Storyline: Highlights of Morocco
Jan 21
This was another short ride day. Today we’d travel on the “Route of 1000 Kasbahs”. We first had a photo break at Boumalne Dades, for a panoramic view of the snowy tops of the mountains.
It was threatening and as we got out of the van a squall of strong winds with snow and hail hit us.
So we didn’t waste much time and jumped back into our comfortable road home. Shortly afterwards, we had the usual coffee break and some gift shopping activities at a café in Kalaat M’Gouna.
This area is known for its rose oil, as is my motherland. I bought some rose lip balm here.
At around noon we entered Ouarzazate. Glanced at the Taourirt Kasbah and then had lunch across the street. Alex and I shared lamb chops and soup.
The town is home of the Atlas Film Studios, which we’d pass by after running some “errands”. We walked to a liquor store to replenish the wine supply for our stay in the mountains. After all, the mules were going to carry it up to the gite. Then it was my turn for shopping.
We stopped at a spice store, where I could buy saffron. Those who had been around my table know that I love cooking paella, and saffron is its main spice. Of course, we had to go through the demo of all kind of essential oils, soaps, herbs and spices. This marketing made a few sales. Many bought some of the demonstrated products. I only needed saffron, but later decided to get some of the 35 Moroccan spice blend and the 7 spice blend for fish and seafood. So if you are willing to try Moroccan tagine with Moroccan spices, please visit our table and let me know what do you want in the tagine – chicken, lamb, seafood, veggies only or Berber-style (eggs).
We stopped by the Atlas Film Studios where many famous productions such as “Lawrence of Arabia”, “Gladiator” and more recently “The Game of Thrones” were shot, then continued to the UNESCO World Heritage site Aït Ben Haddou Kasbah, with a stop for a panoramic view and photo op before reaching the hotel.
Our hotel was right in front of the Kasbah. This is the first time we experience some tourist activities. It was shortly after noon and there still were many people having lunch in the restaurants of our hotel. There were also quite a few hotels, many buses and vans and tourists all over. Apparently, this is a day trip for many from Marrakech. Our hotel room had a balcony with a laundry line and laundry pins. Not that we’d have time to do any of those.
Shortly after checking in, we visited the famous Kasbah. We spend about two or three hours hiking up and down, marveling the earth-built houses, the maze of walls and the views at the distance.
Of all the remaining Kasbahs in Morocco, we were told, the walls and interior of this area were the most intact. There are still a few habitable houses, but most now live in the adjacent village.
Like many of the earthen fortresses in Ouarzazate, Aït Ben Haddou has been used in many film and television productions like Gladiator, Babel, and Game of Thrones.
As we were to visit a house in the Kasbah, we noticed a guy with banjo in front of a café. We stopped by, Said sat next to him and began singing. The guy started to play and we joined in by clapping. Suddenly, every tourist in the area came to see and stopped to listen. I guess this made the guy’s day as we all gave him some change or more.
It was interesting to get in touch with the past of the Kasbah by visiting one of its houses. The tour finished in a museum, where on one of the walls they had a list of the movies filmed in and around the Kasbah’s.
We crossed the river on stepping stones, and it was time to finally visit a Berber carpet collective, for a production demo and some marketing, which so far had worked well in our group. In many medinas we’d run into someone who wanted to show us the Berber carpets produced by women in the High Atlas Mountains. So there, we are finally up to the real carpet production.
After the carpet-weaving demo we sat in the showroom, were served, yes you guessed it, mint tea while the man showed us carpet after carpet. All beautiful. It was really tempting and some did not resist.
They made a sale to one of ours. There was a jewelry store next to it, where the ladies went. Don’t know if they bought something there since it began to rain and Alex and I decided it was time to go back to the hotel. By the time we reach it we were both soaked. Good that the heater in our room was working. I hung everything around the beds where the hot air blew them dry. In the meanwhile, we took our technology and a bottle of wine, ran through the rain to the hotel’s restaurant and sat under a heater to warm and relax.
We spent the remaining two hours before dinner warming, writing, and munching pizza with our wine. The group join us under the heater waiting for their tagines to be cooked. We had skipped the extra activity of “tagine class”, because I had made tagine back home and Alex wasn’t particularly interested. It appeared that all they did was to select ingredients from the pile of prepared vegetables and arranged them in the clay tagine. They were to be cooked and brought to the table. Despite the rain, hail and snow, the news was that the roads for our next destination are open and we would be hiking the following day. Back in the room I packed everything we’d need for the night in the mountains into a backpack. The rest would stay in our road home, the minibus. Looking forward to the great peaks.
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