Goodbye Morocco, Good morning Britain!

We left Riad LaCroix Berbere reluctantly, especially as they had made R French Toast for breakfast this morning! But our driver arrived to take us to the airport, and off we went.

The traffic was incredibly quiet as we were driving. Obviously 9.30am is still the middle of the night for Marrakech!

The airport was quiet, too, and we had to wait 10 mins for our checkin to open. Since we’d paid for Speedy Boarding on EasyJet, we had only one person ahead of us in the queue. Our bags were perfectly weighted – 20.1kg for me and 18.9 for R, so we did the perfect amount of shopping! (or “souking”, as the girl behind the counter told us).

The Marrakech airport is quite small, with 8 departure gates, and none of them have skybridges: it’s a walk out to climb the stairs to board!

Again, our small investment in Speedy Boarding paid off – we were the second in the queue to board, and snagged the front row on the right hand side, with noone sitting in the third seat. R was able to stretch out in the middle seat, and we hah easy access to our hand luggage and the loo.

I’ve heard some horror stories about EasyJet, but they were great on this trip. We left and arrived almost exactly on time, our luggage arrived in a timely manner, the staff were pleasant and they had enough food (granted, we only asked for a packet of chips and some water). Although there were gusty winds enough to make for a bumpy approach to Gatwick, the landing itself was really smooth.

The airport itself was pretty painless. A long walk, then a short queue for the non-EU/UK residents (although it moved a lot more slowly than the residents’ queue!) and a 20 questions game from the passport control lady (Why wasn’t I staying with family if I say I have family here? I have family here but it’s only my first trip to the UK? Hmm…) Locating the car rental place was a bit more challenging, and of course it started to rain while we were waiting, so we got very wet trying to find our car in the incredibly early darkness. 4.30pm and it was pitch black!

We met my cousin Robbie there as he’s travelling with us for Christmas. He’s been doing a course in Germany and is wandering around visiting friends now, so we met up for the Christmas weekend!

The car is a medium-sized VW, brand new and full of magical devices such as the windscreen wipers coming on automatically when it showered, and lights that turned on and off with a sensor. Wow.

The drive was thankfully pretty uneventful, after I worked out some of the incomprehensible road signs. The GPS is making life much easier. The big even was hitting Sainsbury’s once we reached Plymouth, and finding a Mecca of gluten free goodies – Christmas cake, English muffins, even bagels! I’ll have one of each, please!

We reached Aunty Judy’s place around 10.30pm, and were greeted at the gate by the security men with “So you’re the Australians then! Go on through.”

It was lovely to see Aunty Judy again – it’s been about a year and a half since she was last in Australia I think, and she’s such a wonderful lady! (If you’re reading this, I hope you’re blushing!

Christmas is well and truly a shock over here! Every radio channel is playing Christmas carols, and every shop we drove past has decorations. After Morocco where it was a non-event, things are very different!

Marrakech Day 2 (or The Saga of the Spiky, Pointy Star-Shaped Light Shade)

Life is a little more laid back today. We slept in a little, had a late breakfast (the staff have sourced some more rice cakes so I was able to put mine away – how thoughtful of them!) and then wandered around the souks a little before lunch. I weighed my luggage this morning, and, working out I could fit another couple of kilos of shopping in there, decided I needed to buy one of the lamps I’d been looking at yesterday.

As we wandered, I saw a pierced metal light shade in the shape of a 3D star. It looks gorgeous with a light inside! It was a huge amount cheaper than the ones I was looking at yesterday, since it was only metal and didn’t have any glass involved. Even though it was about 45cmx45xm and spiky, I decided I would be able to take it in my carry-on luggage quite easily once it was wrapped up. Unfortunately as I quickly realised, the points make their way through all the packing very quickly, so this wasn’t necessarily going to work. However, I soon forgot my woes while buying some small ceramic tagines to serve spices as gifts for people back home.

We returned to the hotel, and I tried stuffing (gently) the light into my carry-on backpack. Hmm. It kind of almost fit, but the points were starting to poke their way through the bag even after a few minutes. Not so good. After a quick brainstorm and the assistance of Google Maps, we decided to try the normal post first, and then hop in a taxi to try DHL if we couldn’t get any joy from the post office. Since Robyn had had difficulty with that post office when she was here last year, we asked the hotel staff and they said that they thought the post office in J’maa el Fna sold boxes as well as doing international shipping. I was pretty keen to try the normal post, as the light itself only cost ~$30. I wasn’t planning on spending much more than that in postage to get it home!

We found the post office without too much drama, but were slightly bamboozled by which line to stand in, as the post office was a bank branch as well! (The signs were all in Arabic or French, and you’ve heard our lamentations on that – must learn more before we come back.) Eventually we found a queue in front of a desk which had some Poste Maroc signs nearby, and some packing boxes with prices on them behind it. This all seemed to be going well, and I was berating myself for thinking that everything here was difficult.

