By then, she had found a place for me in one of the boxes – where the hats and other shoes were. She was wearing the moccasins and the savates were floating about in the car in case she needed them. But I got to ‘feel’ and ‘see’ pretty much all the same!

We passed a few places we had seen with the tour guide. We stopped for fuel in Ifrane and then 

Into the nothing

proceeded further to Michliffen; the road there was closed due to rock fall. The road towards the south was pretty much similar to what we saw from our 

train trips: acres and acres of olive trees, citrus from place to place, a bit of maize here and there.

Berber tent

Passing from the Middle Atlas into the desert was another matter. The heat was different. Let us not talk of the scenery which then became miles and miles of practically nothing except for small shrubs, goats and camels (dromadarian) and some berber tents in the background. The plan was to set up camp in an oasis with a water source just outside of El-Rachidia, in the valley Meski.

Hmm, the approach was an oasis all right, complete with date palms and an old Kasbah in the background. They had to drive downwards for a bit, into a sort of valley. However, the camp site was another matter. It is a ‘public’ one: municipal or provincial but certainly not private. And it was crowded de chez crowded. It is summer and also school summer holidays here and the place was crawling with families with children.

We were assured that come 18h00 most of them will move off. So, we set up under a cluster of olive and palm trees, not far from the ablution block. It was 50C in the car when we arrived and 54C outside – so said the on-board thermometer.

Moroccan Sahara

The heat was abating a bit. Elismé was on kitchen duty, so Shahnaz opted to go do the registration formalities and take a look at the place. In the meantime, one of the young men who look after the place invited them for tea. Coen said that this was a ‘hospitality’ gesture and they should not refuse.

After a brief stroll around the swimming pool and a view of the source, they went to fetch the others and proceeded to the young men’s ‘cave’. Only 4 of them went. It was indeed a ‘cave’. The front looked like the average tourist-cum-curio shop and as you proceed inside, there was some wonderful bric-a-brac that filled the cave behind. They had actually dug into the side of the valley.

Old abandoned Kasbah

In the back there, they had green tea (no mint), while the guy’s uncle talked about life, the universe and everything else. He had a smattering of quite a few languages but not Afrikaans. He could not fathom out where she came from but figured that there was some Indian there. The stories he told are interesting: he was born in the old Kasbah s his father before him. He does agree that his ancestors before that must have been of Africa origin. The old Kasbah has been abandoned quite a few years ago because when the rains do come, the access to and from the place is cut off.

We asked him about his trade, he says he barters and he sells but he prefers to barter and then add cash. Mariana and Stephanus found a carpet in his lot that interest them and they started negotiating. It was a written negotiation for some odd reason.

With a promise that they would think about it, they went off to have dinner. At dinner, another of these young men popped out with an offer of honey. It was dark honey – date palm honey so he said. It certainly tasted different. There was some negotiation there too and the honey was delivered but the carpet transaction was still not concluded.

The night was hot. Many of the locals had left but there were a few who were camping there and had upped the volume of their music. By the time they were preparing for bed, there was a dog barking and owls hooting and people talking. It got dark after 9h30 and they actually got to bed at about 11. But no sleep was to be had as it was still hot, the noise levels had not abated either.

The music finally died down but then there were a few people walking around our part of the camp, giggling, making comments, scraping their feet and enjoying themselves. We do not know what time it was when the camp was more or less quiet enough to get some sleep: they got very little sleep.

How to meditate on an inflatable mattress

54C did get reduced with sundown. So she decided, since she was not sleepy either, she’d try meditating on the inflatable mattress.

For this, you must make sure you have a rather heavy person lying on the other side, this keeps the mattress fairly hard and plump. However, as you sit cross legged on there and settle on the mattress, you will find that with every inhalation and exhalation the body rocks forward and backwards a bit. If you do manage to get into the meditation mode, breathing will get shallower and the rocking will abate.

Be careful, however, if you are of those meditators who levitate, you could do yourself some serious damage in such environments, ‘falling’ back onto the mattress, you might bounce off it and if your surroundings are not padded: pillows, sleeping bags etc, you could get seriously hurt!

Again, next morning, after a brief coffee and biscotti, they hit the road. They were heading for the gorge of Todra. Before that, they stopped in the town of El-Rachicia to see if they can fill the gas bottles and get Moroccan ‘rusks’: a biscotti-shaped hard biscuit with almonds in it. This done, they were on the way, through quite a bit of nothing, a few villes ‘paumées’ in the desert, goats and camels.

