From Time Not Forgotten

Memories of Movies We Wanted to Live…

Hassan II Mosque

The train from Marrakesh to Casablanca took about three hours or so traveling between 60 and 70 mph.

The “red city” of Marrakesh was built using rammed earth or sun-dried mud bricks made from local red soil that gets its color from ancient rift basins. These filled with sandstone and mudstone erosion rich in iron which rusted and washed down from the folded sedimentary rocks of the Atlas Mountains.

Tajine cooking pottery is made up of clay from nearby areas with a similar color, but is mixed with sand or volcanic ash to give the cookware the ability to withstand the high heat of charcoal fire.

Our train traversed the large alluvial Haouz Plain where Marrakesh sits at about 1,500 feet above sea level, descending to Casablanca at sea level and leaving a climate that can be intensely hot for the coolness of beaches on the Atlantic.

We passed mud brick buildings, many seemingly abandoned, but it’s hard to tell. There was no glass in the windows and the garden walls were falling down in some places, replaced by black plastic in others. Skinny goats or sheep ignored the train as they foraged for food.

Rounded hills are embroidered with dry creek beds that cut close to buildings of cinder block or brick-built compounds that seem like scabs on a plain so vast you can almost see the curve of the earth. In places there are fields of Moroccan Marigolds that reflect the sun; yellow or white “Crown Daisies” line the Moroccan railway and flood agricultural fallow lands.

Freshly shorn, skinny sheep and goats wandered among ancient rocks pushing up through thin soil. The earth changed color as the mountains receded behind us, but the flatness of the earth persisted, extending to an increasingly hazy horizon as we approached the sea.

A man with a shovel worked soil in sun so intense it was difficult to even sit outside at a cafe in the city and I understood, for a moment, the bitterness of those who grow America’s food on midwest plains when held in contempt by coastal elites who have never worked the Earth.

Shade itself can become a valuable presence. As we descended the flowers were increasingly interrupted by the dusty bluish-green and sparse foliage of olive orchards.

Our speed slowed to 50 mph as the train moved north toward Casablanca, where the landscape became greener and floral carpets often became even denser due to the increased coastal humidity. We stopped more often as we approached the city.

There was a line of cabs at the curb at the train station and the small red one we tagged to take us to our hotel in Casablanca was just large enough for the three of us and our luggage.

When we arrived at the hotel, a security guard walked around the car with a mirror pointed upward looking for bombs hidden beneath. Another reminder of global tensions. The elegant hotel lobby on the main floor was at the top of a building built on a bit of a cliff perched on the Atlantic, and the rooms were below as was the small pool.

My room faced a small green shaded garden between two high walls and I welcomed the darkness because I must have eaten something that disagreed with me, though I’d tried to be careful. I didn’t want to venture far.

But it was a quick recovery and I made the tour the next day. The spectacular Hassan II Mosque was built in six years. It would have taken that long just to get permits in the U.S.

The tour also included “Rick’s Café.” Except, it wasn’t. The movie “Casablanca” was filmed in Hollywood, of course. The café actually in Casablanca is a reproduction built in 2004, we were told. Our tour guide claimed the piano inside was the original from the film; however, while the beautiful Pleyel is an authentic instrument from the same era, it is not the actual movie prop.

In any case, we didn’t see it. Reservations were required to enter the café and they were booked out months in advance. Two security guards stood at the door. Photos were taken outside, but it felt a bit like a “Pirates of the Caribbean” ride at Disneyland where there was no chance of seeing Captain Jack Sparrow. Or here, Ingrid Bergman, of course.

We flew to Madrid the next day.