So far, we've been to Marrakech and the coast, now it was the time to hop in the van for a three day/two night "desert tour". Someone sent us a link to one of these tours last year and it sounded so interesting that it became the impetus for the trip to Morocco.
Our driver for this part of the trip was the same as our day to Essouuria, so we were going to spend 4 full days with this guy. Luckily, he was not only a good driver, but was a super guy. Mohammed Essadoq.
You get to know someone while sitting shotgun next to a guy for 4 days. He is from Fes, but his dad was from Agadir (the coastal town to the south of Essouria), but left it in the 60's after a massive earthquake leveled the town. His dad was not injured physically, but was buried in rubble for three days and it freaked him out. Essadoq is a Muslim and would go off to pray while we were eating meals and such. He lived in Spain as a guest worker for 5 years, but with that country's economic downturn, was forced to come home but learned perfect Spanish, which was fun for us to chat in that language a bit.
I will details some of the highlights of stuff we saw, but before that, have to mention the overall landscape. Morocco was surprisingly varied, but the majority of the landscape is considered desert. For me, growing up in SoCal, bone dry air and the accompanying sparseness of vegetation feels right. Morocco was better as the levels of pollution were almost non-existant. The colors of the desert and sky change throughout the day in ways that make one wax poetic. Had a conversation with a Chinese speaker the other day and was going off (again) on how awful Mandarin is. One of my (many)examples was how the color pink was not in the original Chinese language for some bizarre reason, and one way to say pink in Chinese is 'foreign color' Their counterpoint was that the language is so simple and that they have only one word for the color blue. Yes, English is hard to learn well as there are a hundred ways to say blue (Dodger blue being the best of course), but you are able to create poetry of the mind when you can describe it in various ways. I'm no poet (and I absolutely know it), but at one point, we're driving and it is getting later in the day, so you have a lot of light and shadow, and combine it with wispy clouds and you could literally see the entire spectrum of colors laid out around you. Just amazing.
We started out of Marrakech, which is in the coastal plain, but a few kilometers out, you enter into the High Atlas mountains. These run diagonal from SW to NE and the highest peak stands at 13,671ft., which is damn big. This year is seeing a drought in the area (which was good for us but awful for the country), so we made it through the 6,621ft pass without issue, but you could see all the signs for chains and advertisements for snow sports dotting the road. So like my homeland of LA, you can be at the beach in the morning, and be skiing in the afternoon. Could not get the line from Everybody's Talkin' out of my head for days...goin' where the weather suits my clothes.
Took an hour or so to get to the other side, and while the drive tested some of us that get a tad car sick, the beauty of the mountains interspersed with small communities made the ride pleasant.
Our first stop was a UNESCO site called Ait Ben Haddou. Said to be the greatest example of a ksar (North African castle, usually made of earthen clay bricks). You've seen it in movies and don't know it.
Up the road from Ait Ben Haddou is the town of Ouarzazate. Many movie studios are here including the largest in size in the world (a trip wouldn't be complete without a largest something or other) Perfect spot to film all things middle eastern and all kinds of projects, from Lawrence of Arabia to Game of Thrones were done in the area.
We didn't stop for more than a bathroom break, but it was here that I thought that one of the main reasons that Westerners are afraid of this particular type of brown person is how they are portrayed on TV. Not proud of it, but I am a sucker for detective proceedurals, and there are few of them that do not portray Arabs as wild eyed terrorists. As you look at the people, you can envision all of them on the Most Wanted posters of NCIS or nefarious warlords on the Blacklist. When your entire interaction with these people is on TV, no wonder there is so much fear of them.
The afternoon was spent driving through the Valley of 1000 Kasbahs. I had always thought oasis were only around a spring or a well, but the ones we saw sprung up where mostly underground rivers met the surface. At these points, there would be small agriculture communities and each would have a central Kasbah, which is a fortress of various sizes in a particular style having four turrets, one at each corner. Most are now hotels or family homes as the threat of desert marauders has dissipated.
