Waterfalls, Shopping, and More Waterfalls

One of the sites that we knew from the get go that we wanted to visit were the Ouzoud Waterfalls. There were many day trips that leave from Marrakesh and head there, but the three hours each direction drive is made longer by the requirement to visit a local Argan shop or rug factory. Since all five of our group was interested in visiting the Falls, we decided to hire a private van to take us there. This was nice as we had it all to ourselves and didn’t have to stop along the way. The layout was a bit weird though with the two rows of seats facing each other. As such we spent a few hours staring at one another (when not all passed out from the languid heat).

Upon arrival at the falls, we spurned the unofficial guides begging us to take them on, and set upon the upper path. There were two paths, an upper and a lower and safety wasn’t the biggest concern with either. At the top of the falls (about 600 meters up ) there are signs telling visitors to beware of potential death, but no one stops you from walking to the edge for a peak or photograph. When you get to the bottom of the falls and realize how undermined the cliff ledges are by erosion, venturing out to the edge seems like even less of an intelligent idea; but by that point you’ve already defied death.

We were lucky in that our private transport beat the tourist buses by about 20 minutes, so we were able to get a few nice shots before the crowds became suffocating and potentially hazardous (they didn’t really pay attention and could easily have pushed someone over the edge…not really the way I would recommend seeing the Falls).

In an attempt to stay ahead of the crowds, we didn’t follow the traditional way down from the top to the bottom, but instead back tracked a bit and used the way people normally come up, to go down. This path takes you down a series of hundreds of tiny stairs, lined on either side by souvenir shops and restaurants that increased in price the closer to the bottom you go. 

At the base of the Falls, you can hop on a small barge (about 10 seats), and a local will row you as close to the deluge as you want. In keeping with our luck, we stayed ahead of the large crowds just long enough to get some choice shots of all of us near the point where the waterfalls meet the pools at their base, before the small pond was inundated with tiny barges. 

The whole area was picturesque with the verdant foliage, red cliffs, the white wash of the falls. The only ugly part was the water at the base; a grody brown that people were willingly swimming in. 

Even with our hired car, the trip took up the whole day.

Thursday was dedicated to more fully exploring the Medina and lightening our wallets in the souk. We visited the Bahia Palace and the Jewish Cemetery, avoided a few other “Berber markets..today only” scams to the detriment of the touts attempting to lead us merrily in the wrong direction, and purchased way too many souvenirs. 

The Bahia Palace is a large historical site built in 1866 by Sidi Moussa, the Grand Vizir (head of the government) of Hassan I, the Sultan Alaouite of Morocco. Visitors can wander through the small riad, large riad, and the small and large courtyards. Within these areas are small gardens, a hamman, the wives apartments, the harem, a small mosque/school, and a few other choice sites. A nice thing about this Palace was that there were actual informative signs in English (a rarity in Morocco).

We also picked up another American for a bit on our way to the Palace, as the maps.me app took all of us to the back side of the palace, which turned out to be someone’s private home. Steve, a biology professor from Missouri, got to hear about all the great sites to visit and scams to look out for across the country as we walked the half mile back around and to the correct entrance. 

With the foresight of knowing that we’d spend more money on trinkets that people probably don’t want, we decided to book ourselves on another day trip for our last full day in the city and the country as a whole. We and Mary headed to Ourika Valley and a small cascade.

Our day trip group consisted of us, Mary, a Canadian named Michael, an Israeli photographer named Shahar, and a young German (Lauren) and French (Simon) couple. Because we went the cheap route with an organized tour that gathers people from many different hotels, hostels, and Riads in the area and combines them all into one van for a very reasonable price, you pay in other ways. As such, our 45 minute drive to the Ourika Valley became a three hour ride with plenty of time to stop at a Berber village (where our driver got lost taking us to the tourist trap) and tour a home, have a cup of tea, and take some pictures (mandatory tips are greatly appreciated). Then it was on to an Argan oil cooperative where the manager seemed pretty upset when everyone in the group already knew about the products and no one appeared ripe for shelling out dough on things we didn’t need.

Eventually we made it to our true destination, Setti-Fatima, the last town on the paved road and the closest to the waterfall. Here we acquired a local guide to help lead us through the town (with many souvenir shops and spots to pay to take photos with traditional garb if you so chose) and to the small waterfall at the top. The path was a little on the challenging side with a mix of stairs and some slight bouldering up rocks and across springs. Our guide was good in cajoling Mary up the slope (as she had originally wanted to stay behind at the bottom and wait for our return), but he misjudged our group’s ability to digest bullshit when we arrived at the foot of the Falls. 

The waterfall wasn’t very big (maybe 20 ft, but it was still very pretty and had the cleanest water we’ve seen (clear run off). After allowing us 15 minutes to wander a bit and take photographs, the guide told us that we could continue up the path to a higher vista point that looked out over the entire valley and then take an easier route back down. 

Here is where he screwed up. Instead of just convincing people to go higher, he told us that this extra part and easier trail weren’t included in the tour we had all purchased and we’d have to pay him extra to guide us. Michael and I were looking at the path and remarking that we could just go without a guide as there really wasn’t a need regardless of the guide’s insistence that we’d get lost and wander for hours without him. As we watched numerous other groups head up the path (sans extra charge…we asked), we figured our chances were pretty good on our own. But, since it appeared to be an all or nothing type of excursion (no one else in the group wanted to go higher), we reluctantly followed everyone back down the “hard way.”

Even though the guide was visibly upset with us, he tried to rectify the situation by bringing us to a “good, cheap” restaurant for lunch, but again misread the group. Instead of pointing us to one of the restaurants that had lovely seating areas lining the side of the waterfall run off, he walked us through most of the town to the lower portion before leading us into a larger restaurant that he was probably contracted with. While the restaurant was nice and we were seated at a table near the water’s edge, the prix fix menu was way more than many of the other advertised menus we’d seen on our walk there and the restaurant refused to let anyone order al la carte . 

