High Atlas Mountains to Casablanca

Sunday, May 19, 2013

This morning we woke up to lovely sunny weather, and had breakfast on the terrace overlooking the mountains.  So nice!  Brahim didn't pick us up until 11:00, so we wandered the gardens and basked in the sun with the wonderful view.  The place has such character, like the lights constantly flickering because they share the only power line of the mountain with the village.

We went back into Marrakesh to Majorelle Gardens for an hour.  We had expected a flower garden, but there were mostly palms, cactus, jades, and a nice lily garden.

We had lunch at the Oasis Cafe with Brahim.  Beef tajine # 101. Everywhere we go, if you want to use the "facilities", there is always a girl whose job it is to stay there all day, clean, and collect a dirham per use.  What a yucky job.

We had a four hour drive to Casablanca and arrived at Hotel Barcelo.  This is a regular city hotel, trying to be ritzy.  It reminds us of the Lisbon hotel.  Brahim dropped us off and we repacked, then decided to walk down to the ocean.

Frankie felt very conspicuous in her knee length skirt, but she got more stares from the women than from the men.  Resentful?  Jealous?  Crossing the busy roads was a bit of an adventure.  We couldn't for the life of us see the traffic lights, although there seemed to be some.  They were more like posts on the street corner that you could only see from a certain angle.  It was better just to watch traffic and run.

Brahim took us to Rick's Cafe for dinner.  The one that is famous from the movie Casablanca.  It had beautiful decor and great jazz music, but service was slow (it took half an hour for them to take our order), there was no non-smoking section ("All the restaurant is the same"), and the food came too quickly (10 minutes) and was mediocre.  But now we can say we've been there, along with Humphrey Bogart.

This is likely the last blog of the trip because tomorrow we journey home.  Brahim is picking us up at 5 am.  Casablanca to Paris, Paris to Montreal, Montreal to Toronto.  It's going to be a LONG day!

High Atlas Mountains

Saturday, May 18, 2013

When we woke up, it was raining in Marrakesh.  We're glad we had our tour yesterday!  Even though the room was a bit small, we enjoyed our stay at Riad Siwan.  It was peaceful, had good service, and they didn't charge us for our extras when we left!

Brahim picked us up at 9:30.  We only had an hour's drive to our next location, which is a night in Bab Ourika in the Atlas Mountains.

The difference between a riad and a "bab" is that a riad has windows looking into the central courtyard, and a bab has windows looking out.  It took 7 years to build this place.  It was a bit of a chilly day, misty, but apparently last week they had temperatures in the 40's, so this is probably better.  We were given a tour of this beautiful "kasbah" as he called it.  Then taken into a sitting room with a warm fire and served Moroccan tea.  This seems to be the tradition when you arrive at a hotel.  Our room is on the top level, we're getting very good at climbing steep stairs now.  We have a wonderful view over the mountains, with a balcony and an outdoor shower on the balcony which I'm sure we will not be using in this chilly weather.  We're racking our brains, but we can't think of another place we've stayed with such a nice view.

Before lunch we met Omar, our tour guide de jour.  He had along someone named Mohamed who is training to be a guide, but who didn't speak English.  They took us for a long hike, over an hour and a half long.  There were great views and we often stopped for pictures, so we were a lot slower than they were.  That's why we have so many pictures of their backs.  The people we passed were friendly, but many don't like to have their picture taken.  The women often turn their backs when you approach.

From road to path to crossing streams and narrow footpaths, they definitely took us the long way.  Everywhere we walked we had to watch for "donkey beans" again.  They look deceptively like fallen olives on the path.  We finally arrived at the home where we were having lunch, belonging to Mohamed and Aisha, a traditional Berber family.  They had obviously dressed up for our visit.  Aisha took Frankie into a back room and dressed her in traditional Berber dress, including taking her own belt off and putting it around Frankie.  Tight!  She wanted to put eye makeup on Frankie, but Frankie declined.  Then she handed Frankie a lipstick which Frankie felt obliged to do after saying no to the mascara.  Aisha didn't speak any English or French, but she demonstrated to Frankie how she was supposed to dance an entrance into the room with the men.  Meanwhile, Anton had been dressed in a traditional djellaba.

In the fancy room for entertaining guests, Frankie was put to work making tea.  The whole process involved about 10 steps and took half an hour.  When it was finally ready, it was the best tea we have had in Morocco.