However. I spoke, or thought, too soon. As we got to the front of the queue, the man behind the counter got up and went through a door at the back. We waited. And waited. And waited, as I was a bit reluctant to give up our coveted position at the beginning of the queue.

After 40 mins or so, we gave up, and went around the corner to get some lunch (chicken and preserved lemon tagine, for those who are keeping score) thinking about whether to go back there afterwards, or to try DHL in a taxi and add extra expense to the whole rigmarole, or to just leave the prized star behind.

Thankfully, it seemed the recalcitrant Poste Maroc man had returned just before we had, as some of the people in the queue behind us were now at the front of the queue! After only waiting another 10 minutes or so, our favourite worker (who spoke a little English which helped immensely) found us a box which (almost) closed around the metal monstrosity, with a few points sticking through the cardboard here and there. These we (my newfound friend and I) applied extra pieces of broken packing box to, and metres of sticky tape. The finished article looked quite bedraggled and misshapen (wish I’d taken a photo – they were few and far between today) but if it gets home, I’ll be ecstatic! Only two hours after we started, labelled “Fragile” and airmail-stickered, we waved goodbye to what was now someone else’s problem (and to 390 dirham in charges – more than the star’s original cost!) and skipped off to fill my luggage with more suitably-sized souvenirs. Phew!

The rest of the day pales into insignificance after my minor triumph over bureaucracy. I had a hankering for the woven cactus fibre throws I’d seen in Fes, and was appalled at the shopkeeper’s starting price of 750 dirham – I’d seen ones only slightly smaller in Fes for 300! I started low low low, and eventually reached an agreement at 300 dirham. I also picked up a Size 2 Maroc tourist tshirt for someone small in my life, which I’d been looking for since the beginning of the trip.

On our way back to the riad, R wanted to look at a CD shop, as he has a bit of a tradition of buying random music cds in the countries he visits. He finds it slightly more portable than stone, which seems to be my tradition! The cd shop seemed to have a bizarre mix of American pop, Arabic pop and random DJ “party mixes”. We found some interesting sounding bellydance music, but only got the Nancy cd, and otherwise he bought some of the random compilation cds. I’m sure we’ll hear what they sound like in the hire car in the UK tomorrow!

As we went downstairs to head out for dinner, we stopped to chat to the managers here, who have been lovely. Every time they see us they ask if we slept well, how our day was, how our meals were. This time we got to talking about the languages we knew, and I told them my couple of words of arabic, including “mumkin… mish mumkin” (perhaps… perhaps not) and “imshi” (go away), which set them off into paroxysms of laughter. This prompted a quick lesson on Berber dancing in the salon, which was fantastic! It certainly got the blood pumping again and was a really positive end to our stay here.

Once we escaped the dance session, we wandered back to the square and chose another stall to eat at, number 78 this time. I started with the eggplant, which was cooked really beautifully – just sliced and barbecued with seasoning. This was followed by lamb kebabs, which were tender and tasty. R tried the tanjia, another local specialty, where a meat stew is slowly cooked in a terracotta pot, not unlike the Turkish variety. A much more relaxed experience than last night!

We used our last dirhams to buy some orange juice, which somehow prompted a lady to come and beg from us. I gave her one of the very small coins I had, and instead of being happy to receive something, she asked me for 10 dirham instead! Bizarre… In any case, we stopped to watch the belly dancers, who were quite fabulous and very feminine, especially as they weren’t female! They were dressed in galabeyas with head and face veils, which would obscure a lot I think, but the voices gave it away!

Our last evening in Marrakech has been a lovely one. We felt like we are with friends here, which is such a boost from the way we were feeling yesterday! Now it’s time to pack and get ready for the transition to Britain tomorrow. What a change!

Marrakech

Our Marrakech experience so far has been kind of mixed. We’ve had some great food and seen some amazing things, but we’ve also had some interesting language barrier difficulties and experienced some of the not-so-great Marrakech experiences of being misdirected and taken for a ride.

We started the day with breakfast next to the pool in our riad. No eggs here, so I’m very very glad I found ricecakes at Marjane yesterday, or breakfast would have consisted of two Laughing Cow cheeses and some orange juice!

Our guide for the day, Mohammed, met us straight after breakfast and took us out to see some of the monuments. After checking out the Koutoubia mosque (and the ruins of the previous mosque on the same spot) we wandered into the attached gardens, where orange trees and rosebushes vied for prominence next to mosaic fountains and gazebos.

Our next stop was the Saadian tombs, a mosaic’d and filigree carved collection of tombs which was walled up by the king after the one buried here, and it was only rediscovered by accident by an aerial photo of the medina in 1917!

As we exited, we wandered into the herbalists Aux 100,000 Epices, which was a pretty amazing array of spices and dyes in glass jars, ready to be applied to any ailment. We were doused with various creams and perfumes as the assistant (I love that they wear white coats like pharmacists) expounded on the various spices, herb teas and creams. I ended up buying some Ras el Hanout and some magical weight-loss tea (we’ll see how that goes!)