In keeping with being the bane of this guy’s existence, all of us, except the couple (who’d paid more when they’d originally booked to have lunch included) got up to leave and search out a better, cheaper, lunch. The waiter tried arguing with us to stay and even cut the price in half (what it should have been to start with), but we were all a little annoyed at that point and left to the waiter yelling at us in French “fine go eat shit elsewhere in town.”

“Shit elsewhere in town” turned out to be about 200 meters up the road at a small family owned restaurant and it was fantastic. I convinced Em to try a tangine with eight different types of fruits and we had some decent hot chocolate for dessert. The family was super nice, and the five of us thoroughly enjoyed our meal. When we meet back up with the couple they told us their food had been terrible; so much for the best place in town.

Our drive home thankfully didn’t include anymore cooperatives, but it did involve quite a few close calls with other drivers and an almost fight. Our driver almost smashed a cab into a wall when cutting across two lanes to make a right turn from the left lane (something that seems to be the norm here) and the taxi took offense and chased after us. At a stop light, the cabbie got out and started yelling at our driver, who tried to get out and fight him, but got tangled in his seatbelt and missed his opportunity. The drivers in Morocco are a mix of great (cause they don’t hit everything) and absolutely horrifying (because they follow zero rules or regulations, or drive without any common sense or awareness of what others are doing).

Mary, Em, and I rounded out our adventure with one last picnic dinner on the roof of our hotel. We wandered the aisles of Carrefour, gathered tasty supplies, and fortified with a bottle of red wine (Em and I) and a mug of beer (Mary), we watched the sunset literally and figuratively on another adventure.

Until next time…

Marrakech…the adventure is almost over

We’ve arrived in Marrakesh, our home for the next five nights, and the last city on our itinerary. The tour only grants two days in the city, but I didn’t want to waste vacation days sitting in my house and thus persuaded Em to extended an extra two days and fly home on Saturday. We probably could have gone home Friday, but we’re gonna make the most of our last few days.

Marrakesh is the fourth largest city in Morocco and considered the “fun” city by most of the locals we’ve chatted with during the last few weeks. Marrakesh doesn’t thrive on industry like Casablanca and has a thriving night life, so it’s the more hip and modern city to live in. It’s a huge tourist destination both for Moroccans and foreigners; especially the French, many of whom have opened hotels and restaurants within the city. 

The Medina quarter of the city is a UNESCO World Heritage Site containing the largest traditional market (souk) Morocco, with some 18 souks selling wares ranging from traditional Berber carpets to modern consumer electronics. Crafts employ a significant percentage of the population, who primarily sell their products to tourists.

The Medina is also home to Djemaa el-Fna square: one of the largest public spaces in the world and unique to Marrakech. When night falls on this square it transforms into a hive of activity. Henna-painters, performers, and storytellers share the square with a street food bazaar, packed with stalls loaded with Moroccan delicacies. In the middle of this chaos is where we had dinner on our first night in the city. 

We sat at one of the numerous food stalls where a dozen choices were laid out and we could point to what we wanted or if this particular stall don’t have something (like a fruit smoothie), they’d send a runner to another stall to grab it for you (with a slight up charge of course). We tried a bunch of tapas from grilled eggplant and potato fritters to tiny portions of couscous and vegetables to meat skewers. Khalid had grilled (or boiled) sheep’s head and got Nathan to sample a bit. Apparently, despite its unappetizing look, it’s quite tasty.

After dinner, we wandered a bit through the throngs of people (so many people in one place after the last two years of not seeing large gatherings was a little claustrophobic), dodging the touts that ambushed us every three feet trying to sell sunglasses and henna tattoos, Kleenex, spices, more food, wood, shawls, and many other trinkets. Mary ended up picking up a few tiny metal lanterns which looked beautiful all lit up on the square floor with their candles adding a nice ambience to the evening.

Our first full day in the city started early with Mary, Em, and I walking to what once was the Majorelle Gardens, but is now the home and gardens of Yves Saint Laurent. 

“Nearly a century ago, Jacques Majorelle, a French Orientalist painter, transformed his artistic canvas aesthetic into a living portrait of an African Garden of Eden. A Moroccan paradise resplendent with exotic botanicals, his trademark palette included splashes of bold colors that intensified the natural foliage in the garden. Majorelle’s adventurous spirit and love of nature yielded plant specimens collected from around the world. Coconut trees, cacti, banana trees, bougainvilleas, water lilies, yuccas, jasmines, palm trees and bamboos became the focal points for his impressionist garden. An expensive endeavor and failing health convinced Majorelle to open his gardens to the public in 1947.  He hoped the entrance fees would provide sufficient revenues to cover the maintenance of the gardens. Sadly in 1961, however, Jacques Marjorelle was hit by a car, his leg amputated, and he returned to his native French home for convalescence. Without his attention, a decade later, the gardens were abandoned” and fell into disrepair. 

In the 1960s, designer St. Laurent was visiting Morocco with his partner, Pierre Bergé, and they fell in love with the decaying property. In the 1980s they bought the place and painstaking restored it to its former glory. Today it is a magnificent tourist destination. 

We were lucky to get to the gardens about 30 minutes before the tour bus crowds arrived, thus having time to capture a few pictures before the gorgeous sights were marred by humans everywhere. The bold cobalt blue and yellow buildings interspersed with the exotic flora make for many Instagram worthy photographs and we had to compete with the influencers for shots. 

At one point we were politely pushed off the cobblestone paths of the gardens into the dirt by a Nigerian prince and his entourage. At the time we didn’t know who he was, just that he had to be someone. We were more intrigued with the fact that his head garment appeared to be pink taffeta wrapped like a turban and then with what looked like bunny ears sticking out from the top. It was only later in the evening when we meet back up with the boys and told them about the man with the pink bunny ears, ornate cane, and large security force did they connect the dots to the Nigerian prince they’d encounter at the Bahia Palace. 

