Friday 20 October 2017

We wake up in our tent on the Sahara, which is just as well, really, as that is where we went to sleep.  All is much the same, except I went to sleep at 67 and woke up at 68.  We actually were both woken shortly after midnight by the conversation of Lois and Gerry, who don’t quite get the concept of voices carrying in the quiet.  I guess that’s what living in NYC does for you?  Or is it perhaps what being a Brooklyn realtor does for you?  Anyway, we respond to our 6.15am alarm and quietly (wouldn’t want to wake the neighbours) make our way up the almost impassable dune, courtesy of our two charming berbers, to the camels. Omar greets us warmly, and in the dark we make our way across the dunes.  It’s a glorious time of day.  We settle at the top, well, almost the top, of a dune and we alight.  We face east, Algeria.  The border between Algeria and Morocco is closed, has been for some time I gather.  But most of the Sahara is in Algeria, and how spectacular that must be.

But we happily stand (unlike Omar, who has plonked himself down on the ground) and watch this happen

 

 

We returned to camp

And a delicious breakfast of Berger omlette – cooked in a tagine.  Egg with spicy tomato. More airline coffee but beautiful breads etc accompany it all. We do not eat much, but do devour the omlette, which is mercifully small.

The time has come to climb that dune one last time.  It takes a whole tribe of Berbers to get me up the top.  Even Cherrie’s camera revolted, so no photos of this momentous event.

We travel back across the dunes in the trusty Toyota with Hasaan at the wheel and Jillali next to him.  We get to the cafe where the hearse is parked.  We are sat once again at the pavement tables and Jillali disappears.  For at least 20 minutes.  But then he arrives and in we hop.

Head to Tinghir and visit a Kasbah, which is really quite interesting.

Another couple have arrived at the same time and their guide has better English than Jillali, and they give us their blessing to tack on to their tour of the small museum.  We mix with the locals a bit, which is fun.

A small commercial enterprise here is the woman hand sewing the traditional brightly coloured shawls, with hand patterned embroidery and tassels

An hour or so further down the road, Jillali makes another unexpected stop and out we get and meet yet another Berber guide, who walks us through a Kasbah which houses several families.

The water is gathered from just a few wells, and carried by the women.  The men seem busy sitting around chatting. Except this guide, who does the demonstration for the camera!

Our guide tells us he will take us into his home and meet his family.  We reach for the tip.  He takes us into a large home, beautifully clean and surprisingly modern.  We are introduced to two male members of his family who speak perfect English, and accept their offer of mint tea.  But, hey ho, this ain’t no home.  This is a carpet warehouse.  What a surprise.  We tell them that we don’t wish to offend but we are not buying.  They assure us they will not be offended, and lead us up several flights of stairs, each level containing many carpets, all for sale to us for a special price since we are so lovely.  I toy with the notion of how long it would take a Berber to topple down five flights of stairs, but I restrain myself.  We finally extracate ourselves from the hard sell and flee back to the hearse.  It is some time before the opportunity arises to tell Jillali that we had this experience and he is furious.  He wants to execute a U Turn immediately and have us show him the house.  Well, there is no way in the world we could have found it, nor did we want a scene, so we convince him to wait until next time and he can talk to the guide himself and express his disappointment.

On to lunch. Another tourist restaurant, where ‘safe’ food is served, but again a set price three course menu.  We, of course, don’t want three courses (it is this sort of restraint that keeps us slim you know) but we do have a small bowl of soup and a kebab.  We pay full price, as expected, plus more for water.  When we make a passing remark to Jillali later that we wish we could find somewhere other than a 3 course restaurant because we only ever eat two courses, he practically explodes.  He is furious with the restaurant, slams on the breaks, and executes that U Turn.  We plead with him to do nothing.  It is not the fault of the restaurant. It is the way things are.  We are sorry for mentioning it.  Please turn around and continue on.  Mercifully he does.

We drive to the beautiful Todra Gorge.  Jillali pulls up in the middle of the road, opens the door for us, and says we will walk with him through the gorge. We wait while he drives off, presumably to park.  But he never comes back.  After a while we realise that he probably meant “You will walk TO me”, not WITH me.  Fortunately, I noticed which direction he had driven off in, and so we walked.  And, there he was.  Waiting for us!  The gorge is beautifuL

It is now time to proceed to Skoura, our stop for the next 3 nights.  Skoura lies between the peaks of the High Atlas Mountains and the South Moroccan desert.  To get there we go back the way we have come.  Suddenly, the van stops outside the restaurant where we lunched, Jillali leaps out and charges into the restaurant.  Our hearts fall.  Soon enough, a restaurateur is knocking on the door, with Jillali by his side, asking what our problem was.  He was not unpleasant about it, quite genuinely concerned I think.  We explain that it is a misunderstanding, that we did not want 3 courses and did not eat 3 courses and that we just expressed our wish that we could sometimes eat where we can choose just one course (preferably not a Berber pizza though).  He offered us the fruit for dessert, which we declined.  We apologised and thanked him and set off on our way.  A few kilometres down the road, Jillali draws to another stop and asks us to show him the carpet house.  We both yell at him, very politely, to leave it till next time and PLEASE can we get to Skoura.  We know it’s another 2 hour drive.

Through the valley of a thousand kasbahs

and into the wonderful oasis UNESCO protected oasis of Skoura

We are welcomed to this glorious Kasbah  personally, by the very charming and urbane manager, a Frenchman with a Moroccan father.  We are escorted to a huge room which is very comfortable, amongst beautiful gardens.  A true oasis indeed.

A couple of glasses of birthday champagnes (for me, she doens’t drink white wine, so I can’t justify a bottle) and to a truly delicious dinner.  Our hosts had anticipated that we might prefer a more western meal tonight, having been in Morocco for some time and perhaps our palates would enjoy a stray from tagine.

We retire for the night, looking forward to two days rest in this oasis.