The (Rail) Road to Morocco

Gates, Buckingham Palace

My son and I just got back from a 16-say trip from London to Marrakesh, Morocco by train and ferry (1,429 miles as the crow flies).

This was a trip for my son who got to see a bit of Europe and North Africa.   My daughter has already been to Ecuador, Thailand, Cambodia, Belize, Argentina, Jamaica, England, Wales, France, and the Dominican Republic. Time for a little "run time" for the boys!
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Looking back on it from the great distance of two days, this was really a trip back through time. 

America has a short history and not much of it is left standing, while the pub we stayed at in our last night in London was built in the 1500s, and had a ceiling so low I could touch the rafters with the top of my head. 

Of course that English pub is new stuff compared to parts of Morocco where the medina walls of some cities date back to the 9th Century!

It was more than a trip of distance and history, of course.  To some degree it was a backward trip through progress, from the civility and bright polish of London, through the slightly grittier feel of Paris, to the slightly less polished and more industrial feel of Madrid, to the rough port of Algeciras, and then by boat across a small stretch of water and a deep chasm of culture to the squalor of the Kasbah of Tangier, the labyrinth streets of old Fez, and finally Marrakesh, where dried lizards are still sold as medicine and Tuaregs are only too happy to sell you an ostrich egg or two.

It was also a reminder that, for all the fancy talk that rich white folks in America spout about libertarianism, that whole line of thought is complete and utter bullshit.

Progress is measured by clean water, flush toilets, safe food, traffic lights, paved roads, working police forces, decent wages, safe working conditions, Social Security for the aged, disability for the infirm, and access to a modicum of health care for all.

Those who rail at the cost of these things are people boiled in ignorance who have never been deathly sick from tap water or seen a man crawl through streets wet with sewage because he has no legs because they were cut off in a traffic accident caused by the complete absence of signals and signs.

More on all that later.

For now, let me close with the this little picture of "hamsa" or "hand of Fatima" door knocker I found in a dark alley only a few feet wide on my last day in Marrakesh. 

Every country has it doors, and none are more beautiful than the doors of Morocco -- not even the front door of Buckingham Palace.

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