Invigorated from our shady garden tour, we decided to head back to the Medina to seek out another garden, the Secret Garden. Little did we know at the time that we wouldn’t get there for hours. While people constantly tell me I have Resting Bitch Face and look like I want to tear someone’s head off, still somehow we always get singled out by the scam artists as perfect marks. I blame Em since she’s so friendly and will strike up conversations with anyone. 

Just inside the Medina walls, a friendly local informed us that we should stick to the right side of the road to avoid collisions with the numerous motorbikes that zip around everywhere. After thanking him, the local noticed my camera and launched into a spiel about how there was a local Berber’s market that is only once a week and just happened to be today. The market had many great colors and would make excellent photographs. This sounded interesting and Em immediately started asking how to find it. 

Our helpful guide started spouting directions and walking through a few alleyways before pointing to another man and saying “he’s a Berber and he’s going to the market. He’ll help you get there”. So of course we start following this new man, who is friendly enough and engages Em in conversation while walking at a nice fast clip. Mary and I dutifully follow after failing to get Em to hang back. We spend the next twenty minutes looking at each other and commenting: “where are we going.” “this is not the direction we wanted to go” “so much for really close (as we’re told only 5 minutes and 10 minutes later we’re still following our speed walking ‘guide’)”. “Look there’s the van they’re going to stuff us in and we’ll never see daylight again (as we pass a parked black van with blacked out windows).”

About twenty or thirty minutes of walking and we reach the Berber market, which really is a terrible smelling tannery and a cooperative shop where they sell leather goods, rugs, antiques, and jewelry. Even though we know we’ve been had, we figure since we’re here, we might as well enjoy some AC for a minute and look at the goods on display. The shop did have some very nice items and Em and Mary almost got sweet talked into purchasing some lovely leather bikers jackets, but came to their senses just as the main salesclerk’s eyes lit up with dollar signs. I did end up with a nice leather (seems real) belt with a silver and bone buckle and Mary got two round Pom chairs (circles that you stuff so you can sit on them), so the store made some profit off of us. 

When we left, we were accosted by our “guide” and his friends for entrance fees to the cooperative. This straight up wasn’t happening and we made sure to tell them off stating there was no way we were paying for being dragged somewhere false to begin with and Mary was literally retching when they forced us to walk through the tannery. With some grumbling, they let us pass and we continued on our way; now a good mile or two from our original destination.

Thus a typical twin adventure was had. 

We did eventually make it to the Secret Garden and it was worth the adventure. The garden’s origins start in the latter half of the 16th century when the Saadian dinasty ruled. The gardens were destroyed about 100 years later, but restored in the 1800s as a new palace. A little intrigue and some assassination over the years meant that the property changed hands a few times, fell into disrepair, and eventually was restored again, and opened to the public for the first time in 2008. 

The space is split into two: an exotic garden, filled with plants coming from all over the world, and an Islamic garden, following a riad like structure with a four-part layout designed to remind a wanderer of the layout of heaven, as described in the Quran. Both halves of the garden provide shade and a sense of calm and tranquility. It’s a nice place to grab a book and while away an afternoon.

We did a little more wandering of the souk, before catching a city bus back to our hotel and the Nespresso shop nearby. Em and Mary were ecstatic to find “good coffee” and the pods were cheaper than in the US, so we grabbed a few sleeves to take home. 

Are days left a numbered, but we are filling them well.  

Uh oh…my wallet definitely got lighter

We’ve arrived at the Atlantic Ocean and to some cooler weather. Across the murky expanse is the eastern seaboard of America. It’s crazy realizing that I’m so close, yet so far from home; both culturally and geographically. We’re in the seaside city of Essaouira; an important port city and tourist destination for both foreigners and Moroccans alike.

Intrepid booked us all into a nice hotel inside the Scala (what a medina is called when it’s a seaside city instead of a land based city) for two nights. Being in the Scala affords us the opportunity to explore at will and wander the wider streets of this ancient city and its souk…it also means we’re surrounded by the shops and resisting the temptation to buy lovely things turned out to be much harder. The Scala is designed a little differently than many of the others we’ve been to. Instead of cramped alleyways and labyrinthine twists, there is a grid pattern and wider main thoroughfares. This gives the Scala a more open and modern feel than say Fez. The change in structure and layout are due to the Portuguese influence during their tenure as the cities conquering force.

Another advantage to being in a seaside port city is that seafood is fresh and caught daily. While tangines are delicious and I love bread (despite it not loving me back), having an alternative to chicken, vegetables, and couscous is a nice change of pace. Em, Mary, Khalid, and I (the boys wandered on their own) decided to celebrate our first night in this city by eating on the roof top terrace of an old Riad that was transformed into a beautiful restaurant. We enjoyed some ok seafood (Em and I didn’t particularly love ours, but we enjoyed the absolute adoration on Mary’s face as she consumed a dozen raw oysters) while listening to live Berber music and peering over the crenellated outer wall of the Scala at the red hues of sunset.

In the morning we got a short tour of the Scala and learned a bit about its history. Essaouira is an artists’ town and once housed a sizable Jewish population. It’s also the only major city we visited that still has a practicing Jewish community within it walls (or maybe just within the Medina proper). They have four intact synagogues, two of which are still in use. The town is also known for its art and has a growing number of little galleries within the white walls of the Scala. 

Part of the tour lead us through the old Mellah (Jewish quarter) and the guide showed us where there was a small Jewish Museum, Yeshiva, and one of the last two practicing synagogues. All three of the aforementioned were in one building that was open to the public. The first two floors housed a mix of photographs and accompanying stories related to the people that were depicted, as well as relics, exhibits, and a cool little video of the Mellah from the 1920s. The first floor also housed the small synagogue (it appeared to hold a congregation of maybe 10-20) and the third floor was a small Yeshiva. 

