Saturday 21 October 2017

A day of rest, except we were woken at 7am by a loud rap at the door. Cherrie opened it to a Berber man who spoke to her in native Berber.  I’m disappointed to report that she failed to understand him. He indicated that she was to go with him, but she stood her ground and told him, in her finest English, to bugger off. He did. We learned later that he had come to the wrong room to collect his tour patrons for the day. I hope they understood him.

We don’t leave the Kasbah today.  We do everything in a leisurely manner.  We breakfast, we stroll through the gardens of this lovely place,

we swim in the pool, we lunch, we read, we reunite with Lois and Gerry from the desert camp who are also staying here, and we generally refuel.  The food is lovely, today a little less western, a little more Moroccan.

The perfect holiday day.

 

Sunday 22 October 2017

This morning we go exploring with Abdul.  We are driven, in 4WD, across the river bed and into the heart of this extraordinary oasis.  This southern Moroccan desert is called the rocky desert, unlike the sandy desert of Mergouza where we were, with those wonderful dunes.

In the middle of this rocky country lies this huge oasis, 450 hectares of it.

UNESCO protected, as I have said. It is all fed by canals which were hand dug by the Romans (those Romans sure got around, and they were enterprising folk) and those same canals still feed the plantings today.

These Berbers live by traditional methods.  They grow alfalfa (aka lucerne), almonds, apricots, olives, corn, dates, quince, pomegranates, fava (aka broad) beans and parsley.   All in very salty water. The olives tolerate the salt, thrive on it in fact, and the dates bury down until they find clear water, which is not very far.  The others tolerate the salt because of the flooding watering method used.  A man is in charge of how much water each canal is fed, and he controls that with his hand shovel and simple damming.

The community lives in harmony with this water sharing system, it is, after all, the tradition.  The annual rainfall is only 200mm so the water from the alps is essential.  The dry river bed we drove through flows mightily apparently, during the season.

We are at 1200m above sea level but the high Atlas Mountains tower over us.

 

The planting routine is  determined by the amount of water they will get each year, and that is determined by looking at how much snow is on the high Atlas Mountains up there.  If there is a lot of snow, they know it will be a good  season and they plant accordingly.  If the snow is light (as it has been for the past few years – Tony please take note) then they plant crops which need less water.  They are pretty sanguine about it all.

There are kasbahs surrounding the oasis, in various stages of repair.

some even with important political messages (Tony, please take note)

From this amazing oasis we drive to a beautiful gorge, dare I suggest it was gorgeous?

We were provided with a picnic lunch, seated on a rug on the ground.  An incredible feat for me to get down and an even greater one to get up again.  I am unable to do either without considerable assistance, which is both irritating and embarrassing.  However, the good news about being on the sand is that it is a simple matter to dig a hole and bury the food which is not to our taste, so as not to offend.

Driving back to our Kasbah we pass both traditional and modern transport

Back home, we have another swim.  It is far hotter than normal and temperatures are soaring into the 30s (Tony please take note).

At 6.30pm we take a cooking class with Chef, a delightful and patient man with excellent English.  We cook our own dinner.  Well, actually, he cooks it while we add a cursory stir here and there but he is kind enough to suggest that if we enjoy it he cooked it and if we don’t we cooked it.

The resultant tomato crumble and chicken tagine was cooked by him!  Delicious, and fully Moroccan tonight.  Washed down with a glass of Moroccan Cabernet.

For those of you who have given me feedback that the blog is negative and not conducive to a trip to Morocco, please take note.  Another glorious day in Morocco.