After tea, it was time for lunch, which was eaten in the other half of the room.  There was a "salad" to begin with, which was a plate of cooked potatoes and carrots.  The main course was beef tajine (again), but this one was much better than the restaurant versions we have had.  It took 3 hours to prepare, cooked in the tajine pot over a propane stove.  Very flavourful.  Dessert was a plate of melon pieces, we each had a fork and dug in.  During lunch, Omar explained the Moroccan perspective on being Muslim.  They tolerate and are friendly towards anyone else and their religion, but trying to convert someone to other faiths is not looked upon kindly, mainly because different faiths would cause friction between people but having people all the same faith keeps things peaceful.  The Muslims here are definitely not the radicals that make the news back home.  Many of them practice in name only, like many "Christians" back home.

We gave them some gifts as we left:  some Canada pins and books and pencil crayons for the children.  We had lots of fun with the Canada stickers, Aisha really had no idea what they were so she hung them from her ears.  She looked quite amazed when we showed her that the backing came off.

We took a different path back to the hotel, starting with walking through a village.  We had a few Rocket candies, so we handed them out.  Then all of a sudden children came out of nowhere.  When we ran out of Rockets, we handed out stickers.  They were all excited, one boy ran to his house and we could hear him excitedly telling his brother to come.

We thought we were taking the road back up to the hotel, but Omar took us straight up some donkey paths up the mountain.

It was 3:30 when we got back to the hotel, and our schedule was free!  We took our time exploring the beautiful and extensive grounds of the hotel.  There are immaculate rose and vegetable gardens.

For the rest of the day, we relaxed and rested.  There was a nice fire in the library, so we read there for awhile.  The meal here was absolutely superb, and Frankie isn't the only gluten-free person staying here, so food was NOT an issue.

Marrakesh

Friday, May 17, 2013

Marrakesh is supposed to be the hottest city in Morocco, but today didn't get warmer than 23C.

Today was a full day explore of Marrakesh, with our own guide Mohamed.  He was quite pleasant and talked alot, and kept us moving at a good clip.  It's so much easier to have your own guide than to be stuck with a large group, we saw some groups of 30 - 40 people.

The parts of the medina where people live are called derbs, and are quite quiet compared to the hustle and bustle of the shopping areas.  Today even a lot of the shops were closed because it was Friday which is the day of prayer.  Fewer crowds was fine by us.  But you still had to watch out for motorcycles.  They are supposed to wear helmets by law, but alot of drivers just carried them and put them on at police checkpoints.

We walked through the Badi and Bahia Palaces, full of mosaic tiles and beautiful ornamentation.  The Badi Palace was built in the 16th century and reputed to have been one of the most beautiful palaces in the world.

The walls of the palace were 2 meters thick in places.  Mohamed also took us to the Saadian tombs.  The Saadians were an Arab dynasty that ruled from 1554 to 1669.  The tombs of the servants were nicer than what we normally use back home.

Another stop was the Ali Ben Youssef Koranic school, again very beautiful.

We went back to the Jma el Fna square, where we were entertained by a snake charmer.

There were also fortune tellers and other entertainers.  A lady asked Frankie if she wanted a henna tattoo for her hand, and while Frankie was still thinking about it, she grabbed Frankie's hand and started painting.  She said, "If you don't like it, don't pay for it".  We were supposed to negotiate the price beforehand, but it was too late at this point.  Just pay what you like.  So we did.  Only, she didn't like what we paid har har but our guide stepped in and off we went.  The tattoo is quite pretty and she sprinkled glitter on it.  She also wrote both our names in Arabic as part of the tattoo.

Mohamed walk us through many sections of the medina.  There seem to be different neighbourhoods all in the same theme.  For example, the lamp shops in one neighbourhood and the carpet shops in another.  We got some interesting demonstrations of people working with iron, or how cloths are dyed.

When you walk through the main square, you can get freshly squeezed orange juice from vendors. Yummy.

Back to the hotel for a bit of a rest.  After a few quiet hours, we were ready to brave the crazy souk again.  From the square we walked through the side alleys of shops and got lost a few times, but someone always pointed us back to the square.  People are very friendly and are always inviting you into their shop, but watch out for the big sales pitch.  How much you want to pay?