Our guide also took us down to the docks and talked about how the fisherman go out into the Atlantic and catch a large variety of sea creatures to sell. We ended up coming back to the docks around lunchtime to haggle with the fishermen for some of their catch for lunch. Khalid helped us and Mary to procure some calamari, shrimp, prawns, eel like fish, and mini octopi. The fishermen that sold it to us, also cleaned seafood so it’d be ready to cook. Then we raced back (we didn’t want the ice to melt and the heat to ruin the food) through the Scala to the older section where there was a communal grill. 

This grill was like the grill in Fez where you bring everything and the chef’s job is to cook it. We handed off our bounty and then wandered the local vegetables market just down the alleyway for some fun things to add to the main dish. The boys also got a nice slice of beef off of a partial hanging carcass. Twenty minutes later, we were served some expertly spiced grilled fish and the boys had some perfectly done steaks. All this goodness ended up costing about $8 a person and was a fun and delicious experience.

After lunch we were all free to do what we pleased and Em, Mary, and I set off to wander the streets of the Scala and see what treasures lay within the shops. The shopkeepers were more than happy to oblige and this did our wallets no favors. Em was on a mission to find a cape or something similar for her roommate. We wandered in to one shop with a few poncho like capes and the proprietor was super helpful and friendly. After pulling out twenty or so items within his shop and Em rejecting all of them, the shopkeeper dragged her away to what we later learned was a tailor that could make whatever you wanted in a very short amount of time. 

Mary and I thought someone should look after the local’s shop since he just disappeared (they’re either super trusting here or maybe he thought another shop keeper would look after the place), so we stayed behind until he returned (sans Em) 15 minutes later. Since we didn’t know at the time where Em had gone, we (meaning me) accepted tea while we waited for Em to wander back. Em arrived just about the time the tea was finished brewing. Tea of course lead to chatting, chatting led to commenting on the beautiful rugs hanging on the walls, commenting led to the owner laying rugs out, which in turn led to loving one each. Em and I each now own a Berber rug.

Concluding our sale for the rugs, we wandered back to Em’s tailor to see what creation he’d come up with. I give this guy major props because when he showed the project to Em, she was “can we change this” about four times and he did it within minutes. Most of the changes were simple enough because they were making things smaller, but it was still amazing watching how fast he could shrink and re-sew something. 

My downfall in this store of course came when I spotted a very interesting coat hanging on the wall and commented on it. Em said I should try it on for fun and of course when I did, it fit and looked great. The item in question is a very unique long coat meant for colder weather. It was created with various strips of different colored cloth that each have paisley designs in velvet. The colors all kind of clash with each other, which in a way makes it all work. The end result is what I’m calling my “couch coat”, because to me it looks like someone cut out pieces from all of grandma’s couches from the forties and sewed them together.

The tailor let me pick out the buttons and how many I wanted (I chose four) and we also added one of those little strips in the back with buttons that you can use to pull the waist in if I ever lose weight and need a smaller coat. The coat overall is a statement piece for sure and got some funny looks from all The Boys when I showed them, but I really like it. I wore the coat to dinner and ended up being the only one nice and cozy when we wandered the fortress walls at sunset.

The next morning, I dragged Em to a hamman, a Moroccan bathhouse. Hammans are a traditional experience that most locals do at least once a week and involves sitting in a steam room to help leech toxins from the body, application of purifying black soap and/or body masks, rinsing in a series of hot and cool tubs, and scrubbing with a special mitt that scraps off the layers of dead skin. There are traditional hammans and tourist hammans. The traditional ones are like big open rooms where everyone gathers together and friends and family scrub each other down. Tourists hammans are more like spas and afford some privacy, but you still get bathed and scrubbed by an attendant. After weeks of sweat and dirt accumulation and still finding sand from our desert adventure; having someone scrub off all the dead skin sounded great.

While the more touristic hamman we visited gave us a private room for just Em and me (plus our attendants), it still cracks me up how they try to respect Western modesty and fail, spectacularly. In this hamman they allow you to keep your underwear on, but then they just constantly pull it down or bunch it up depending on whether they wanna scrub your butt cheeks raw or dump a bucketful of water down your pants. It’s like: “why bother.”…might as well have been like the woman in India that gave me small paper undies and then proceeded to rip them off five minutes later when I went for an Ayurvedic massage.

After our slippery slathering and rinse off, we migrated to a dry room for a massage to work out all the soreness in our muscles from the series of hikes we completed during the last few days. While she definitely got some of the muscles to loosen up in my calves, I think my back and shoulders were a little too tight to get much release. I have to say, I didn’t mind the whole experience, and my skin feels very smooth and silky. I would definitely do it again, but I’m not so sure Em would. She had the “whelp tried that. Don’t need to do it again” response when we left.

Despite my wallet being on the lighter side as a result of our two days in this seaside town, I really enjoyed the low key feel of the city and my time here.

 

Calm and a peace in the High Atlas Mountains, with a few more hikes for good measure

Today we drove to the Imlil Valley in the High Atlas Mountains. There is no direct route to the valley, so we had to take a slightly circuitous route. We started by curving our way up the narrow lanes of the Tizi n'Tichka Pass (2260 metres above sea level) to the top for a quick coffee and photo break. On a small man made outcrop we enjoyed a view of the entire valley below while trying not to get blown off the mountain top from the strong winds. Then a small local man insisted that we leave the viewpoint and head to the coffee shop. I’m still not sure if he wanted us to buy coffee in order to stand on the outcropping or just didn’t want us not to fly away. 

Back in the car and down the other side, past the valley of Roses (which is full of its namesake in March), and to the turn off for Marrakesh, before  hooking in and back south to start going up the Atlas Mountains. Before our final ascent for the day, we stopped at the home of an ex-driver for Intrepid whose family hosted us for lunch. Khalid had arranged for the family to make us Rfissa. Rfissa is a dish comprised of stewed chicken, lentils, and onions served on a bed of shredded msemen, trid pastry or bread. A fragrantly seasoned broth is poured over all and its served in a large tangine. Like most other meals we’ve had here, it’s delicious and there is way too much of it. I think the five of us barely ate a third of what was made. But in Moroccan culture, food is never wasted, so the family probably purposely made extra so they could eat it after we’d left.

