The mystery or Morocco

By Richard de Orizaba

I made a trip to Algeria to negotiate some bulk wine deals. Algeria is a Muslim country and yet they produce a great deal of wine most of which is destined for France to be consumed as ordinary table wine. I had to secure some source of bulk wine for our lower lines and have them reinforced with cheap Algerian wine. Algeria is to me a total waste as far as tourism or the gay life. I did my business and got out as soon as I could. I then flew into Casablanca and traveled to Marraquesh. There I stayed at a guest house which seems to be the only openly gay establishment in all of Morocco. The Ryad Kh' missa, a gay owned and operated guesthouse which will make you discover or relive the charm of Morocco in an authentic and warm frame. Ryad Kh' missa is ideally situated in the most convenient location In the middle of Marrakech's historical center, the Riad Dar Karma combines tradition and modern amenities, in a delightful and quiet luxury. The pool and the hammam, as well as the patios, the terrace and the bedrooms invite you to rest and chill out.

Ideally located inside of Marrakech medina's walls, the Riad Dar Karma is a high place of the Kasbah quarter, not too far from the Saadian tombs and from both HH Hassan II's and HH Mohamed VI's Royal Palaces. The mansion that is now the hotel once belonged to HH Mohamed V's official French translator.

Myths and Realities

Intro: Morocco is an ancient civilization steeped in history and hormones, a gold mine for the archeologist and psychologist. If you go looking for the gay 'scene' in Morocco, you won't find it, and if you're not looking, guy-sex situations will likely unfold. Paradoxical and elusive, male sexuality in Morocco is veiled, ambiguous in meaning, easily bisexual and not used for identity. Here, young men and women mix casually and easily in public. Many women wear robes and veils, and many more go about their business in western skirts, jeans and pants. A breezy public freedom for both genders is found here more than in other stricter Muslim countries. Morocco, to a casual outsider, appears a cheerful place to wake up in the morning. It appears both familiar and exotic.

These relative freedoms, however, don't alter the masculine tenor of this culture. There are no women driving cars or steering those infamous Mercedes taxis that pack in eight people. No women are to be seen in the countless coffee bars along the crooked streets. Only leathery males sitting with their muddy coffee or tea staring at TV soccer matches. Men also attend to the pint-sized shops packed closely together in the souks, whether it's a barber shop, tobacco shop or butcher shop. Men are the merchants and women (married with kids) are busy at home with food and shelter; barefoot and pregnant.

Hidden Realities

Men also have the prerogative of sex in this Arab culture, especially younger unmarried men. Even though denied intimate contact with women for religious and cultural reasons, few men are virgins on their wedding night--and virtually all men get married here.

Among premarital men, male-to-male intimacy is a common, temporary, convenient and secretive form of sexual contact. This bonding is a sort of masculine rite of passage from puberty to manhood. However such intimacy does not identify them, to themselves or each other, as 'homosexual'. This ambiguity wrapped in paradox is an informal matter for Moroccans and an enigma for uninformed western visitors. The best way to understand it, as an outsider, is to see visit the streets of Morocco and let the experience happen.

If you ask me, I was a bit paranoid, because I didn’t know if I even looked at a dude he might be offended and follow me then get beat up or killed. When I walked through those arches and noticed the street getting narrower, I began to get the same sensation as when I used to walk home from school and was met by the boys who beat me. Yes it was exciting, and yes I enjoyed it. I wish that three or four Moroccan butch studs would grab me and rape me in one of those alleys, and at the same time, I was walking around with butterflies in my stomach.

Modern Morocco is a place with more paved roads than 10 of its African neighbors combined, where satellite dishes atop stucco roofs beam in global images from afar, where in a few short years all trade barriers with its giant brother Europe to the north will be abolished. It's a shining example amid troubled neighbors Algeria, mired in civil conflict, and Mauritania, one of the most destitute countries on earth. But Morocco is also a country where humans drenched in poverty drown while trying to cross the Strait of Gibraltar to prosperous Spain, where tired donkeys pull lemon carts across open sewers, where half of 30 million people cannot read or write.

Morocco is ruled in mythical fashion by a new modern king with a genial fist, and it's slowly becoming poised to lift itself up from its long history of conquest, like the legendary city of Marrakech, nestled deep in the center of the country behind the Atlas Mountains, it is, like most places once populated with hippies, now a magnet for those with money and taste. During my first night in the city, I sauntered down the wide avenue from the art deco palace of La Mamounia (Morocco's most famous and lush hotel) past a 12th-century minaret and onward to the pulsing heart of the city, the Djeema el-Fna. Like something out of a dream, this Greek demigod Atlas when he held up the sky from here. Huge Open Square rose toward me--the reverberations of ancient flutes, the tang of roasting meats, the clicking of horse-drawn carriages, the calls of fortune-tellers and touts. Throngs of robed men crowded around spectacles like friendly impromptu boxing matches, swirling dances, and gambling games. A maze-like labyrinth souk (an old marketplace of narrow alleys) beckoned beyond. Bowles once said that without the ageless Djeema el-Fna, Marrakech would just be another city. The passage of time has no meaning in a place like this anyway--the overflowing energy of life is a constant, despite the ancient mud walls built around the city in an attempt to keep it hedged in. To most Muslims, the crusades happened last week and the last Moor king left Spain just last month.