Our next stop was the ruined Badi Palace which is undergoing extensive reconstructive work. It was pretty amazing to see the scale of this, and also to see the rebuilt sections in comparison to what they began with.

We were starting to get a bit over museums and rock by this stage, so we declined seeing any of the others, much to Mohammed’s despair, and he took us through the J’maa el Fna and to a back-street restaurant for lunch.

I had a regional specialty, pigeon and almond tagine, which was lovely, and R had a plate of mixed grilled cutlets and kefta.

Then we went into the souks, seeing the leatherworkers, carpenters and metalworkers at work, and wandering into a more upmarket light shop which, Mohammed assured me, would ship our purchases home. After falling in love with a couple of the light fittings, the price of shipping made it a bit prohibitive, and we wandered out again.

The dubious highlight of the afternoon was R being lured into a healer’s shop, which was very amusing until the time came to pay the bill! This guy started doing reflexology on me and then dragged us all upstairs to work on my back (which, to be fair, appreciated it, although the pressure point stuff would have been superseded by a good massage!) Then he went to work on R, and we all trooped downstairs again while the healer told us his diagnosis (I’m absolutely healthy in case you’re wondering, but I need to lose weight to be really happy, apparently!) and wandered around picking out “the important” herbs for us, before presenting us with the bill. We were so astounded by the bill of $50 each for our “healing” that we gave him all the money we had (a bit less than the asking price – we’re relatively modest in the amount we carry around, so at least we got a discount because of that!) and headed out as quickly as possible! Note to self: Always ask the price first!

Somewhat shell-shocked from our memorable, if expensive experience, Mohammed didn’t know what to do with us. He said that if we didn’t want to look at any more museums or monuments, there was nothing else to do! We demurred and suggested having a mint tea at one of the cafes around the square in order to relax a bit – after all, isn’t that the Moroccan tradition?

We ended up at the rooftop terrace of one of the cafes, watching the action as the food stalls began being set up for the evening. There are hundreds of different groups of people selling food, drinks, toys and tissues, or services such as shoe-shining, henna application, photo opportunities with snakes or monkeys, and games such as “fishing” for cool drink bottles!

After asking Mohammed’s advice about finding an Arab-style djelleba to use for a dance cover-up, we dived back into the souks. He knew the sort of shop to look for, and found one with exactly the sort of thing I wanted – black fabric with silver decorations and a zip up the front. This exceeded my expectations though – the zip even has sparkles on it!

The large size they had fitted well, but since I wanted it to wear over a costume (which can get quite bulky), we asked if they could find one in a larger size. They sent someone running off to another store to check, and meanwhile we looked at cotton and linen shirts. Our runner returned with another nice one, but it didn’t have as much decoration, so off he went again, this time bearing the original to match it as well as he could.

I decided against a shirt, but R found a couple he liked, and settled on a nice linen one in a grey flecked colour with black embroidery at the collar, cuffs and hem. In the meantime, our running friend came back with the same djellaba in a larger size and all was well. Then the bargaining started. They named 1600 dirham, and we ended up with 1050 in the end, which I was quite happy with. I keep forgetting to start really low, rather than “not being insulting” low, so we probably could have got them cheaper, but I was pretty happy to get these.

We went back to the hotel for a rest, saying goodbye to Mohammed, and then wandered out again for dinner. We immediately got lost, having somehow taken a wrong turn on our way through the medina to the square. We ended up coming out of the medina where we had originally come in, and thought we could go around to the square in another direction. Not helped by various boys on the street calling out to us that we were going the wrong way to the square, no matter which way we chose to go, we ended up asking a few shopkeepers for help, and after about half an hour of walking, we ended up back in the souks. A “helpful” boy told us he would show us the way, and took us a winding back way, then demanded a “gift” when we reached the other end. R didn’t want to give him anything but since the boy started yelling at us and getting angry, I ended up giving him 5 dirham.

Once we got to the square we were able to relax a little, but not for long, as the owners of each of the food stalls clamour for attention as you’re walking through, pulling you towards each stall. We started at one and I tried a p’stilla again, which was terrible (I should have just left it with Karima’s one in Fes) and R had the sausages, which were kind of like the small Italian sausages we’ve had at home.

Then we moved on as R wanted to try the sheep’s head. I wasn’t too keen so I didn’t order anything, and R asked for one small serve. He said it tasted pretty good, but had been looking for the soup he’d seen on Anthony Bourdain, with random bits of meat and whatever floating in it. The trouble started when we were leaving, as R paid for one serve, and the waiter insisted we’d had two. It seems that the language difference meant he’d thought we’d ordered two things, when R had asked for one. The strange thing was that he thought we wanted two separate dishes, which didn’t seem to fit what we’d had placed in front of us. After a lot of shouting and getting angry and finding someone who spoke slightly better English, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I gave R the rest of the money to give to them and left them to it.

While walking by myself for a minute or two, I saw a completely different side of Marrakech. Even though I was in the same spot as before, without R obviously next to me I had comments and blown kisses flying my way from all directions, and not in a good way!