We arrived in Imlil Valley in the mid afternoon and were greeted by our host for the evening. He was riding a cute pack mule and graciously took our small overnight bags while we commenced with a nice little jaunt uphill for an hour plus to reach his home. The walk takes you first through the shaded lower Imlil village, before leading you into a sun filled series of switchbacks and stairs that lead to a plateau on Toubkal Mountain. This plateau used to be a lake thousands of years ago, when Toubkal Mountain was still a glacier. Now it houses the town of Aroumd, the largest of the three villages in Imlil valley, with a population of about 1000.

Mary, having skipped out on the hike in Todra Gorge, had decided to climb this small part of a mountain and probably hated her decision the whole time. Later in the day, we found out that our van actually was going to drive up to our gite (Berber homestay) (which hadn’t been a guarantee initially) or she could have rented a donkey or taken a cab. Regardless of her thinking she couldn’t do it, she was amazing and accomplished the task. Her reward, another 20 minutes of walking (but flat) at the top and then some stairs to get into the guesthouse (she loathes stairs). Em also hated the extra climb so soon after me “forcing her to hike in Todra Gorge, but she also survived.

Like many of the other towns that we’ve seen and visited during this trip, Aroumd is built up a mountain side, so each street is higher than the last and you have to get your exercise by walking stairs or climbing pretty steep roads to get from one level to the next. Our host recently got married and decided that he was going to strike out on his own, so instead of living on the mountainside, he’s on the outskirts of the dried lake bed, about half a mile away from the main town. Khalid said that’s where all the new families are moving and I joked that they’re “out in the suburbs.” 

It was nearing early evening when we finally reached the gite, so after a quick welcome tea and wash of the face; Nathan, Brian, Em, and I left Mary to recuperate from the taxing journey up the mountain, while I dragged everyone else exploring up the many levels of Aroumd (the real town and not the suburbs). The town is mostly homes, with just a few market shops scattered here and there. The locals will walk up and down the switchback path to the lower town if they want shops or restaurants. For them the arduous journey is a simple half hour jaunt and they do it so often they probably don’t even break a sweat.

We returned from our second hike of the day (climbing to the top of the town for us out of shape people was like a second hike), to another amazing home cooked meal. While the meals tend to revolve around the same types of foods, they’re always just a little different. Tonight we had another tangine (with turkey this time) and some soup. The soups are my favorite because they’re always made from a mix of fresh vegetables and spices; usually blended or grated until smooth. Tonight’s had a little milk as well, so it was smooth and creamy and super flavorful.

From our host’s balcony we watched the younger locals enjoy the cooler evening by playing soccer on the dirt field created in the middle of the dry lake bed, while the older kids conversed in packs and tried to hitch rides down the mountain with their heavy harvest of cherries. All the while, the older women (we’re taking grandmothers) finished gathering some sort of grassy crop. They made bundles of the crop and tied it to their backs and moved through the fields toward the village. As the sun set and it became darker, these women looked like grass creatures from a fairytale or “Where the Wild Things Are.”

The next morning we rose early to began our third hike in as many days. Toubkal Mountain contains the highest peak in North Africa and is a huge tourist attraction for avid hikers, rock climbers, and those that love nature and beautiful scenery. To get to the peak takes two days on average, with a five hour journey uphill on the first day to reach the base camp, and then another four hour journey in the wee hours of the second day to reach the peak. You also need to then hike back down the entire path on the second day (or I guess you could return to base camp for an additional night). While I think it’d be a long, hard, strenuous, but totally worth it feat, and I’d love to come back and trek to the peak sometime; today we only ventured about an hour and a half up the mountain to visit the small settlement of Chamharouch, where there is an Islamic shrine and mosque. There were dozens of other trekkers that we passed on the way that were going to the top (I saw more foreigners than in all the rest of this trip combined).

The Shrine is believed by some to help cure illnesses and solve problems when the devotees pray to Allah and then sacrifice some animal. Here in lies the contradiction, as Islamic religious does not allow for shrines or prays with sacrifice. Some other locals erected a small mosque next to the shrine; perhaps to somehow mitigate this contradiction. Regardless of the illogic of the place, the scenery is breathtaking, and well worth the climb. 

Em and Mary opted for donkey transportation to get themselves to the top. Their donkeys were led by our host, his son, and an older gentleman who I think was his father. Em and Mary decided to walk down the mountain on the return trip, which was probably safer because neither seemed to be super comfortable on the little donkeys. When we got to the flat area of the dry lake, I jumped on so I could say I got my horse ride in and then I wouldn’t feel like I needed to spend money on it in another town. The journey down was accompanied by the singling of our guides in Berber; which was off key, but melodic and filled with good natured rubbing from the three participants. 

I really liked the feel of this area and town, but after a light lunch (Berber omelet this time), we said goodbye to this like oasis of peace and tranquillity and set out for Essaouira.

From Hollywood to Ouarza-Wood

Today we brought Hollywood (in the form of Em) to the Moroccan equivalent (in the form of a visit to Ouarzazate). Ouarzazate is the movie making capital of Morocco and plays the background for many different films made around the world. Whenever a director wants to make a film set in a Middle Eastern or Sub-Saharan country that wouldn’t necessarily be safe for the stars and crew, they will often come here to film. Films such as Lawrence of Arabia, The Passion of Christ, Prince of Persia, Black Hawk Down, and Romancing the Stone or tv shows like Game of Thrones, Prison Break, and Wheel of Time, have all filmed scenes in Ouarzazate or the surrounding areas.  

Our group was able to tour Atlas Studios and see where the magic happens. Our guide showed us various production sets that were created for one film or show, and left behind to be reused for many other films after. Directors can choose to tear their sets down after they’re done using them or they can let the studio keep them for a discount on the use of the studio and creation of the original set. The owner of Atlas Studios is pretty smart in that once he owns a set, he will sell the use of that set to future directors, with the clause that they have to change the small details so they’re not plagiarizing another’s creative design. When you have medieval village 10 feet from Karnak temple in Egypt, which is 10 feet from a Roman house, it’s easy to entice a lot of people to come work with you. 

