All aboard the Marrakech Express
Morocco s oasis city is a mecca for tourists seeking all things exotic
With a psychedelic pop soundtrack playing in our heads, my wife Kerry and I board the train to Marrakech in Casablanca.
In three-and-a-half hours we’ll see if Morocco’s interior oasis city lives up to the melodic promises made famous by Crosby, Stills and Nash in the 1969 hit, “Marrakech Express.” As the song promises, will there be “charming snakes in the square” and “striped djellabas we can wear”?
Graham Nash penned the tune after a 1966 visit to Morocco during which he took the train from Casablanca to Marrakech to party. He bought a first-class ticket, but gravitated to third-class because it had a more interesting cast of characters, from those on the hippie trail experimenting with mind-altering drugs to North Africans travelling with their chickens and cooking on makeshift stoves.
My wife and I remained ensconced in first-class, however. Air Canada has made experiencing Casablanca, Morocco’s business hub and largest city, and catching the Marrakech Express, so much easier with new, non-stop, seven-hour, year-round flights between Montreal and Casablanca.
We arrive well-rested after flying business class and spend a couple of days in Casablanca at the oceanfront Four Seasons Hotel. We take in The White City’s four greatest hits: camel rides on the beach, the massive Hassan II Mosque, souks (markets) in the walled Medina quarter of the Old City — and Rick’s Café, the restaurant inspired by the 1942 Oscarwinning movie, “Casablanca.” But Marrakech beckons.
We won’t indulge in any psychedelic substances while in Marrakech, but we will discover why it’s the exotic, bucket-list hot spot for an international torrent of tourists from backpacking university students and hipsters to well-heeled families and baby boomers. As Nash recounted, there are still snake charmers in the square; that square being the famous Jemaa-el-Fna.
The massive square is also home to monkeys in diapers, an endless array of food stalls, criss-crossing motorcycles, stray cats and aggressive vendors selling everything from pointed slippers to djellabas, the simple robe worn by Arab men and women. It’s a cacophony of sights, sounds and smells that both alarms and enchants us.
The rest of our stay in Marrakech will be more tranquil and befitting of the baby boomers that we are.
The Red City, so called for the earthy ochre colour of most of its low-slung buildings, is well-known for the 500 riad hotels (small establishments, usually family-run) in the Medina.
A riad is traditionally a grand house with a courtyard. When converted to a hotel, the results are spectacular.
We stayed at Marrakech’s original riad hotel, the one that started the trend 20 years ago, La Maison Arabe.
Owned by Prince Fabrizio Ruspoli of Italy, La Maison Arabe is actually six side-by-side riads with stables transformed into a luxury, boutique hotel with 26 rooms and suites. The result is a network of accommodations, hallways, stairs, courtyards, cosy piano bar, spectacular pool surrounded by a restaurant and even a cooking school and country club annex just out of town with pool, gardens and patio restaurant.
We’re upgraded to the Royal Suite, a three-level townhouse with main floor living room, second floor bedroom and rooftop terrace. We hide away in the luxury as much as possible, but there’s more of Marrakech and Morocco to see. A day trip to the nearby Atlas Mountains with guide-and-driver Youssef Aitmizan of Oubihi Trans, arranged through La Maison Arabe, is breathtaking.
In the Berber village of Imlil, everyone seems to be riding a donkey, which is known as the Berber fourby-four. Indeed, these beasts of burden can be mounted to ascend the steep and rocky trail to Kasbah du Toubkal, the mountaintop hotel that boasts a National Geographic Unique Lodges of the World designation.
Instead, we hike the 15 minutes with guide Hussein to have a lunch of traditional Moroccan lamb tagine stew on the Kasbah’s rooftop. We’re awed to be on top of the world.
Back at La Maison Arabe we’ll learn how to make our own tagine, this time with chicken, at the riad hotel’s cooking school, the first and most prestigious in Marrakech. Chef Ayada shows us how to prepare her version of this staple dish, cooked in a clay pot called a tagine, with a secret mix of 27 North African spices.
We feast on the results in the cooking school’s sun-dappled courtyard, declaring ourselves talented chefs while sipping a glass of Moroccan Domaine de Sahari rosé wine and listening to live santeria guitar.