Speaking of desert marauders, saw many of these heavy duty RV's touring around and they were all unsurprisingly German tourists.
Accompanying us on this trip, as with most of the trips we take, was a copy of the DK Eyewitness Travel book on Morocco. These are the best and cannot recommend them highly enough obviously.
We talked a lot with Essadoq or rather, I talked a lot. At one point he says that I have 1000 questions free and that there would be a fee after that. Whatevs...am a curious guy and wanted to learn as much as possible plus the kids were in the car and while they were not as chatty, hoped they would absorb some of the dialogue.
We talked a lot about Islam and the difference between the Arabs and (local) Berber people and how they have forged a peaceful society together, although he did get in a dig by saying the Berbers were about knowledge while the Arabs were about money. The King of Morocco, Mohammed VI, is half Arab and half Berber and appears to be beloved by all. We were taken by how gentle the people were and also that they treated the women not only with respect, but with equality. They can drive (both Essadoq and I made comments about their driving skills as we blew past them), run businesses and while most wore a headscarf, there was no insistence that they do so and saw many without it.
Speaking of the women, I typically make judgments on their general appearance in these pages, so here goes. For Morocco...was very hard to tell as most wear a loose fitting garment and their hair was covered, so you can only see their faces. Their facial features seemed OK and using my power of imagination, felt that their bodies were a tad pudgy. You did see quite a few around with the full on black burka that only had the eye holes and at times, you would see a group of them chatting together. I wondered how they knew who each other were as they passed each other on the street.
Of course we talked about politics too. He was lamenting that tourism was way off and naturally attributed it to all the terrorism going on in the world and that Morocco is a Muslim country, people are staying away. A shame as we not only felt absolutely safe, but were welcomed with a friendliness that you do not see many places. I mentioned earlier that they have been, and still are, friends of the Jews, which should say it all. They are also very friendly to the United States where they are partners in the war on ISIS. In shops, you will see photos of past dignitaries that have come to visit. Saw more than a few places that had pictures of Reagan, Bush (W...who is well received in Africa) and Obama. Morocco also is allies with Saudi Arabia in their fight against the Houthis (and Iran) in Yemen. As much as they are peaceful with Christians and Jews, they have zero love for the Shiites. I was surprised that military service was not mandatory, but that there was no shortage of volunteers as it is considered a solid career path.
For our part Essadoq, and others that we had the chance to talk to, were curious about Trump. This was soon after his call to ban all Muslims from entering the States, so he was of interest to them. I tried to explain it to them by asking if they had segments in their society that were intolerant of others that were different to themselves and if those segments seemed to hold more sway at certain times over others. That helped, but it is a tough one to rationalize. Similar to when people ask about 'why all the guns' in the States? Think I mentioned that I help out at the English language Community Center, and I sit at the front desk and answer phones. On Friday, an older dude (later telling me he was 70) comes in to register for a Chinese language class and he has time on his hands and wants to chat. I ask if he is new in town (yes, I can be a pleasant person) and he says 'no', that he has been in Taiwan for 25 years but wants to join his friend in the class. I wondered aloud if he had been in Taiwan for that long but had never learned Mandarin and he launches into a screed about how he hates all Taiwanese as they are money grubbing back stabbers and that that humanity sucks as it is filled with people that only care about money. The GOP debate was going on at that moment, the one where Trump bailed as he was afraid of Megan Kelly, and he sees me looking at the chatter on the computer, so adds that he really likes that Trump cause he is "honest" and "tells it like it is without all that PC bullshit". I didn't just let him spout and told him that the dude with no shoes yelling in the park is doing the same, and allude to the fact that he is cynical and a cliché, but he takes it well and he finally went on his way, but got to thinking that this was the first one of these lunatics I had ever met 'in the wild' and how bat shit crazy they are. Can only imagine what it must be like for dazzling urbanites like myself to be caught up in a rally or other gathering where this mob must congregate.