Desert

Desert life

Plantation in the gorge

They found the right turn off and they went up into the Gorge of Todra through suburbs of 

Gorge de Todra

Tinerhir and then onto the road along the river that flows through the gorge. It was very scenic. The whole gorge set-up is fascinating: as soon as there is water, civilization settles. Then there is cultivation, farming and life goes on but only in this strip, along that waterway. Imagine, in the middle of this rock, sand and nothing, this strip of green, fields, orchards…

Small settlements in the distance

We had stopped by a camp site before doing the rest of the gorge and this is where we settled for the night when they had seen enough of the gorge. The place was neat, well organized and had most camping amenities. It is called ‘Le Soleil’. When they finished setting camp, they went for a swim in the very clean and very cool swimming pool. That did wonders for aches and pains and the general grime that tends to settle on the skin in these parts.

After dinner that evening, they went to bed – this was done in peace and quiet except for the odd donkey braying in the distance.

The following day, pack up again, drive down towards the main town and out. She was on cooking duty that evening so she started shopping for stuff as soon as she could. First stop was a small ‘épicerie’ where she got only water for the road, then another bigger where she got other drinks. They passed numerous small towns/villages, all built in the desert ‘kasbah’ style, even individual houses had adopted that style, making them look like little castles. It was a nice change from these cement town houses or sterile blocks of flats that were seen in cities but it was also desolate, in the middle of nothing. Then there was this big Kasbah with a massive date plantation in its background and then more nothing.

Kasbah

Settlement in the gorge

They went up the gorge de Dades, another of those but less dramatic than the Todra. The main road goes up into the gorge but not along it. The view from the one café they stopped at was very scenic.

Inside the gorge

Gorge de Dades as seen from the top

Finally the cars drove into Ouazazate, the famous film city. As in most big Moroccan towns/cities, the lamp posts were something to look at. They were not just lamp posts like in most countries: just this metal pillar with a powerful lamp at the top; these had a style to them, especially the top parts, the arm that holds the actual lamp. And in Ouazazate there was a real charm in them.

What is also wonderful is that the street kids (there seems to be much less in this place than in many parts of Africa, South Africa included) have not used these wonderful lamps for target practice!

We passed by these famous studios where quite a few famous films were shot – Laurence of Arabia being one of them. On the outside they were rather garish, with rather pharaonic décor – they are owned and run by Egyptians, it seems.

In this town she bought fruits and meat. The butchery was clean and bien achalandé, they had quite a lot in the manner of meats and prepared meats too, even dinde confie!

Dinner at Kasbah 

From there, they proceeded up to Marrakesh but via a small mountain road. There they stopped at the last camp site they found. It was about 16h00 by then, very hot and rather windy too. Under rather extreme circumstances, Coen managed to start a fire and the food was cooking. They went for a dip in the pool and carried on with the meal preparations.

This camp site was less equipped than the Soleil and there were no big trees for shelter. They parked against the back of the other building on that stretch of road. The people did not complain and this was fine with the manager of the guest house cum camping.

Camping life

It is very much the first time that they saw a pet dog being played with in this country. It looked in good health, pure bred Rotweiller and the child playing with it was most definitely used to dogs.

That evening, the dinner was simple: tomato salad with maize, mutton curry with rice and grapes followed by tea. Then sleep. It was very hot in the tent but since it was quiet and there was a breeze, they did manage to sleep.

View around Telouet

Tedious packing up exercise, everything was covered in dust after the wind of the previous day. And we were off, over a wooden bridge and onto the mountain roads toward Telouet. Again, the cars passed many small mountain settlements, some berber tents, goat herders and winding roads.

Water course

Women going about their life around Telouet

Argan oil products

Young girl working the Argan nuts

It might have been a road less taken by your average tourist but there were enough tourists for there to be the very obvious signs of catering for tourists – in such a dry place, they have shops after shops selling rose products! Then there were these women’s cooperatives doing all the nice and wonderful things with Argan oil. While Coen stopped to enquire about brake fluid, she stopped at one of those and did some purchases.

The stuff is quite expensive even though it is available all over the country. While she does not mind assisting the women, the girls working ‘on show’ there were rather young! It would not do to support child labour or is it now? Could also be that berber girls have rather baby faces?!

The cars stopped and they had a picnic in the mountains. Then we wound our way further and joined the main road to Marrakesh. It was getting quite warm by then but there was a breeze in those mountains. Further on the type of heat ‘changed’, we were approaching town. Hans was following a GPS and we passed along the old Medina wall, by some golf estates and finally on the Casablanca road where we stopped for fuel. Coen asked the petrol attendant about the camping site.