Atlas Studios, space-wise, is one of the largest film studios in the world. What I also thought was pretty cool is that the studio utilizes many of the local residents from the area and pays them well for their services. If sets need to be built or altered, then it’s the local craftsmen that do the work. If you need villages to fill a 16th century marketplace, then it’s locals that come in to hawk vegetables or mimic foraging irons.

On our tour, we got to see where Gerald Butler was sold into slavery in Gladiator (a much smaller village square than movie magic made it appear in the film), where Christ carried his cross through the city, and where a Black Hawk helicopter crash landed in “Somalia”.  

The sets are made with plaster walls and paint, and CGI or editors add realism to these stage props that look up close as if they came from the local high school’s Glee club. Seeing these sets makes it even harder for me to imagine being a actor. I give them all major props because I’d be laughing too hard trying to be realistic when everything looks like a toddler’s play set. We did give it a try though as our guide was quite the mini film maker, devising and shooting two 45 second movies on our phones. He had a steady hand and used his phone to add a musical soundtrack to two short videos created on the Egyptian sets. In one film we were stoic sentries inside Karnak and in the other, doors were opened and servants presented the queen (Em), who welcomed the visitor to their home.

The studio tour was a lot of fun (even in the sweltering heat), but soon we returned to our van and headed to Aït Benhaddou; our home for the night. Aït Benhaddou is also famous with Hollywood, as this almost completely intact earthen Ksar (called ighrem in this region) nestled into a cliff side can represent many different locations that film makers may want. The sight is also a huge tourist attraction. 

Aït Benhaddou is believed to have been fortified in the 11th century, although, all of the current building are believed to have been constructed in the 17th century or later; using the same methods and designs as had been used for centuries before. The city was inhabited by the Jews and Muslims, who lived side by side in relative harmony and worked together to protect their city from other Ksars or potential invading tribes. 

Inside the fortified walls of the city are homes of various sizes that stretch up the mountainside via well formed streets and alleyways. Stairs of varying depths (to confuse invaders) will guide you to the top plateau that offers a 360 degree view of the valley (and it’s pretty spectacular). Also on the plateau is a small communal granary or guard tower (depending on who you talk to). 

It’s estimated that 800 to 1000 people lived in the city. Most of those families have migrated across the river bed (dry except for flash floods and the rainy season) that lies directing in front of the Ksar, to the other bank. There they’ve built more modern dwellings and have better access to schools and surrounding towns. A bridge built in 2011 that connects the old city to the new city, makes passage between the two much easier now than back in the day. Currently, there are only about 8 families that still live full time within the walls of Aït Benhaddou. Many of the other ex-full time residents still maintain their homes there and use them as tourist shops or restaurants during the day and then return across the river to their new homes in the evening. 

Near sunset we wandered across the dry river bed and up the flights of stairs that guide you through this ancient town to the plateau at the top. It is a really amazing piece of history.

A long arduous hike up a gorgeous rock mountain

We left the desert and headed west towards the eastern edge of the base of the High Atlas Mountains and Todra Gorge. Todra (also spelled Todgha) Gorge are a series of limestone river canyons with steep cliffs walls. These canyons were carved by millennium of water flowing through river beds and seasonal flooding. The spectacular canyon walls can reach heights of up to 400m and are a siren call for avid rock climbers (they travel from around the world to scale these walls).

Before arriving in town though, we transversed more of the plains and stopped at a few interesting sites along the route. The first of these sites was one of the old Khettara of the Tafilalt Oasis. The Khettara were underground aquifers that supplied water across the large, flat basin to many of the smaller cities and towns in the area, as well as the nomads that make the basin their home. Each aquifer was painstakingly dug by the male residents of all the towns and villages that would benefit from the system. They used a wooden pulley system with camel power to pull up the tons of dirt required to make the wells and the main underground tunnels. The dirt was dumped on the sides of each well and wells were made every 50meters or so. This gives the land an alien like quality with its rows of “pockmarks.” 

Having so many wells so close to each other served as both a place to gather water and as an easier way to fix the system if any one section of the aquifer’s clay walls caved in. Up until a decade ago, water could still be found running through the miles of these systems, but now they run dry as water is no longer only 7 or 8 meters below the surface, but 70 meters or more. The signs of Global warming are very visible here.

We left the arid oasis and drove to Tinejdad to see the Ksar El Khorbat Oujdid and visit the Musee Lalla Mimouna (Oasis Museum). A Ksar means many different things depending on where in the world you are, but here, in the South of Morocco, a Ksar is a village surrounded by walls, made of soil, with one or more monumental entrances and at least the following communitarian infrastructure: the mosque, the baths, a Koran school, a public place and sometimes an inn. In the pre-Saharan valley in the 1920s there were over 1000 of these fortress cities, but today more than half of those are now ruins. Each Ksar was designed to be a city unto itself where the outside walls were high and impenetrable and there was no need for the residents to venture outside. 

The cities were meant to seal themselves off to protect the residents if there were any sorts of conflict outside its walls. Now in days, those Ksar that still exist have added additional entryways and windows into the walls as the need to be autonomous cities has passed and the inhabitants have integrated with their surrounding communities. The Ksar El Khorbat Oujdid is attempting to share the rich history of Ksars and the Berber people via ecotourism and the Oasis Museum. 

The Oasis Museum was the brain child of Zaid Abbou, who invested his own time, energy, and funds to collect many relics and historical pieces of Berber culture. The museum is housed inside three restored houses inside the Ksar and is distributed across three different levels. Therefore as you follow the unidirectional layout through the various well designed local exhibits with explanations in six different languages, you also get to learn about how the traditional house in the Ksar were designed. The museum gives you a really good sense of the Berber culture and the Ksar was really interesting to see. 