The present king is rumored to be homosexual--but since it is a crime to speak ill of him in any way, don't expect to hear much above whispers. But then, gay identity in most parts of the developing world is a luxurious aspiration. Most marriages in Morocco are still arranged, women are cloistered away, and men form strong emotional bonds with one another that can be easily mistranslated by foreigners.

Marrakech has surpassed the sordid port of Tangier as the contemporary gay capital of Morocco, thanks mainly to the influx of Westerners who open up riads (guesthouses) in the city. I could feel the homo vibe of the place when young men kept eyeing me in the square. I was uncertain if they were pickpockets, simply curious, or outright cruising. I had been warned that what could look like homosexual flirting could also be a setup for stealing money--and they were firmly tracing the steps of tourists, not locals. I decided to play it safe and dismiss their advances. Sure, I had heard bona fide stories of male brothels existing into the '70s, but just a couple of months before my arrival a gay British tourist had been jailed for having sex with a local lad. And in 2004 a Moroccan newspaper reporter had been thrown in the slammer for implying that the minister of finance was having homosexual trysts at a seaside resort.

But where else besides public spaces would gay men meet? Morocco has no gay infrastructure of queer bars, restaurants, or hotels anywhere in the country. Furtive glances seem to line every café, every alleyway--leading to the mystery and sensuality.

In Marrakech, I spoke with designer and architect Bill Willis, a well-known fixture of the local expatriate community since the '60s. "I stay away from the street boys in the square," he warns. "Anyway, I have two boyfriends here, and of course they are both happily married. Muslims don't have Christian or Jewish guilt. There are no categories of gay and straight," he explains. "Marrakech is full of courtyards behind closed doors. And no one cares what goes on behind closed doors."

Willis's words echoed in my mind as Driss took me on tours of Marrakech's hidden architectural gems--most of which take the forms of ancient, elaborate courtyards and palaces once filled with sultans and concubines, carefully hidden from the world outside. The Ali ben Youssef Medersa (a theological college 1800s) Palais de la Bahia, richly decorated with intricate ceilings and elaborately carved doors. Tourists may come to Morocco for its arid beaches, its deserts, its monuments, and its architecture, but invariably they are smitten by the nation's greatest allure--its pulsating, living culture. And Marrakech, once the government capital and now the indisputable tourist capital, has culture in abundance. You needn't go much farther than this city to get all of what Morocco promises. The place is distinctively Berber (an ancient, non-Arab race of people indigenous to Morocco). It's a culture known for its richly ornate details in its decorative arts. Morocco's history may be one of conquest by Romans, Vandals, Arabs, Spanish, and French (in that order), but the robust Berbers remained a thorn in each occupier's side. You can spot the Berber pride in how the young men strut about the streets, with a confident air that echoes centuries of staunchly defended free will.

"At first, it seemed like the people were tough and it took me a long time to understand," Ania, a German riad owner in Marrakech told me. "But in the end, this is an easygoing place where things are fluid and there is a solution to everything. The culture here is very deep."

I watched women in veils pass by our car as we left the pink stucco confines of Marrakech and passed through poorer villages straight into the harshness of the Atlas Mountains. We were headed to a little town at over 5,000 feet elevation called Imlil, about an hour and a half south of Marrakech. A river valley with agricultural terraces lay below the town, and above us loomed Jebel Toubkal, North Africa's highest mountain at 13,167 feet--part of the thick wall Berbers call the "Mountain of mountains." Here my bags were packed on a mule, and Driss and I climbed up a steep rocky path to the Kasbah du Toubkal. "You are going to fall in love with this place here," he prophesied. It was a centuries-old garrison-cum-luxury tourist lodge at the top of the world, framed by peaks heavy with a curtain of snow and ice. Martin Scorsese filmed Kundun here, to mimic the Himalayas of Tibet. Trekkers from around the world come here to hike the magical rocky folds.

After checking in I donned a hooded, robe-like jellaba and headed up into the valley on a trail behind the ancient Kasbah. Old villages clung on to the steep slopes of the rough terrain on the sides of the valley. I soon passed a boy of about 12, also in a jellaba, who sang out to me, "Are you American?"