We found a restaurant with a balcony overlooking the busy square, and were able to watch and take pictures in peace.  After the 100th beef tajine we've had, we went for a peaceful half hour "caleche" (horse-drawn carriage) ride.  He took us more to the newer areas outside the medina, that we hadn't seen yet.

Skoura to Marrakesh

Thursday, May 16, 2013

After breakfast in the lovely garden, we were on our way again.  That is, after a search for Frankie's glasses once again.  It's pretty well expected that she will lose them at least once per trip, and so far they have always shown up again.  Aha, coat pocket.

From Skoura we drove to the nearby city of Ouarzazate, which is famous for being the set location for movies.  Some of the movies shot here include Kingdom of Heaven (Orlando Bloom), Jewel of the Nile, and The Mummy Returns.  We took a guided tour of Atlas Corporation Studio and walked through many different sets.  Alot of them were just facades with scaffolding behind them.

Many of them are reused for different movies, and they might just paint windows a different colour.  The set for Jerusalem in the Kingdom of Heaven looks nothing like Jerusalem, we've been there.

Just a little further Brahim walked us through a real kasbah called Ait Ben Haddou.  It was built in the 11th century by the nomadic Touraug people.  No, Volkswagon did not make that word up.  The Touraugs were nomadic people from subsaharan countries around Morocco who settled here.  Today of course immigration laws would be much stricter.  Four or five families still live here, but they will never get electricity because it would ruin the "charm" of the kasbah, which was made into a UNESCO site in 1987.

We walked among tunnels and around twists and turns, and climbed alot of stone steps.  We stopped to watch a "painter" who used a paintbrush and tea to draw a picture for us, then he put the paper over a propane tank to burn the colour in.  We didn't stay long, however, because of the hashish smokers in the next room.  There was a lady sweeping a walk who demanded money for her picture before Frankie even clicked the camera.  And a young boy petting a dead bird who asked if we wanted a picture of it, but we passed.

We drove for several hours through the Tichka Pass in the High Atlas Mountains.  The road was quite "snaky" as Brahim described it.  The elevation was 2260 meters high, we were driving through clouds.

We chatted with Brahim about traditions in Morocco.  He doesn't know his exact birthdate.  When parents were asked to register their children, they might be able to pick out the year by a certain event, for example there was a big walk in Egypt that year.  Then when asked the month, well it was very cold so maybe winter.  Brahim's passport says January 1, but that's what everyone's birthday says who was born in winter.

We arrived in the busy busy city of Marrakesh around supper time (of course we didn't eat until 8 pm).  They gave us a tour of Riad Siwan where we are staying, including showing us several of the rooms, which we found odd.  Then it was a bit disappointing when we were shown our room because it wasn't nearly as large as some of the others.  The room is half the size of the others we've had, and the riad twice as "fancy".  It feels a little too formal for us, even though it certainly is lovely and pristine.  The courtyard is very small.  We're having a lot of trouble with internet here.

After a very quiet and foo-foo dinner at the riad, we decided to brave the zigs and zags of the medina, map in hand.  You had to watch out for the hundreds of motorcycles going in every direction.  We made our way to the world famous Djemaa el Fna Square, which was sheer and utter madness on a grand scale.  Vendors selling everything under the sun, including the most beautiful lamps we've ever seen.  Fresh orange juice stalls.  People sitting on the ground shaking balloons.  Some chained up or caged up monkeys, we felt so sorry for them.  Circles of people around story tellers.  Anton got caught taking a picture and had to pay a dirham, and the picture didn't even turn out.  The nice lamp guy did let Anton take a picture for free, but just one.

Merzouga to Skoura

Wednesday, May 15

It got quite chilly during the night in the desert, maybe down to 10C.  We heard the wind howling all night, so we didn't hold much hope of our camel ride, but at 5:20 am someone came to our tent "time for camels!"  Ten minutes later we almost tripped over the camel guide who was laying across the entrance to our tent.  It was just the 2 of us, and the two camels were attached by rope, with the camel guide walking in the lead.  We had to hold on tight to the bar, especially while the camel was getting up or down, or crossing over dunes.  The camels struggled a bit with the dunes because they sank in.