And we talked about my favorite subject...driving. Ranging from the aforementioned women drivers, importing cars and the brutal taxation for doing so, the government program to buy up all the old Mercedes 240 class taxis that run forever, and offer credits to buy the shitty Renault's even shittier Romanian subsidiary Dacia made Sandero's that last two years, to dickhead drivers. They are indeed everywhere but still rank the Taiwanese highest as the dickiest for no reason
Our ultimate destination that night was the Dades Gorges in the Anti-Atlas range. Ancient mountains meets water created several of these spectacular narrow gorges.
Next day's destination was the anticipated highlight, but made a few stops on the way. First was an early morning pop into Todre Gorge, which was even narrower than Dades
The Atlas and Anti-Atlas have similar names, but were formed in different epochs with the Anti-Atlas being much older. They were formed when the Americas and Africa were connected during the Godwanaland period and explains why they are smaller and less jagged. What also makes that significant was that the sea floor that was pushed up when they were created was during the earliest ages of multi cellular life on earth, so this area is a fossil hunters paradise. We bought a foot long trilobite fossil.
Quick detour...at this point in the journey, I thought about my fifth grade teacher, Mr. Morehead. I think about him a lot as he was the greatest teacher I ever had. Don't remember much about the 3-R's with him, but do remember that he had two special projects throughout the year. In the first semester, it was all about Rocks and Fossils. I remember studying about the different periods, why rocks formed certain ways, going to the Rock Shop in Monrovia to buy some mica and am still a junkie for learning about How the Earth Was Made to this day. Second semester, we were split into groups of two and we had to plan a trip. We were given a budget, looked up costs of hotels and transportation in AAA books, plotted out the cities and sights to see, then had to map it out on the classroom walls with construction paper, pictures and string. Even remember my partners name was Lee Arigada. As we walked out of the fossil store with our trylobyte and it occurred that I was on a trip of a lifetime and excited about my 500 million year old cock roach, and hit me hard just how much an influential teacher can have on a persons life. Here's to you Mr. Morehead.
Before we hit our destination for the day, itwas lunch time. One of our main conversation topics is always food, and the driver told us about this special desert pizza they only make in the town of Rissani. Called Mahtfouna, beef and onions cooked right inside the pie. Very good and a crime they only make it in one place.
I think everyone wants to ride a camel and we were certainly excited to do so. They did not disappoint. As mellow a creature as they make 'em, their gait is such that makes them stable in the sand. We all named our rides...from back to front; Billy, Larry, Herbert and Sultan bin Sexy Rexy.
The tents were spartan, but they put enough blankets inside so that we slept warmly.
The worst part about sleeping in a tent in the desert, which gets very cold in the night, is having to take a leak. The best part of having to do that is that you are in a 500 square kilometer sand box. Not sure what the girls did and didn't ask.
Next morning was up before dawn and on the camels to catch sunrise over the dunes.
We had a long drive ahead of us that day, but we did stop that morning at a roadside fresh camel milk stand. Unprocessed and straight from the camel's teet. Thought it was gonna taste gamey, but was sweet and smooth. Betty and I both liked it a lot although the boy was less enthusiastic.
A long day drive through the Valley of Roses...
This part of the terrain was so unlike others we had seen, with the forests and the lakes and the green. Essadoq was awesome, and his main job is running this 3 day tour from Fes to Marrakech and back, and he does it dozens of times a year, so he knows every clean bathroom along the way. Our last pit stop was in the town of Ifrane, which was built during the French Protectorate (more on that next time). With mild temps, wide tree lined streets and French colonial architecture, you could easily have thought you were in some French hill town. Quite the popular vacation destination for those types and is another example of how varied the Moroccan experience can be.
We hit Fes for dinner and will save it, Casablanca and a full run down of the food for next time.
