycombed semolina pancakes and take-in Marrakech’s busy rooftop scene. Neighboring roof dwellers wave. Feral cats creep. Palm fronds and wash hang waiting for a breeze. Antennae and cable dishes emboss the ancient earthen walls. To the south, the High Atlas Mountains sit crested with snow.

At night, we lounge on silk cushions in an ornate salon and the amicable Moroccans who manage the riad serve a traditional dinner. Spiced olives, grilled tomatoes and marinated-eggplant salads are followed by a tangine. Tangine is a stew-like concoction and ours is of lamb stewed with artichokes, peas and just thirty-nine spices.

Venturing out, cheerful bonjours and pleasant ça vas welcome us. Tourists rarely stray into this neighborhood so neither do the irksome touts. Wandering paths with three turns that lead to alleys with more, we get lost and then found, getting the hang of the medina—our Prince’s cell phone number stuffed in my pocket—just in case.

After four days, our Prince sends a motor scooter with an attached cart to move us closer to the action. Our neighbors call bon voyage as we whiz off perched atop our luggage. Mustafa, dressed in red from his head to his babouches (Moroccan slipper-shoes) escorts us down the Riad Habib’s long tiled corridor to its cool courtyard. Here banana trees bloom, a fountain flounces and a bowl of ripe peaches sit ready to relish. Now, close enough to the Djemaa el-Fna to photograph the mosque beyond it, we’re ready for action. Memorizing each turn as we leave, we head out to soak in the souqs. "One thousand thank-yous" we learn to call back when we hear "One thousand welcomes," the traditional opening sales pitch. Soon, the merchants along our memorized route recognize us and just wave.

Marrakech is grand, but hot. So, our Prince suggests a few nights in the country and sends a car and driver to ferry us two hours north to the rustic Riad Cascades d’Ouzoud. Overlooking a rugged valley, it sits just above the spot where a river falls one hundred yards, forms pools then continues downstream. We sleep to the cadence of water and wake to the rhythm of horse hoofs. Ruth Anne exhausts her trekking guide, overtaking Berber jeeps—as they call their mules—at each pass. They stop to enjoy a shepherd’s tune that he plays on his homemade oil-tin violin. I exhaust the stale-bread supply feeding birds on the roof’s terrace and talking with Hasna, a young woman from a neighboring village. She’d studied English literature and I learn the intricacies of becoming a certified teacher in Morocco.

Back in Marrakech, our next riad is so close to Djemaa el-Fna we can hear the mosque’s sound system click on before the muezzin begins his Call to Prayer. Prayers I should say, dozens of them. Don’t blame our Prince, he didn’t pick this one. He’s away. Morocco’s popular young King Mohammed VI (MV6 they call him) is getting married this weekend, so we expected our Prince might be busy.

On a final foray for djellabas and babouches, we head for the government-run, fixed-price arts and crafts stores. The guidebooks say we’ll pay more here, but we find it less expensive as we always lose out to Marrakech’s hard-bargaining merchants. We get lost and are being hustled hard, when a shopkeeper from our old neighborhood on his way to the mosque to pray, comes to our rescue. Shooing away the touts, he shepherds us to our destination.

By Kate Crawford        January  2003
Photos by Ruth Anne Kocour

LINKS WITH ATTITUDE

Riads au Maroc has a great web site, with lots of pictures and full descriptions of each of their properties. From their charming and very reasonable dars (small houses) to palatial villas and even fortified kasbahs, each property offers a part of Morocco’s heritage. Each includes Moroccan breakfasts and can provide Moroccan home-cooked meals. Lanterns are assigned to each property, the more lanterns, the more luxury. I checked out a couple of one and two lantern properties, they were clean, small and charming and often shared baths. I stayed in three and four lantern properties, here are the reports on them:

Riad Laïla, Marrakech

Riad Habib, Marrakech

Riad Cascades d’Ouzoud, Ouzoud—check back next week