At first when we set out it was dark, it was really surreal riding camels over dunes in the dark.  Then the guide stopped and put a blanket for us to sit on at the top of a dune, and we watched the "sunrise" over the desert.  Only we couldn't see the sun rising because of clouds (sand?) but we did see it getting lighter and lighter.  We watched a scarab beetle scuttling his way up the sand dune.  The guide laid down and at one point we were sure we heard snoring.

Eventually the sun came out and it cast really cool shadows across the dunes.  After an hour we thought it was time to go back to camp, but the camel guide all of a sudden pulled out a bag and started displaying his own mini market for sale.  We asked him how much for the tajine pot (to display on our mantle), he doesn't speak English so he wrote 500 (dirhams) in the sand.  That's about $70, ha ha.  Frankie said too much and wrote 50 in the sand.  He didn't answer so we thought that was the end of the bargaining, and a few minutes later he came out with "okay".  So that was far too easy.

Back at camp we had breakfast and were on our way.

The very first thing when we left camp, the 4X4 got stuck in a sand dune.  It took some fancy maneuvering to get us out.  Yassour took us the long way, around the dunes in the desert.  When it's not sand dunes, it is flat areas with lots of lava rocks.  We passed other tented camps, but with a dozen tents rather than 5 like ours had.  We passed through a French village which is empty right now but used in the winter.  We also saw some real nomadic homes, and Yassour stopped so we could see what they are like.  It had about 4 "buildings" made from mud and scrub brush.  Apparently the woman moved here with her children because her husband took a second wife without her permission.

We stopped at Khamlia, a Sudanese settlement village where we were served Moroccan whiskey (sugared tea) and treated to singing and dancing.  Then Yassour took us to a reservoir that was pretty low right now, which had flamingos in it.

We were transferred back to Brahim.  On the way out of the desert we saw huge dust devils and actual desert mirages.  We crawled through a town which had market day.

Then Brahim made a fossil stop where we could see rocks with fossils in them.  Someone had left a bottle of water in a bush which you could use to pour over the fossils to see them better.

There were alot of rally cars on the road today, there is a race going on.  It is the Moroco Historic Rally, a 6 day 2500 km rally.  We saw lots of Porches and Renaults.

We were headed to the Todra Gorge, but right before we got there, Brahim pulled over to the side of the road in front of a restaurant.  The owner came to our van with menus, we put in our order, and off we went to the gorge while the owner made our lunch.  Very efficient!  Brahim let us out so we could walk along the gorge.

This is where we had our first unpleasant experience with a vendor.  He followed us wanting to sell us necklaces "handmade by my mother" "please so my family can eat lunch".  Frankie was all set to buy a few because we thought he said one for five dirhams.  Okay.  But apparently what he really said was one five, which means 105 dirhams.  No thank you.  There was a bit of an argument before we forcefully told him to go and leave us alone.  Then a Berber family asked if we wanted to take their picture.  Frankie warned Anton that they would want money for the picture, and he was okay with that.  After the picture, the hands all shot out and he gave one of the girls 10 dirhams for the family, which was quite generous, but they were quite upset because they EACH wanted a coin.  Anton would have been better off giving them each a single dirham and they would have been happier, and it would have only cost us 4 dirham.  Live and learn.

Back to La Petite Gorge for our waiting lunch on a nice terrace.  Frankie ordered a coke and compared the label to the t-shirt she was wearing that she bought in Jerusalem.  They didn't match!  Brahim finally explained that her t-shirt was in Hebrew, not Arabic like she had always believed.

We drove through a rose valley, and Brahim pulled over to show us some caves that the nomadic mountain people move into in the summer because the mountains are too cold.

We made it to Skoura (the Valley of the Palms) and took some really off the beaten path roads to get to our hotel, Les Jardins de Skoura.  We have a very nice suite here with our own balcony.  The owner Caroline gave us an extensive tour of the hotel, which really seems more of a villa, with twists and turns and lots of terraces and gardens.  She said the water is actually safe for tourists here, that is the first safe water we've encountered (safe bottled water is plentiful).  It was nice to relax and enjoy the garden while blogging. Caroline is very involved in making sure everything is perfection.  At supper (a wonderful turkey tajine!), they made sure that everything was gluten free, and even made a special dessert for Frankie!

