Mattress Hunting

Finding a mattress seems like such a simple task. How hard can it really be? Well, in Marrakech it’s harder than we thought. We started off looking at the big stores in Gueliz. In princess-and-the-pea style, mattresses were stacked ten feet high, and we got grudging sales people to help us lay them on the floor to try them out. They were all wrapped in dusty plastic – no floor models in sight. One thing that became clear right away is that Moroccans have different tastes in mattresses than we do; they like them hard as planks. Store after store offered the same meager selection and regardless of the price, they were all quite hard. We found one expensive full-size mattress labeled a “California,” and laughed out loud. Far from the California King, stores couldn’t give this mattress away in the Golden State. Salesmen repeatedly told us that the hard mattresses were good for the back, and that we’d never wake up with back pain as people did in softer beds.
We spoke with Hamoud about the problem, and his solution was simple. Have a mattress made. He shook his head at the seemingly foolish idea of having a mattress with coiled springs, and then mimed the agony of being tortured by springs breaking through the surface of the mattress and piercing his back in the night. We asked about Moroccan mattresses, and he told us that mattress makers will come to your house with various combinations of foam, cotton and synthetic stuffing and make a mattress on site. We tried one out but it, too, was quite hard.



We discussed our problem with fellow expats, but nobody had a good answer. It seems that the high-end hotels import their mattresses from Europe regardless of the cost, and most other people make do. We spoke with one couple that was getting ready to sell their too-soft mattress (imported from France) to get a firmer one. We were excited at the prospect of buying this used mattress until they went out shopping for its replacement. Of course, they found out how hard it is to find a decent mattress, and the offer to sell was quickly rescinded.

We finally found a specialized mattress store, and dared to hope. The prices were expensive, but as mattress salesmen love to remind you, you spend a third of your life in bed. Even there, though, all the mattresses were hard. They told us they could special order a softer mattress, but we would have to pay in advance and they didn’t have a sample for us to try before the purchase.




With more house guests arriving soon, we were running out of options. We spoke with a mattress maker friend of Hamoud, who promised that they could make a softer than normal mattress for us. While we were thinking about it, Hamoud pointed out that the door to that particular bedroom was less than five feet tall, and we couldn’t really get a store bought mattress in the room. That simplified our “decision,” and we called the mattress man. Three days later he arrived with the canvas skin of the mattress mostly sewn, and assembled the stuffing in place. The result is softer than others we’ve tried, if perhaps not as soft as we’d like. We now have mattresses for two of our three bedrooms and are trying to decide what to do for the final bed. So far, we've had friends from home lug over books, sheets and maple syrup. Is a nice Serta pillow-top too much to ask? We thought so.