Once R caught up, we headed back to the riad for an early night. Too much excitement for one day! At least we were able to find our way back a lot more easily than on the way out!

 

 

Ouazazate, the High Atlas and Marrakech

We left the luxurious surrounds of Les Jardins at about 9am, after a wonderful breakfast of omelette avec fromage (when we asked for our omelettes to be with cheese, our waitperson only blinked once, although he did ask did we want it “au naturale” and shouldn’t be surprised when we said no). R asked for a glass of hot water with lemon and honey to ease our coughs, which occasioned even less of a blink from our intrepid waiter.

Apparently we were supposed to be having a walking tour of the Skoura Palmerae this morning, but we had organised with Abdel to meet at 9 since there was another long drive.

Ouazazate, the “Hollywood of Morocco” was first up, and we drove past the film studios, decorated in the theme of Cleopatra, the first Hollywood film shot here. There’s even the Oscar Hotel to stay at, for those with stars in their eyes!

Beyond the studio is a big fake kasbah! This is used for most of the filming these day, with additions and deletions much more easily done than when dealing with a real historical kasbah!

Our next stop was to see Ait Ben Haddou kasbah, which we viewed from the opposite cliff, a spot inhabited by savvy businessmen who laid out souvenirs and a gentleman in possession of a lime green snake which he was very eager to drape about our persons! After initial trepidation, I allowed myself to be persuaded (after first watching R deal with the mysterious reptile).

The sight of Ait Ben Haddou was pretty awesome as well, where they filmed Gladiator, amongst others!

To get to Marrakech, we pass through the High Atlas Mountains, another winding, nail-biting stretch of roads hanging precariously to the side of very steep mountains. There are quite a few spots where the barricading at the side of the road has been smashed through. What a comforting thought!

We stopped at a cooperative to see Argan oil being made. R was very disappointed to only see a poster of goats climbing the trees to eat the argan nuts, rather than the real thing, but a group of ladies were showing the different aspects of oil production at the coop, from splitting the fruit, cracking the nuts, roasting, grinding and hand-pressing the pulp. R enjoyed a taste of the oil, and an oil, honey and almond meal mix used for dipping bread, and we bought a jar of that, plus a couple of soaps for people back home. I also nabbed a small pot of lip balm, as my lips have been crazily chapped from the cold.

 

We had lunch next door at a small restaurant, where they served the oil, almond and honey mix with the bread. I had a Berber Omelette for lunch (omelette with tomato and onion cooked in a tagine), and rice, which was cooked with butter and sultanas (and I drizzled the almond/argan sauce onto it as well, which worked quite nicely!)

Then the long drive through the mountains continued to Marrakech. We asked Abdel to take us to a supermarket where we could get cough lollies etc, and he stopped at a Marjane, a HUGE cross between a Coles and a K-Mart. Food on one side, and clothes, electrical and small furniture on the other! Unfortunately we couldn’t find what we wanted, but I did pick up some rice cakes for breakfast, and we hit the pharmacie next door for medications. Luckily the fantastic pharmacist spoke “a little” English, enough to work out what we needed and offer many alternatives! (Soooo much better than my “un petit” French. Must learn some more – it’s a useful language, especially here) Yay!

The driving here is manic – much more like I’d expected from experiencing the streets of Cairo on a good day! We almost hit an old man who was lurching through traffic for some reason, possibly begging, who then gave us a dirty look as if it was our fault he was there. We don’t really want to be doing much crossing of streets here! Too many cars, bikes, motor bikes, horses and carts, donkeys… you name it.

We said a sad goodbye to Abdel at the gates of the medina, (and gave him a tip and a nicely tacky pen emblazoned with the Australian flag) and headed off to the hotel, Riad La Croix Berbere. It’s as pretty as it looks in the photos, but a bit less bright and airy (probably due to it being winter). The pool in the main room is fantastic, and the stairs are wider and less steep. The rooms are beautifully decorated, but pretty small compared to the ones we’ve been in, and there is an extended family staying here with at least four children at the moment, which means it is quite noisy! They seem lovely, but all the noise bounces off the hard surfaces and travels very well.

We’re in the Afra room on the first floor, which has another very firm bed, and a gorgeous bathroom, with a shower like another little room, done in lovely tadelakt. Dinner was a tasty chicken and olive tagine, but didn’t really live up to the extremely high standards set by the other places we’ve eaten so far!

Time for an early night – we’re being met by a local guide early tomorrow who will show us some of the sights, and we want to be awake and on the ball to deal with much more busyness than we’ve experienced so far.

On the road to Skoura

Our bed in the Berber tent was very firm, and pretty warm (it would have to be with the eight rugs piled on top!), although with only a flap of rug for the tent door, the air was freezing and we were both coughing a lot during the night. Stupid cold. Need more medication but we haven’t been past a pharmacie yet.

We woke up early this morning, and wandered around the surrounding dunes watching the sunrise. We were also joined by a black and white cat who had obviously turned up in search of somewhere warm. It gave the camels and us a wide berth though!