After a tasty lunch, we continued up the windy mountains roads to Todra Gorge, our home for the next two nights. 

We’re staying in a nice hotel just across the small river that flows at the base of the Todra Gorge. We had to walk across a bridge and ascend a bunch of steps, but it was worth it. The hotel is situated directly next to the ruins of an old mini village (it may have just been a few houses). This whole area is scattered with abandoned and semi-abandoned adobe and mud brick homes and villages sitting side by side with more modern constructions. It gives a slightly surreal feel to everything to see the old and the new so intertwined.

Our one free day in the area was spent, first with a lot of exertion, followed by an afternoon of relaxation. To best appreciate the beauty of these rocky cliffs, Em and I (and Nathan and Brian), did what we always do in foreign countries; hike a mountain with zero preparation. Although, for once, I think I was a little more in shape than I’d originally thought, for the two hour climb that wound up the rocky outcrops didn’t seem as arduous to me as past hikes have. Em though, cursed me for “forcing” her to come along and decided she might need to start working on her cardio a bit when she gets home.

We were told that we could hire a local guide to take us up the trail and back down, but declined with the thought that a trail (even if it’s really a goat and donkey path), coupled with accounts from previous hikers’ online directions should be more than enough to get us up and down. And we were right, baring a few mishaps. We lost the trail about ten minutes into the hike and I lead everyone up the dry river bed until Em spotted our goat track about 100 feet above us. So a little rock scrambling and bouldering later and we were back on track. After about two hours of consistent uphill, we crested the peak (regardless of Khalid telling us we didn’t need to hike to the top to get down the other side, we needed to hike to the peak to get down the other side).

At the top (of the area we climbed) is a very small nomad settlement (maybe five homes). These families live here because it is the only place they can legally graze their goats. Lower down in town, the people have their own animals or are frowning palm trees and don’t want the goats to graze there. Sometimes the nomads will invite travelers to join them in their home for some wild thyme tea gathered from the nooks and crannies of the rocks we’d just finished climbing. We didn’t get an invitation, but the young children did chases us asking for money.

The back side of the trail starts with a long downhill across rocks and it became a game of spot the next cairn to make sure we were on the right path. This area is definitely one where a guide probably could have been useful, but we managed well enough on our own. 

Our prize at the end of the 4 and a half hour hike (we walked an extra mile because we wanted to see a very picturesque portion of the gorge where the river still flows with water and the cliffs tower on either side….so we were dropped off further from the hike’s starting point so that we could walk through the canyon first since we wouldn’t have been able to see it any other time) was that the trail drops you into the ruins of one of the old mud-brick villages. 

While most everything was eerily silent and empty, there was an open shop with a nice older man that helped make sure we didn’t wander down the wrong path and were able to correctly to exit into the palmeraie (lush green areas where they grow palm date trees). In the case our Todra Gorge, the palmeraie is in the riverbed between the two sides of town (the rocks cliffs we just climbed and mostly remnants of ruins on the one side, and most of the modern town on the other. The river bed is also home to small agricultural beds, and the water source for the nomadic people that live in the area.

Another bonus to the end of the hike was we meet up with Mary (who had abstained from the long hike and opted instead for a nice leisurely walk through the shady palmeraie) and Khalid at a riad in town for a local speciality; Madfouna, aka Berber pizza. 

Madfouna is stuffed flatbread prepared using a handful of staple ingredients (meat, eggs, nuts, onions and garlic, and herbs and spices such as cumin, paprika, turmeric, ginger and parsley)– is traditionally baked in a fire pit in the sand or a mud oven, and has long served as a wholesome meal for many families who live on the fringes of the Erg Chebbi dunes near the Algerian border. So even though we’d left the desert, we were still able to try this treat. While we were thinking calzone when original told about it, it’s more like a very flat frittata was stuffed into the middle of thick bread.

Tried from our hike and full from Berber pizza we spent the rest of the day lounging at the hotel.

I still don’t like riding camels, but the Sahara is serene

This morning we packed our bags, jumped in the van, and began heading to the western edge of the Northern most part of the Sahara desert. With some stops along the way, the trip took about 5 hours.

The plains between the Middle and High Atlas Mountains continue to remind me of the American Southwest and show that cultures continents apart will still evolve similarity and use similar techniques. The adobe and clay house structures are evident everywhere here, as well as similar trees (Juniper) that thrive in hot high altitude climates, and underground aquifers. There are even some regions with cliff dwellings (but that’s more up in the High Atlas Mountains).

Along our route, we followed the Ziz riverbed and transversed it’s windy path a few times. This river bed floods annually and brings water to the vast plains for agricultural (date palms primarily) and civilization. At the top of a high pass we hopped out of the vehicle to walk along the highway for a few hundred feet and really get to appreciate this panoramic scenery.

Our group has kind of gotten our tour leader trained to the fact that we don’t always like being forced to eat at the pre-selected restaurants and would like local street food or specialties when possible. As a result, Khalid was gracious enough to let us out in the city of Erfoud, harass some locals about the best place to find a local lentil and beans dish, and then take us there. We ended up at a small hole in the wall restaurant where there was enough space for the cook and his kitchen inside and a smattering of chairs and tables outside. The lentils and the white beans were great. We finished our meal off with some chicken tangine and the entire thing, enough for a light lunch for three of us, was about $4. 

Entertainment for lunch came in the form of watching another patron tell the owner that his food wasn’t spicy enough and watching the fall out. The owner brought out a red chili, which the patron preceded to bite a huge chunk off of. As we watched, his face got redder and redder and he started grabbing all kinds of the wrong drinks to help cool his mouth down. We were kind of snickering and when Khalid asked why, we told him about the pepper and how adding water to the fire wasn’t gonna help the guy much. So Khalid relayed to the man that he needed milk or something creamy. The guy gets up and wanders down the block and we see him downing yogurt 10 minutes later.