 

Sahara Desert

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Breakfast at Kasbah Xaluca (Sha-lu-ka) was buffet.  There was an Arab sitting on the floor pouring tea.  He obviously knows about tourists because he poured into an extra tall glass while we took pictures, then poured it back into the pot and gave us a small glass.

Brahim told us that the name is deceptive, since a kasbah is a fortress that belongs just to a single family.  They call it a kasbah because tourists like the word and don't know better.

Erfoud is known for large tourist hotels and for fossils.  Brahim picked us up and took us to a fossil factory.  A guide showed us how the fossils are extracted.  Thin 2 inch slices are cut from large rocks, and the pieces are polished or varnished.  Anton bought a trilobite fossil.  For only $6000, we could have had a gorgeous fossil table shipped to us.

Brahim took us to the Ziz Valley, where we were handed over to Tata (full name Abdul Karim Tata).  Tata took us on a walk through the valley.  There were palm trees, streams, and lots of small garden plots.  He showed us wheat, alfalfa, tomatos, peppers, and fava beans.  We had to watch out for "donkey beans" on the path.  There can be feuds among families because the land keeps being divided up, to the point where a particular palm tree belongs to a particular person, but they can't access it because it would mean crossing someone else's garden.

After the walk, Tata showed us his home and we ate lunch on his patio after washing our hands in his stream.  We had been told that we were having lunch with a local family, but he was the only one who actually ate with us.  The rest (brothers and sisters) just brought out dish after dish of food.  After lunch on our way back to the van we were swarmed with Tata's kids and nieces and nephews.  We were able to give them gifts without making them cry this time.

Brahim then took us to the market in Rissani.  Rissani was once known as an important caravan trading center. This market was for locals, we didn't see any other tourists there.  Brahim grew up here so he showed us alot of different "factories".  One was a pizzeria factory:  each family puts their own meat or vegetables between 2 thick slices of bread, and marks their name on the bread.  It takes 5-10 minutes to bake in a super hot stone oven.  Another shop made tiles in molds, one at a time.  These were air dried and not baked.  If you want, you can buy a slice of meat from some hanging animal, and take it to the restaurant to cook it for you.

Brahim took us to Ksar Mezguida, it took us awhile to figure out what this was.  It is a walled villa with many different homes, it makes its own neighbourhood.

In part of this neighbourhood he stopped to give a young 2 year old boy some kisses, who turned out to be Elias his nephew.  Brahim showed us his home and his sister Fatima gave us tea and a snack.  The home is clay/stone and 80 years old, much larger than ours but many families live there.

After this Brahim took us to a mosque and another ksar, and helped Anton buy a turban for 40 dirhams ($5).  At this point we figured that Brahim was just buying time, and we may have been right.  When we finally got onto the main road for the desert, the wind was so strong that it created white-out conditions of blowing sand.  At times we could not see 2 feet in front of our van.

We passed a nasty accident, one guy got smushed front and back, but no injuries.

Brahim drove us to the edge of the dunes where we were transferred to Yassour and a 4X4, thankfully enclosed.  We were surprised to see so many permanent structures in the desert, all resort hotels for tourists.  At this point there was no road, just tracks at some points, but Yassour obviously knew where he was going.

Yassour took us to Yasmina Hotel to wait out the windstorm.  The plan was for us to take camels (dromedaries really) from there to our tented camp.  After an hour and the windstorm not abating, the plan was changed and he drove us directly to the camp.  Driving on sand is very smooth, except for the parts over sand dunes. It was very hot and humid, 40C.

The first thing we noticed at the camp were scarab beetles scurrying around.  There is one large tent that is the restaurant, and a circle of 5 tents for tourists.  There are only 5 of us tourists staying here tonight.  Our tent has a large bed, a sitting area, and our own facilities which include a washroom.  We had upgraded to the "deluxe" camp so we could have our own washroom.  Apparently this also meant that we could bring our luggage with us instead of packing an overnight bag.

We went off to explore the dunes in the fierce windstorm, turbans covering our faces.  When we climbed over the dunes, we sank right into the sand.  The sand blew our footprints away in no time at all, so we were careful not to go too far.  We were full of sand from head to foot, but not enough to brave making sand angels.

We asked for an "early" dinner, 8:30 pm.  They played Berber music for us.  We climbed sand dunes in the dark but we couldn't see many stars because of the storm.  When we went to sleep, it was still well above 30C.