We saw lots of tracks through the sand, which were apparently desert foxes, salamanders and big beetles like the scary-looking creature we saw n the restaurant last night. Not quite as fearsome as the flesh-eating scarabs from The Mummy movie, but these were about the same size, just without huge pincers. Didn’t want one of them wandering into the tent in search of someplace warm to sleep!

One of the men greeted us with some hot mint tea while we were standing on the dune looking at the world like tourists – what a great way to combat the cold! Then we wandered down to greet the camels, who looked like they had slept well. Still grumpy though, and we found out this morning that this is probably because it’s mating season!

We returned to the hotel for breakfast (I said goodbye to my last gluten-free roll) and a hot shower, which was lovely for thawing out the toes.

Next stop was to return to the fossil factory, only to find out that shipping for the pile of goods we’d chosen was almost as much as the pile itself, at $330! We decided to put a few things back on the shelf and only take the “necessities”, such as R’s trilobyte paperweight and a stone platter which had called out to me on the shelf.

We dropped Tattah off in Erfoud to return to his family and hit the road again, this time to Todra Gorge where we were to have lunch.

The Todra Valley and Gorge is beautiful: sheer rock faces dropping down to a lush valley between. The Gorge is striking in a different way – scarily high vertical sheets of rock very close together! Looking at the rocks in the river below, I couldn’t help but wonder how often a rock falls from the cliffs!

The obviously doesn’t impede the locals. After a hair-raising drive along hair-pin bends on sheer cliffs, we were met by some local boys who began by giving us folded palm leaved woven into the shape of camels, and wouldn’t take no for an answer. Then once we took them they followed us the length of the gorge, asking for “small money for school”, and then when that didn’t work, they wanted to swap their Euro coins for dirhams, notwithstanding our repeated statements of not being able to use them either.

Abdel told them off and we hopped back into the car, to find that one of Abdel’s colleagues had a van full of Australians as well – Queenslanders – who were staying at the same hotel as us tonight. So we aren’t the only tourists in Morocco, even though it seems like it at times!

Funnily enough, they came to the same restaurant for lunch, a lovely place with a terrace out in the sun, with three cats vying for our attention (and scraps). One grey tabby was especially vigilant, and even found a spot to sit in the framework of our table!

The food here was great, too. Obviously it’s another touristy place, but the food was fresh and well-cooked. I had an omelette to start, accompanied with harissa, which was fluffy and light, with a kefta and egg tagine to follow. R has been getting tagines which arrive sizzling in their pan when mine are merely normal-world hot. Finally, it is my tagine which is flourished with a fanfare of sizzle!

The Queenslanders seem very good company – a family of four including two teenaged boys, one of whom has just finished high school. They’ve been doing a similar tour to us, but without Chefchaouen or the camp night, and they are heading off to Spain after this. They’ve got great things to say about Iber Tours, if anyone’s interested in a Spanish/Moroccan combination holiday.

Next stop – Kelaa M’Gouna, the home of roses and daggers! There is a rose festival here in May, but of course, we missed it. We seemed to miss most of the town too, as Abdel took us to his favourite shop a few villages on, which only had rose water, rose hand cream, rose oil and rose soap. From reading the Lonely Planet review of one of the other cooperatives, I was expecting to see hundreds of different rose-scented things, perfect to bring home as gifts! As it was, I picked up some rose oil perfume, which smells lovely.

Out hotel for the night, Les Jardines des Skoura, is amazing! I was getting a bit worried, since the road to get out here becomes a dirt track a good kilometre or two of winding, bumpy road before the hotel! But the hotel itself is really gorgeous. We’re in a suite decorated with exquisite mirrors, rugs, lamps, you name it! Even the bathroom is divine.

There’s a salon next door to read or drink coffee, or we can lounge on the terrace (one of two, and since this is where we get wifi, this is where we are lounging, no matter that it’s freezing once the sun’s gone down!

The “Jardines” in the name are lots of gardens growing organic food for the kitchens, like pomegranates, herbs, etc, and some ornamentals as well. Instead of the usual cats, we were joined by an inquisitive dog while sitting on the terrace typing!

The food is amazing –  dinner started with carrot and orange soup, then the “usual” Moroccan salads – spiced sautéed eggplant, tomato and zucchini, beetroot. The main course was the most diving tagine of beef with quinces – tender and sweet and gorgeous, followed by an unctuous chocolate mousse. Woah! The three groups of us  (the Aussies we met earlier and a British couple and their young boy) were all melting with delight. No pictures – I was too busy eating!

Caroline, the Frenchwoman who runs the hotel came in to welcome us and assured me that the food would be gluten free – how fabulous! The mood was so convivial we stayed in the warm dining room swapping stories until past 10 o’clock! (how party-animal of us!)

 

The Ziz Valley and Merzouga

We set off from the hotel in Erfoud at 9am on the dot, and headed for a Fossil Factory! We were shown how they cut slices of rock and polish them so the fossils inside can be seen. They had gorgeous tables and basins etc made from this fossilised rock, but tables starting at $3000 were a little out of our price range.