I thought I was blending in, but perhaps not. "Yes."

"Welcome to my country," he beamed. "Where are you from?"

"I live in Texas."

"Oh." His expression grew despondent. "That Osama bin Laden, he is a bad man."

I looked up at him. "Yes."

"We are happy you are here." He burst into a huge smile as he turned away, and the deep sunset followed his disappearing shape down the mountain.

I reached the top of the trail and gazed down the valley as it darkened, home fires beginning to sparkle down its length. The desert stars became flush with the night; you could see so far into the sky, you felt like you were looking back on yourself. I thought about the men and children in the villages and how they abided despite the crushing snow and statistics against their survival. I thought about my own aunt who passed away years ago, who loved The Sheltering Sky but never had a chance to see this place, and I grew heavy with the weight of opportunities forever lost. I thought about how many people may never see this place, and although it was sad, there was some comfort in knowing it would always exist here anyway in its own content vacuum. And I thought about how much like that starry sky back in the mountain just outside of Santiago, Chile; where I witnessed the most beautiful jeweled studded sky. It is the clearest night sky I had seen and now this one was about the same.

The King of Morocco is young and handsome

Accommodations

Expensive: You can't say you've been to Marrakech without at least stopping by La Mamounia (Avenue Bab Jdid; 212-4438-8600; $275-$3,500), which opened in 1923. Its modernist art deco-meets-North Africa style is as distinctive as it gets, and it's still in great shape after a renovation a few years back. The acres of quiet gardens (surrounded by the city's 12th-century ochre-colored walls) are a welcome respite from the city's commotion. For a fully Moroccan experience, stay in the lavish Menzeh Suite, and the ornate Le Marocain Restaurant is to die for. If you're visiting the city of Fez, be sure to stay at the 11-suite Riad Maison Bleue (33 Derb el mitter talaa el Kabira; $338 including breakfast). It's housed in an elaborate 18th-century Andalusian-style palace built in 1900 that was once home to the famous Moroccan philosopher Lahbabi Aziz (who was nominated for a Nobel Prize). There's a gorgeous courtyard with swimming pool, fruit trees, mosaic pillars, and a rooftop patio restaurant overlooking the city's ancient ramparts. It can be very cruisy and there are lots of young men for rent. Inexpensive-Moderate: Kasbah du Toubkal (Imlil; $132-$530) was rebuilt in 1990 from the ruins of a wealthy mountaintop house. Its mountain views are sweeping, food is excellent, and the magnificent structure includes terraces, a hamman, gardens, towers, and richly decorated rooms. In Essaouira, a popular seaside resort town two hours from Marrakech, check into the gay-owned Riad Gyvo (3 rue Mohamed ben Messaoud; 212-4447-5102; $107-$150). It's a classic example of a swank Moroccan homestead, with stylish furnishings, open courtyard, white stucco rooftop overlooking the ocean, and friendly Belgian owners. There are of course the hangers on….men who would do anything for the almighty dollar. I took advantage of this and had a couple come up to my room.

That was my first real Moroccan, a dude with an incredible body, he worked out he told me, his hair cropped short and he had an attempt at a beard. He was handsome and very willing to let me have my way with him…for a price. We agreed at $50.00 which I thought was a bargain, considering how hot this dude was.

I gave him a blow job and he asked me if I wanted him to fuck me. He spoke French very well and I told him to look at my cock and then ask the question: do you think I like to get fucked? I didn’t need to say more. He knew if he pushed the issue, I was going to ask him to bottom for me and that would be totally unacceptable.

Since it is well known facts that the owners are gay and so are the guests, there is a constant parade of rent-a-boys hanging around and tempting you with their smiles and their constant groping. I could not resist the temptation and asked to my room a few of them after the owner gave me the green light. You see, some are not just hustlers but thieves and if he had any trouble in the past with any of them, he would drive them away from the hotel.

The following day I had about four hangers-on in the lobby and they all made it clear they were there to be rented. I suppose the guy from yesterday told them about me. So I did become friendly with one that was by our standards a black dude. His name was Mahmud. In Morocco the race lines are murky, but when I had him naked, There was the familiar nappy pubic hair and of course, as religion dictates he was circumcised. He did have one of the largest dicks I have had in a long time and this one I decided that I hadn’t been fucked in a long time and he probably would be very good at it. He was, what a fuck he gave me, his dick must have been a good 11 inches and thick. He so enjoyed it, I lost the notion that he was doing it for the money. But I knew better. He did last a long time, long enough to make me cum twice and that is an accomplishment.