He gave us fairly good indications because we reached there after one more stop to ask the cops if we were in the right direction. The place is called Camping Le Relais de Marrakesh – it seems to be owned by a rather grumpy Frenchman and his son. It is a well appointed place: swimming pool, restaurant, electricity, showers, sinks, drains for RV’s and more.

Christophe, who runs the place is your average cool/casual Frenchman. He offered us a welcome drink at the restaurant and went about his work. He said we could settle wherever we want in the ‘park’. It was not hyper busy, there were already a few other 4 x 4’s and camping cars/RV’s parked there.

Next to our car was this other burgundy Land Cruiser with a roof top tent. Judging by the set up and only having a partial view of the number plate they concluded that these must be Brits. They unloaded, set up the tent and then went off for a swim. The pool was warm and there were a few people there already. It was quite pleasant to have this welcome juice after the swim.

Walking back to the tent she saw the full number plate and uttered rather loudly to herself 'ah! oirish' and then realised that the people were back and sitting by their car. There was nothing else to do but a friendly greeting as if nothing was heard.

Dinner was composed of leftovers which did not want to warm up efficiently because of the rather strong wind that had started blowing. It was late when they got into their warm tent but it soon cooled down, there was even a slight chill in the early hours of the morning.

The plan for the next day was to sort out the issues with the cars. Hans was off to look for a replacement battery and Coen went with her to the Toyota people to see what could be done about some leaking brake fluid they detected when they were in the mountains. It was a Monday and they were already quite busy but sympathetic and helpful too.

When Coen found out that they did not have there spare parts and opted not to have the whole thing dismantled they recommended that he goes and see another garage. They phoned the guy who gave them surprisingly accurate indications how to find him; except that the entrance to his garage was not indicated! (there were not names written there).

Bref! He promptly lifted the car and had the tyre removed. He diagnosed that the seals were ‘tired’ and had to be replaced. He was not sure he had these parts and since he found out that we were going south, he recommended that they try to find these parts there instead because this model of car was never sold in Morocco.

So, off they went to have elevenses at the McDonald and to do some shopping to complete the stores they were putting in for the continuation of the trip. It was still early when they got back to camp. Hence they had concluded that 5 people would take a taxi into town, do the craft centre and the market, see the famous Place El Fnaa and the rest.

At the Centre Artisanal

The people at the camp have an agreement with taxis to come fetch and drop people there at a good price. And a taxi was booked for 14h30. Finally only Coen accompanied the ladies into town. They got there with no hassles and got dropped at the craft centre. This is an interesting place where all manner of Moroccan crafts can be found and purchased, even commissioned. Cheap, they are not but the place is quiet and no one hassles you.

Walking by some nice lamp posts, they found their way past the Club Med to the Place El Fnaa. The first thing that strikes you is the orange juice vendors. For 4 dhirams you get a good glass of orange juice which you drink while standing at the stall. Then there are these dried fruit and date sellers – fascinating.

Minaret Koutoubya

As they proceed into the souk, they realise that this market is still different to the other ones they visited. The vendors are not too pushy, there are no so-called guides to harass you and there is place to circulate, the passageways are wider and there is not donkey traffic in this place. Prices seem quite reasonable, the sellers are keen to strike a good bargain but would not get rude or cross as in some other markets in Morocco.

Sellers of dried fruit

They made some purchases, mixed some spices, tried some shoes and haggled over this and that and finally Coen said he was ‘shopped-out’ and had to find a place to sit. They reached the market again and Coen chose to patronise the Alhambra restaurant for mint tea. There they did the Moroccan thing, they ordered tea for two and stayed two hours over it, watching life go by on the ‘place’.

Life on the Fnaa

It was interesting to see how things proceed as the sun goes down: there are more vendors that settle on the square itself, then come conjurors, snake charmers, healers with their herbs, dancing men with drums, pigeon tamers etc etc. As they were watching there was a crowd around the one lady healer and her herbs and another increasing crowd by an old man doing ‘magic tricks’.

Dinner overlooking the square

Hans and Stephanus joined them there. It was still quite warm but bearable. After an expensive orange juice at the restaurant they decided to eat there but on the upper level where they could see the square better. The food was tasty, of course they chose to sample the b’stilla, of Marrakesh this time.

By the time they left the famous square, the ambiance was evolving full swing, more people were walking in. They had to negotiate for a taxi to get back. As per the recommendation of Christophe, they got a taxi on their terms, taking all of them. It was a bit crammed but they did get there in one piece.