We thought about picking up some presents for people back home, and asked for a shipping quote (this stuff is all rock – heavy! And we all know my penchant for bringing home rocks – almost as much as R’s love for anything dinosaur related, so he was enamoured with the trilobyte fossils!) but Fed Ex was closed, as it’s Sunday. They said if we popped back tomorrow we could find out and decided whether we could be expansive with presents and ship them all home, or just get a couple of pieces for hand luggage.

Our next stop was the Ziz Valley for a walking tour of the agricultural region with our guide, whose name we think is Teti, but neither of us can quite remember! Tutti Fruitti? Ah, Tattah. This was great, as we got to see the farming up close, with irrigation from the river flowing from the big dam. Each person will manipulate the channel to give water to his lot, then return it back to normal. While we could see tracks from tractors, we weren’t too sure how they got them down there!

The river is at high tide at the moment, as apparently people downstream need more water, so they’ve opened up the dam a little more.

Lunch with Tattah’s family was again, a wonderful experience. We were met walking up the street by Amal, Tattah’s three or four year old daughter, who greeted us by presenting a cheek to kiss. We walked through Tattah’s house, which his family shares with his brother’s family and his mother. It’s only a few rooms, bare concrete with electrical cords hooked up on the wall, and holes in the wall for windows. Tattah’s sister was in one room baking bread over an open fire.

We wandered out to the back, where they have a small food-producing garden with figs, grapes, date palms, pomegranates and prickly pear, with a kind of patio next to one of the irrigation channels. Quite a gorgeous spot! Tattah’s mother joined us briefly before disappearing back into the house (another person who was astounded to hear I couldn’t eat bread – but bread is a part of life in Morocco!) His two daughters joined the three of us and Abdul for another lovely family lunch, this time featuring tomato salad, sweet cucumber slices, chips (!) and a chicken and vegetable tagine. All followed by fresh fruit for dessert. I swear that the mandarins here in Morocco are the best I’ve ever tasted!

After lunch we visited Tattah’s menagerie of chickens, cows, sheep and the Moroccan 4×4 – the donkey. He also has a small shop in a room next to his house, selling dates. Abdul bought about four kilos from him, and I’m currently still kicking myself that I didn’t!

Next stop was the Mausoleum of Moulay someoneorother, which was a beautifully restored riad with gardens in the middle, and amazing tiling all around it. Over the road was an old Ksar (apparently a Kasbah was a large fortified house for one rich family, while a Ksar is for multiple families) which currently houses a lot of Berber families who produce silver goods for the co-operative, which we were duly shown into. This was an Ali Baba cave (strangely, R has been called Ali Baba by every person here, while I’m usually Fatima! We found out from Tattah that Moroccan people call anyone with a beard Ali Baba – R is sporting quite a bit of growth on his chin at the moment) of jewellery, Berber daggers (or letter openers) and other assorted pretties. After being plied with mint tea and hearing the spiel, I ended up buying a couple of Berber “compass” necklaces, and R departed with a beanie and a turban for each of us.

Then it was off to Merzouga to head for the hills (or the dunes, anyway). As we reached Kasbah Tombouctou, our starting point, it was very overcast, so we took saddle straight away in order to reach camp before sunset. Having ridden a camel a couple of times before, I kind of knew what to expect, but the lurching rise took me a little by surprise. R on the other hand was having an interesting time with his camel, Oday, who was convinced that by walking sideways at every opportunity, and trying to bite my camel, Anjoud, on the bum would get him sent home and he wouldn’t have to go on another walk. But no, R just had to deal with Oday trying to walk sideways down dunes…

The drop down took me a little by surprise again, and was almost overbalanced on the way down. Stupid backpack!

The dunes are amazingly lovely; a gorgeous salmon pink colour in the late afternoon. Our little camp is made up of about 8 tents joined together, made of Berber rugs sewn together and supported by tree branches, and the “restaurant” which is a double layer of the same. Then there’s a “toilet” tent, where there is a normal cistern loo sitting on a slab, with a 44 gallon drum of water next to it. Hmm.

Dinner was wonderful “home” cooking, as we’ve come to expect – salads to begin with, followed by a tagine with vegies and olives, and then more fruit to finish. Then the fun began – the two men who stay here brought out a drum and the Moroccan double zill things, and sang and played. They let us try the instruments and begged us to get up and dance, which we (briefly) did.

The stars are amazingly bright – not much light around to dim them.

 

Travelling South

Today we said goodbye to Josephine, Ben and Fatima at Dar El Hana and set off on our trip through the mountains to the desert. Meeting an Aussie ex-pat in Fes really helped to make the maze of a city more accessible, and after a couple of breakfasts, Josephine seemed more like a friend than a hotel owner. I can highly recommend her riad to anyone wanting to visit Fes!

