Adventures on The Marrakech Express

To the lyrics of Crosby, Stills and Nash “The Marrakech Express” our porters packed up our Fez acquisitions and we were off to the train station, roller bags in tow. 

The trek down the side of the tracks then ACROSS the tracks with all of our luggage and into the first class train must have been quite a sight! Settling into three compartments, we piled our luggage wherever it would fit (we were a group of 14 but our luggage looked like it was for a group of at least 25!) 



Patti overseeing the luggage



Eventually our train set off, providing us with a variety of scenes along the way including green fields, storks, flocks of sheep and their shepherds, fields of mustard, some vineyards, cypress trees, military posts, and the ever present camels. 

Meknes, Rabat and Casablanca were just a few of the many stops, posing repeated challenges to me as people tried to invade our compartments since I had only booked 14 of the 18 seats.  It was a mad dance to see us moving into and out of compartments with our copious luggage scattered everywhere, including the aisles.

We were all ravenous by noon, so it was time to unpack our picnic lunch lovingly prepared by Fatima back at the Riad.  Alcohol is supposedly not allowed on the Marrakech Express (which is actually a milk train) but that didn’t stop us. I had warned everybody to hide the bottles of wine I distributed, but popping corks gave us away!  In our picnic, we discovered salads of eggplant, carrots and cumin, green peppers, rice and tuna fish, tomato and cucumber, and delicious French cheeses. Hard boiled eggs posed some peeling problems, and our shells were soon ditched in the bathroom for lack of wastebaskets.  The conductor discovered our dalliance but fortunately for us, he just smiled. At least half of our tasty lunch was left so we gave him our leftover bounty at the end of the trip, which he accepted with pleasure.

Our picnic (in red check bag) safely stowed with luggage!

After 7 hours of much hilarity, Marrakech finally came into view around 4pm.  We performed another hysterical transfer of people and baggage across a street with no crosswalk into 2 vans, once again with much muttering in Moroccan as they wedged things in.  I had worried it would be a long train trip, but everyone found it to be a fascinating adventure. 

Finally, we arrive in Marrakech