Restaurants
Inexpensive-Moderate: The Café-Restaurant Argana (1 Souk Jdid, Djeema el-Fna; 212-4444-5350) is a restaurant perched above the main square in Marrakech, perfect for sipping mint tea and watching the colorful drama unfold below. Expensive: Le Stylia (34 rue Ksour; 212-4444-0505; $60 prix fixe) is one of Marrakech's opulent "palace restaurants," with indoor fountains, carved walls and balconies, gloved waiters, and rose petals strewn on the carpet.

Nightlife
Rumor has it that the Diamant Noir (Avenue Mohammed V; 212-4443-4351), with three bars and a huge dance floor, is more gay than other clubs--although it may be hard to weed out the gay from the gay-for-pay.

Although you could try to figure out Morocco on your own, I made use of the services of gay-owned Heritage Tours, since it can hook you up with gay-friendly local tour guides who can give incredible insight into the country as well as book all of your hotels, airfare, and transportation throughout the whole of Morocco from the comfort of an 800 number. Heritage will give you the honest lowdown on what to expect, where the highlights and lowlights are, and how to get the most from Morocco. The lesbian-owned Amber Tours offers individualized healing retreats that include yoga sessions, massage and water therapies, and cultural workshops. Royal Air Maroc is a decent, modern airline with the only nonstop service to Morocco from the States (via Casablanca), so unless you want to unnecessarily add a European layover into the mix, stick with it. Besides Royal Air Maroc has some of the best middle eastern cuisine on board second to none.

Abdullah is a guy that hangs around the hotel and does errands for the owner. He is in his late twenties and has a very nice body. He had very dark café au lait skin but his eyes were as green as could be. I asked the owner and he told me that indeed Abdullah can be had for the right price, but most interesting he said is that the son of a bitch has a gigantic cock.

The next time I saw him I noticed his huge hands and his week old beard. It was black and thick, very attractive on him. Abdullah knew I was looking at him so he turned a little and groped himself.

I got up from the chair and put down the newspaper I was reading and walked over to where he was. I asked him point blank if he would like to come up to my room, did not say for what or explained. I figured if he groped himself he was conscious what the reason was.

Abdullah sat on the red couch and his English was very limited so we switched to French in which he was much fluent. Abdullah was not Moroccan but Algerian and had been to France. He was of mixed heritage, somewhere in there he had some French blood, which explained the green eyes.

I watched his every move and wanted to see what he would do. His muscle shirt lived up to its name, showing off the sexy contours of his well-worked arms. And his jeans cling to his lower half like wrapping paper does on that big gift that has been calling your name under the tree since Thanksgiving. He lifts his shirt to reveal rock solid abs with something not often seen on black guys, copious swirls of dark curls that become denser until they fan out across his well-etched pecs. As this dude works his pants down, the outline of his cock inside his white shorts makes it look like he is smuggling a whole cucumber or zucchini in his underwear - and I don’t doubt the actual cause of that obscenely large outline will prove to be just as tasty. Rubbing that massive heap, like a rightfully proud papa caressing his baby, as he tugs on the waistband, I know I am about to make a delivery. And oh yes…it’s a boy! I pulled his cut dick out and attempted to suck it. No luck there, the mother fucker had one gigantic schlong.

Lying back across his stomach, that dark cock looks like a just-beached whale flopping on the beach with the tip of that pulsating head closer to his pecs than his navel. The moans are almost primal as he stands and begins to stroke with an underhand grip. Though due to the sheer girth of his shaft, his fingers can barely make it all the way around. When he lets that mighty cock swing in the air, the extraordinary distance between that thick, dark bush and the even thicker pink cockhead showcases just how oversized his equipment actually is, complete with just the kind of channel-like vein required to deliver the blood supply to get something this massive this hard. The look on his face resonates with the crest of pleasure as the tightness of his balls, in combination with double-time stroking, coax a huge ten splat load in a continuous white ribbon, to land all over those hard abs and I was there to lap it all up. It was sweet and still warm. I of course came at the time I swallowed the first mouthful I scooped up.

The one and only incursion I made into an openly gay establishment was when the owner of the hotel invited me to go for drinks at this place the Diamant Noir where gay people usually congregate. We came into the joint, sat down and ordered drinks. The drinks did not come but what did come in was a swarm of policemen who were raiding the place and intent on carrying everyone to jail. That included me and the owner of the hotel.

These guys were rough and we were loaded into paddy wagons. There were a total of fifty three people arrested and charged with lewd and lascivious behavior. When I was questioned, I had the misfortune of dealing with this asshole that was very arrogant and verbally abusive. I had my limits and finally told him that I was an American citizen and that he had no reason to hold neither me nor any one in that place as it was a blatant violation of human rights.

Finally the American embassy got involved and took us out. I left the country and took a lot of measures to have this kind of activity condemned through the Human Rights Foundation and even the State Department which being in the Bush era, wasn’t going to do anything about it.

A blog worth looking at: http://yodi967.blogspot.com/