We were asked to meet Abdel at 9am, and after a quick stop at the pharmacie (my head cold is back with a vengeance, and after unsuccessfully trying to mime that I wanted cold and flu medication to the French-speaking pharmacist, it was easier to hand her the finished packet of polaramine, point at my nose and look pained. Antihistamines will do at a pinch) we were on the road by 9.05. Not bad at all!

Today was a seven-hour drive, so you can imagine we travelled through some pretty different country! We passed through cedar forests populated by gibbon-like monkeys on our way into the Middle Atlas mountains and even saw snow on the ground! It was pretty icy by the time Abdul took pity on us and stopped to get a closer look, neither of us having seen snow before, but nevertheless. Snow! On the ground! Up close!

We stopped in Midelt for lunch at another “tourist-exclusive” restaurant. Pretty impressive looking, but we were a bit worried… However, there was a cat sauntering across the dining room floor as we entered, and it wasn’t as terrible food as the one we went to in Meknes, so I’ll give it something! The mint tea was pretty bad though. How do you ruin mint tea, I hear you ask – isn’t it just hot water with some tea steeped slightly then poured into glasses with fresh mint in them, and then add sugar? Nope, apparently you boil it on the hob for a few hours with dried mint until it’s a bitter, tannin-y yellow mess with brown floaty bits. To give them credit, our waiter saw our faces and replaced the pot with a fresh one, and glasses that actually had mint in them, but it didn’t help too much as the contents of the pot was the same overcooked stuff. Ah well…

Since Midelt is known for its apples, R had a quite nice-looking apple pie for dessert. I had the Saison Fruits, which comprised of two mandarins (yum), a banana (yum), a quarter of a pomegranate (triple yum!) and an apple, presumably one of Midelt’s finest (floury, only managed a quarter of it). So they did redeem themselves slightly with dessert.

The next couple of hours showed an amazing variety of scenery – from rugged mountains and sheer cliffs, to tunnels hewn from the rock face, to the huge dam just before we reached the Ziz Valley. Then the valley itself, which looks like a forest of date palms. No wonder this is the date capital of Morocco! Apparently the King was here in October for the Date Festival!

We continued along the Ziz Valley to reach our hotel for the night, the Ksar Assalassil, a riad which owes a lot to the traditional caravansereil plan! It’s gorgeous! We met our guide for the Ziz Valley here and settled in for the night in preparation for the grand Sahara trip tomorrow.

 

 

Fes Day 3

We had a quiet day today, which was nice after the frenetic shopping stops with Kamal yesterday! Mainly we spent the day wandering the souk in search of yummy things! Since we’ve been with guides or on the road mainly, we haven’t had much of a change for snacking, so we (well, okay, I) bought up big on snacks – dates, sugared almonds, and Moroccan nougat in preparation for the three days of driving ahead of us. Yes, those are bees buzzing around the nougat logs – they love the honey apparently!

We ate lunch by the Blue Gates, after only one wrong turn, and were harangued by the local kitties who were all desperate for a taste of our kefta and egg tagine!

 

Fes Day 2

Today was our guided tour of the medina and city of Fes.

We fortified ourselves with a good breakfast of Laughing Cow cheese and dates, pistachio flavoured yoghurt, crepes and jam (or ricecakes for me, thoughtfully provided by our host, Josephine).

Kamal met us at the riad at 9.30, before whisking us away through the maze of alleyways, periodically asking “Do you know the way back to the riad?” to which our answer was almost always “No,” except when we went past the man selling cooked snails – a navigational marker pointed out on the map by Ben last night!

Our first visit after wandering through various streets such as the street of carpenters, which seemed to be stocked mainly by wedding furniture, was the carpentry/wood museum, housed in an old restored caravansereil. Gorgeous building, but we weren’t terribly interested in 16^th century lathes or chisels! The roof terrace provided a lovely view over the medina though, and it was practically deserted.

After a quick stop for postcards (finally!), we headed off to a “government carpet cooperative” where apparently hard-done-by women are given jobs weaving carpets. We were given the usual spiel, and had hardened our hearts to say no, until the vintage kilims started coming out. After a lot of sighs and hard bargaining, we talked them down to under half their “special, low season” price, and since they arranged shipping and took credit card, we decided to go for it. We were whisked upstairs so fast we blinked, and were told we needed to pay 5% for the credit card fees AND pay the shipping in cash. We hadn’t foreseen this of course, and had little cash on us, and they found it very hard to believe we had no euros or dollars to give them instead! So we eventually had the rest of the payment whacked on the credit card, and we’ll see what happens when they get home!

Next stop was a leather shop to view the tannery. We’d been warned that it was absolutely foul-smelling, but the combination of a handful of mint held near the nose, and the fact that it is the middle of winter means it’s quite bearable. It’s amazing to think that the leather is tanned here in the way it’s always been done. Not a very fun job!

I was pretty happy to not buy leather, but R was looking at getting a suede shirt and a nice black belt, so I tried on a red and black leather jacket which was lovely. Then the haggling commenced! We reached a price we were all happy with, and had some little babouche keyrings thrown in for fun.