The end of the road for the day was La Source hotel in the tiny town of Hassi Labied. The town is part of the bigger settlement of Merzouga, but about 3 miles from the center, thus not really walking distance in the heat. Merzouga is the gateway to the Erg Chebbi sand dunes, which sit at the northern edge of the Western Sahara Desert. An erg is a vast sea of shifting wind-swept sand that form into picturesque, undulating crests and valleys. These ergs started about 200 meters from the front door of our hotel, just across the dry riverbed. Out here, surrounded by sand, nomads, and adobe buildings, with few modern marvels in sight, you can almost convince yourself that you’ve traveled back in time or are discovering a new frontier.

We arrived in mid afternoon when the sun was blazing and had to wait a few hours for the temperature to cool down some. The hotel had a pool, but the color was a little off putting and we weren’t staying the night so it seems cumbersome to find clothes, swim, change, and repack in the common room/restroom. Instead we wandered the tiny main square of town (a block square) and then melted into puddles on the chaises of the hotel lobby (no AC or fan to be seen) until the temperatures dropped from a blistering 106+, to a mere stifling 85+.

Around 6:30, we left the hotel lobby and ventured across the riverbed to our transportation to the nomad camp, where we’d be spending the night. Our transportation was disinterested, smelly, and about as uncomfortable as we remembered; dromedaries are so not my favorite way to travel. I do though get a perverse pleasure from how much more Em hates then than I do because she’s afraid of then slipping down a sand dune or chewing on her leg. Her camel was particularly attached to my camel (or me) and kept wanting to have its face right next to my leg.

Our caravan of camels were led into the sand dunes by a local nomad, one of the many that run the camp we stayed at for the evening. One of the modern Moroccan kings recognized this area as their land and therefore the nomads are the only people allowed to build/live/operate tourist venues on it; which is pretty cool.

Our guide toured us around the smooth red sands (the sand is decay from the Atlas Mountain sandstone) as the sky went from brilliant blue and sunny to increasingly dark and brown, a sand storm was coming. At first, I think the guide and Khalid thought we could finish our camel walk before the storm hit, but that turned out to be far from possible. First we tried to venture through the storm, still on camelback, and then eventually got down and huddled behind the bulk of the dromedaries to try and block out the increasingly stronger winds. 

I was never so happy for an impulsive purchase as the $5 cotton head scarf I’d grabbed earlier in the day when we’d stopped at a look out point. The scarf easily covered my head and face, while still allowing me to see a bit and breath through the material. Even though the storm got worse instead of better, our group eventually crawled away from our camel shelter and ventured to the top of a high dune to view the town from afar (when it eventually reappeared from the wall of sand it’d been hidden behind). 

The storm lasted a good hour, left my skin fully exfoliated from the pelting it received, left me filthy with sand in places it had no right to be, and my camera may have been an expensive causality (Khalid said there’s a shop in Essaouira may be able to properly clean the sand out of all the nooks and crannies), but it was a great experience. After the first 15 minutes or so, everyone just gave into to the fact that we were staying out in the storm and started taking pictures (our cell phones fared much better than our real cameras) and attempted the stare at the storm. 

As the winds died down some and we climbed the dune (this was so much more taxing than it had any right to be and I was tempted to just stay perched half way up the dune), we enjoyed watching the other tourist groups that had also gotten caught out in the storm. Some of their guides were crazier than ours and continued to walk their rides around through the pelting sand. I’m glad our guide wasn’t that nuts…although for him, this is probably a weekly occurrence.

Once the winds died down a bit and town was visible once more, we headed to camp. Camp was a series of tents pitched about a quarter of a mile into the desert from the hotel. Khalid said they used to have the camp pitched further into the actually valley, but the government disallowed that practice because they said it was harder to track the number of tourists out there (I guess too many illegal tour operators sending people to the camps without the government getting their cut). We were the only tourists present for the evening, which wasn’t bad, but kind of sad, as Em and I had hoped to meet some other people and swap stories. Our group is so small, sometimes it’s nice to meet others. Even without new temporary members, we had a good evening with some delicious veggies and turkey tangine, salad, and fruit. I am seriously going to gain 20 pounds on this trip.

The tents for bed soaked up the desert heat and radiated them back 10 fold, making it less appealing for a place of rest for the evening. I grabbed my pillow and headed to the central courtyard, where I promptly claimed a bed under the stars. I think the local nomads were a little surprised to see me there, but probably understood, as one grabbed another bed under the stars, and two other carried mattresses outside the camp to the desert to sleep. For all the laughing Em gave me for refusing to sleep in the oven, she wandered out and joined me about an hour later. Unfortunately, about 1 am, water fell from the sky and we were force to retreat back to the oven, which had only cooled fractionally. 

When our 4:45am wake up call came, lets just say we were a tad grumpy. Being, hot, dirty, and with literal gritty eyes, will do that to a person. The pre-dawn wake up though came with a purpose; we were going to ride our camels back to the dune of the previous evening, to hike it and watch the sunrise over the Sahara. The hike to the top of the dune was just as taxing as it had been 10 hours previously, but we accomplished it and were meet with the brilliance that is the calm of a waking morning. 

Without a sandstorm, we could see for miles: black and red sand plains on the town side, and beautiful, shimmering peaks of sand on the desert side. We even watched as an escaped camel went on a solidarity walkout about a half mile from our perch. Camels in Morocco have been fully domesticated and therefore this guy was an escapee on a meditative journey. Khalid said that sometimes it takes days to recover a camel if it takes too long to notice they’re gone.not sure who I’m rooting for in that situation.

After the sun crested the distance peaks and the temperature began to climb, we slid down our dune and clambered back atop our mounts for the slow ride back to town. While the entire experience was majestic and a highlight (especially with the unexpected sandstorm), I can’t help comparing it to our desert Bedouin experience in Jordan and finding it a little lacking. I guess that’s one of the pitfalls of being lucky enough to travel to many different places; you invariably start comparing them to one another.

After a delicious breakfast (more bread and cakes, but with the addition of fried eggs and yogurt), we said goodbye to the Sahara and headed to Todra Gorge.