Why a Booktrail?
1969 – This man is an experienced traveller – having crossed Cuba by train (Slow Train to Guatanamo) this is the account of his adventures in Marrakech and it’s like going with a good friend.
Marrakech Express
What you need to know before your trail
Trains can make for some of the most amazing adventures and romantic scenarios but also some of the most deadly ones – Think Murder on the Orient Express for one. So put all your impressions of train travel and literary train travel and knock it on the head. For this journey you have not done before and it’s one heck of a ride.
PEter is like a loyal and very knowledgeable train companion who sees the good in some things and the obviously bad in another but his brutal honesty shows things in a anew light. Travelling across Morocco in this style allows you to see this fascinating country through the eyes of a journalist traveller and glamrock fan and it’s a fascinating snapshot
Locations
ResetTravel Guide
Morocco in 1969 was not the tourist destination it is today. Of course the song Marrakech Express by Crosby, Stills and Nash may still tap a few toes now but things have moved on a bit, and out of the hippy mecca it was painted as, it’s now something else entirely.
Peter Millar is your expert guide and through Quirky named chapters such as ‘The Not Quite Silent Lambs’ and Howat then! Souk and See, he takes you on quite a journey. Not the tourist trail that’s for sure.
Casablanca is his first port of call and he is honoured to be invited to a family home for his first meal with a Moroccan family. Heading off to Larache a quiet and sleepy place, there is a feast of fish and meanwhile on the roof the sheep and goats roam (there is scarcely one house that doesn’t have this apparently) The pace of life here is very ‘ Spanish’ and prepared him for a journey which ranges from the unusual to the downright bizarre.
Tradition and tolerance – a good way to describe the Morocco that Peter paints his picture of. From the view of his train window, he visits the walled city of Fez and sees the history come alive before his eyes. In contrast, Casablanca he sees as modern and cosmopolitan, Ceuta and Mellila are of course still heavily influenced by its Spanish history and then there’s the picture of Morocco that we had – that of snake charmers – and yes he does go there in the village of Jamaa el Fna.
One of the chapters is entitled ‘Play it again, Hassan’ and we think there should be some kind of playlist which comes with this book – Marrakech Express being the title track of course -for the music would be yet another jewelled layer to the map that this journey creates.
Where Next?