Although we were starving, the next stop was at a weaver’s. We watched them use hand- and foot- operated looms to weave in wool, cotton and agave “silk” to make various cloths, and were dressed in turbans.

Finally, we were off to Kamal’s family’s house for lunch. Although the shape of the house was traditionally Moroccan, there are some things which are the same across all cultures, like the TV showing bad American TV shows! When Kamal’s mum brought out two plates and a huge tagine full of couscous, chicken and vegetables we were a bit worried that we’d be expected to get through the lot, but the others (Kamal’s mum, brother, and Abdel) all dug in with spoons. We were just the foreigners who needed a plate!

Kamal’s mother was very pleased we’d brought her a gift (an Australian flag teatowel), although I’m not sure she knew what it was… Kamal joked that they should start a line of flags outside their house to show how many different nationalities had come there, like a consulate!

It was lovely to have some home cooking, and the atmosphere was very jovial, with some teasing going on, as usual!

After lunch we stopped off at a mosaic and pottery place to see how these were made, which was amazing. Such painstaking and fiddly work! We managed to not buy something at this stop (who would have thought!) even though there were some utterly divine tagines and bowls decorated with silver binding. Wow!

Last stop was the Golden Gates of the King’s Palace. PRetty amazing, especially with the setting sun shining pretty golden-y on them!

On our way back to the medina, we were somewhat surprised to hear a squawk from the back of the car. Apparently Kamal had bought a chicken somewhere on our travels, and it was stuck somewhere in the back of the van! Only in Morocco, huh?

Josephine at Dar el Hana had made us a booking at Dar Hatim, a house where a local family had started a restaurant. One of the specialties of the house was the p’stilla, the chicken and almond pie wrapped in filo pastry and sprinkled with cinnamon and icing sugar. Of course I had to order that, even though it wasn’t GF. Some sacrifices have to be made!

The set menu started out with fifteen small dishes with “Moroccan salads”, similar to other meals we’ve had, but so many more! There were cooked lentils, white beans, green beans, fresh tomato and onion salad, fresh fennel, cooked eggplant, fried zucchini, cooked tomato and capsicum, a really tasty mashed cauliflower, potatoes, and the list goes on! We could have been satisfied with just that, but then the mains came out! R had the steamed lamb, which was cooked to perfection and almost falling off the bone. It was served with couscous topped with a crunchy almond and cinnamon topping. My p’stilla was worth the wait. Light, flaky filo pastry encased a soft, spicy filling of chicken and ground almonds. The mixture of sweet and savoury was amazing! When Fouad’s wife came out to see how we were going, all we could communicate were “Mmm”s of pleasure! She was very charming – shyly saying that the p’stilla was her specialty and seemed genuinely happy that we enjoyed her food so much.

After our dessert of fresh fruit (the mandarins here are amazing, really sweet) we were shown upstairs to the tiny kitchen where all this amazing food was prepared – about half the size of our kitchen at home! – and the roof terrace with views over the medina.

It was lovely to be invited into real people’s homes like we were today. I know these people are all paid for the privilege, but it gave us much more insight into the “real” Morocco, and it is a privilege for us to do so.

 

Goodbye Chefchaouen, Hello Fez!

We set out early this morning for another long driving day, which included a stop at the Roman ruins at Volubilis. Here’s both of us in front of (an) Arc de Triomph!

The mosaics here are fabulous, although the ones still in situ aren’t protected by anything more than a dilapidated rope hanging across the entryway for each room. They’re open to the elements (and to people who disregard silly things like ropes) and so are continuing to deteriorate. Still, pretty amazing!

After we’d hit Volubilis it was time for lunch (at 2pm, it was more than time for lunch!) Abdel took us to an “international” restaurant in Meknes, which basically meant that it was an overpriced place for tourists, where they could eat “Moroccan” food and drink alcohol! I started feeling car-sick on the way, so couldn’t eat much lunch, especially when my lamb tagine was set down in front of me, swimming in a bowl of oil (I kid you not). We didn’t stay for dessert as I was feeling pretty bad, and were gouged 330dirham for the pleasure (not including tip please, we were told!!)

The drive to Fes was an exercise in patience for me, having downed some ginger pills and waiting for them to kick in. By the time we reached Fes an hour and a half later I was feeling a little better, but still pretty flummoxed by the Fes medina. Luckily we were met by Ben, a general factotum from our hotel, Dar el Hana, and he guided us through the Big Way to the riad.

We seem to be the only people in each of the hotels we’ve stayed at so far. I know it’s low season, but I was under the impression things heated up before Christmas! Maybe we’ll meet some more travellers at the next couple of stops.

We’re in a gorgeous room, the Jacaranda Suite, with beautiful shutters and windows, and aircon, so we can take the chill off the air.

Our itinerary included dinner here at the hotel, so we are having a quiet night, after Ben cooked us a lovely dinner of various vegetable entrees (R even ate vegies!!!) and chicken tagine. Night all!