Marrakesh, 1969

Crosby, Stills and Nash provided part of our 1969 summer soundscape in England, high on the UK hit parades, with inviting lyrics:

Looking at the world through the sunset in your eyes

Travelling the train through clear Moroccan skies …

Sweeping cobwebs from the corners of my mind

Had to get away to see what we could find …

And the catchy chorus:

Would you know we’re riding on the Marrakesh Express?

They’re taking me to Marrakesh. All aboard that train.

I was never sure there was an actual train to Marrakesh and we never thought of taking it, but Marrakesh was one of those destinations of choice for us young travellers of the era, along with Ibiza and Matala, Kathmandu and Goa.

Dyed wool drying in the sun in Marrakesh.

In September 1969 Sean and I headed for Marrakesh, knowing it would be exotic and low cost, though knowing little else of Morocco.

Our travel within Morocco – hitchhiking – involved long waits with sparse traffic. Once, most uncomfortably, a crowd of children started throwing stones at us for their entertainment, but we were rescued by a young Moroccan couple who drove us to Rabat. The next day we scored a lift to Casablanca and then a ride in a Kombi van full of sheepskins for the last 250km to Marrakesh.

I wrote home to Melbourne about the desert city:

Marrakesh is surrounded by palm trees. The French part of the city has wide tree-lined streets, fountains and newish pink-washed concrete buildings. … The colour of the city is pink, all the buildings washed in the same colour. Though in some of the narrow market streets, the souks, which are covered by slats of wood, the stripes of light and shade obscure the colour.

 The wool dyeing area is unforgettable, hung with brilliantly coloured swathes of yarn … Central to the Medina, the old city, is a big square where buses load and unload around the edge – The Place Djemaa El Fna. In the souks, gateways lead off into the mysteries of streets which even a $1 street map can do nothing to unravel. There are many market stalls in the main square, and in the evening, there are snake charmers, storytellers, dancers, all manner of entertainers each with a circle of people around them. Noise, smells, light and dark, crowds – it is all very exciting. 

Street scene Marrakesh, 1969.

After dark in the main square, lots of tables are set up with benches around them. You choose your table and sit and eat, with the movement of the throngs of people going on all around. It’s dark and each table has a kero tilly lamp, smoke rises up from fires. The effect of people moving silhouetted against the smoky light is magic.

Letters home to Melbourne from Morocco.

Trouble is the impossibility of finding places without a guide in this city. To find our hotel one follows Agdal Hotel signs up numerous side streets in the old city. Two storeys around a tiled and treed courtyard – 60 cents each a night … A very good brand of hash is grown in the mountains nearby.

 With the help of a young guide we found the ruins of the El Badi Palace, destroyed in the 17th century and still surrounded by a great wall, with storks’ nests on the corner towers and the sounds of hundreds of pigeons cooing and whirring their wings. A sunken garden of orange trees remained. We explored the Bahia Palace with a courtyard full of ponds and cool trees, scented with jasmine. Here we saw the Sultan’s waiting room and the bedroom of his favourite wife. We had these places to ourselves away from the crowds of the souks and the main square.

Dappled light in the market.

Ah! Magic Marrakesh. The chorus of the Marrakesh Express rang in our ears, and we already knew some of the lines were very pertinent. More than 50 years later I listen again to the lyrics and realise how well the song described the details of our experience of the “coloured cottons” in the air, and “charming cobras in the square”, and we did buy a “striped djellaba to wear” and we certainly “blew smoke rings” in the air.

I now know that there was a real train from Casablanca to Marrakesh on which Graham Nash had enjoyed riding. These days it is named the Al Atlas train and you can book online at moroccotrains.com.

Postscript
I’d been travelling for much of the time since I’d left Melbourne in June 1968 aged 22. First travelled in the USSR, then hitchhiked back and forward through much of Europe, spent some time in London. The Morocco visit in late September 1969 was on the way across north Africa (via Tunis Italy and Greece) to get to Turkey to do the overland trip to Kathmandu (and back to England) by public transport. I was away for three and a and half years.

I only sometimes wrote a diary, but I sent regular letters home to my family and sometimes wrote these as diary letters that I asked them to keep for me. Finding writing time ‘on the road’ was not always easy. My mother kept all my letters for me and at some stage gave them back to me. They have sat unread in a fat folder for many years.

Now with the world in unpredictable conflict and also over-touristed, I’ve been rather enjoying sitting at home re-reading my letters and writing up my memoirs of those times. However I’m booked to re-visit Sri Lanka in June.

 

Stereo Story #882

  See also the recent John McDonald story about the Crosby Stills and Nash song, Helplessly Hoping.

Janet Taylor lives in Melbourne’s inner north with her partner Sean. She is enjoying revisiting her travel letters and diaries from the late 1960s.