Category: Middle East 2017

Tuesday 24 October 2017

It’s little wonder this city is known as the Jewel of the South.  It is modern, ancient, sophisticated, simple, bewitching, all at once.  Mercedes mix with mules and traffic jams often occur

But the many motor bikes, donkeys, cars and pedestrians manage to survive amongst the chaos, against all odds I must say.

This morning we meet our guide, Abdul Raheem. Jilali drives the three of us through the wide, tree lined streets to the Bahia Palace, built by the Prime Minister of the day to house his 4 wives and 23 concubines. As well as himself of course. It’s quite beautiful, with those wonderful mosaics which never fail to delight. We have learned that the three totems of Islamic art is geometric, calligraphy and flowers.

Sensible walking shoes are a must when on tour, don’t you agree?

From there, to the Ben Youssef University, built in the 12th Century. It has survived subsequent earthquakes because of the clever technique of the brickwork, which added significant strength.

We saw the so called Saadian tombs of the 16th Century where more than 100 members of the royal family are buried. Muslims are buried on their side, facing Mecca. There are, however, tombs here of Jews, too, who consulted the royal family and were close. The mausoleum was originally built by Sultan Ahmed el Mansour, who went on to found a chain of manchester stores in Sydney.

Walking to the souks, via back streets, revealed surprising and refreshing quiet.

Morocco has the largest solar farm in the world, not far from Marrakech, and 40% of the city’s power is solar generated. This is a source of great pride, and rightly so, and the daily stats are displayed for all to see. This sign is indicative of what the panels on the mosque are generating.

Seen one souk, seen em all you might say. And there is some truth to that, except the souks of Marrakech seem more ordered, cleaner and less frantic. Rather like the city itself. Whatever you want is on hand here.

I was pleased to see that in Marrakech, at least in the souks, there are still plenty of pouffes

More leather auctions, like those we saw in Fes

But Abdul Raheem is here to show us around his city, not to shop. He actively discourages browsing and moves us at quite a pace. We would have preferred a more leisurely pace but we daren’t lose him for we might never find our way out of here. Call me a sook.

A delightful oasis of peace amongst this madness is Le Jardin Secret, which hosts two gardens – the Exotic which has plants and trees from five continents, and the Islamic Garden, in the traditional four quadrants. The garden is watered by a flow from the Atlas Mountains (from where all the water for this southern part of Morocco comes) via an ingenious system of underground channels. I’m not sure if the Romans were responsible for this, but someone very clever was.

 

 

 

We finish our tour of the medina and exit into the main square of Marrakech. This is where the snake charmers are, and the men with monkeys on leads. But of course this is a dreadful tourist trap which Abdul Raheem was not going to allow us to have a bar of, since he knows we are far too discerning to care about such trifles. I secretly vow to come back without his knowledge, as I am particularly keen to see a snake being charming.

Off to lunch. A simple sandwich, we plea, but alas we are delivered to a rather nice courtyard restaurant, where we indulge in two courses. Abdul leaves us at the entrance to the restaurant with a promise to meet us at 10am tomorrow for our day of garden tours.

After lunch, Jilali kindly agrees to take us to a supermarche, to buy some picnic items for our next two dinners. We might have lost the lunch battle, but we can control dinner at least! Jilali takes the opportunity to drive us around this beautiful, curious, cosmopolitan and historic city with its wide tree lined boulevards, modern buildings, architectural heritage and chaotic traffic, complete with donkeys . It really is something, Marrakech. Jilali has an eye for the girls. We have observed often his preparedness to run down any car, bike, cyclist or pedestrian who gets in his way, but he will come to a stop for any attractive female crossing the road. And then follow her path in the rear view mirror.

Back at the hotel we swim and laze by the pool. It’s still unseasonably hot here – 34 degrees today. Later we enjoy our bread, cheese, olives and dates on the Juliet balcony of our room. Washed down with the well travelled remaining bottle of red purchased in Fes.  Palatable. Just.

 

Monday 23 October

Today we leave the beautiful Oasis of Skoura and we are heading to the Jewel of the South – Marrakech.  But first we have to cross the High Atlas Mountains.  But, before that we drive through Ouarzazate, the Hollywood of Morocco.  There are huge film studios here, including one American one.  The Main Street, boulevard really, is lined with giant props and film paraphernalia. The industry is an important one here, and an international film school has recently opened.

We sail through, declining the invitation to tour the studio (the presence of 6 tourist coaches in the parking lot no doubt influence our decision) and continue our journey.   We are climbing, and passing specks of wonderful colours from the occasional roadside stall selling brightly coloured plates and tagine dishes,  in the middle of nowhere.

We stop at the fortified village of another UNESCO world heritage site,  Ait Ben Haddou, the best preserved Kasbah in the whole Atlas region. This village has featured in a huge list of movies, but I have only heard of three of them – Gladiators, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Lawrence of Arabia. Less discerning readers amongst you may have seen, even enjoyed, such classics as “The Mummy”, “ Sodom and Gomorrah”, “The Jewel of the Nile”, some eps of “Game of Thrones”, the list is a large ng one

We’re going to climb to the top of that.  Well, some of us are.  I make a Herculean effort, even if I do say so myself (I believe I just did) but don’t quite get to the top. Cherrie and the ever attendant Jillali do though.

And here’s what they saw

From my viewpoint, a little more than half way up,

I look down on some more wonderful colour

And, of course, I continue to look up to Cherrie.  Always have, always will

So, now we continue the climb up the High Atlas Mountains in earnest.  We know this is a rough and windy road, and as I am prone to travel sickness I take a TravelCalm.  It’s not enough to touch the sides.  This road is unbelievably windy, and in shocking condition.  It seems that every car that is on it is keen to get to the other side, and will spare no time to make it.  It’s a great race, for who can go faster and who can overtake closest and who can make it first.  Our driver is no exception.  It is terrifying.  The road spirals into the sky.  The views, however, are amazing

 Until, merciful heaven, we reach the top

I take some deep breaths of fresh air and Cherrie asks Jillali if he can drive a bit more slowly perhaps.  The plea falls on deaf ears, because the road is in better condition now and is sealed (oh goody, now we can go even faster). He continues the race to the chequered flags.  There are 99 bends in 30kms.  It was apparently a curious ascent. I cannot personally comment, because my eyes were clamped closed the whole time, as was my mouth for fear of expelling my breakfast.

An article we read a few days ago in the UK Telegraph says, and I quote “One false move here and you’re a goner. From the top of Tizi N’tichka, a car could freefall for almost half a mile before reconnecting with the hot, hard surface of Morocco, and then go bouncing off into the wheat fields below. During those few seconds, its passengers would enjoy the colours of Moroccan geology, from scarlet to crimson, and perhaps the odd trilobite hurtling past: a reminder that this was once below the sea, instead of 6,000 feet above it.”

It occurs to us that if the worst were to happen, at least we’ve skipped a step because we are already in the hearse.

On the way down we come across a nomadic tribe moving their goats

Extraordinary  views

And landscape resembling the colour of my face

And then, praise be to Allah, it all came to a sudden stop.  After nearly three hours of this hell, we hit a traffic jam.  Everything has come to a stop.  Jillali locks us in the van and walks down the queue of vehicles to investigate.  He comes back with the news that there has been a landslide and we may be here for some time. Frankly, that is music to my ears and we get out of the car and sit on the safety fence, although I use that S word lightly.  I nibble at a sandwich we made from our breakfast leftovers, and Cherrie and Jillali knock the rest off.  Eventually the traffic starts to move at a snails pace, and we pass the rockslide

That is one BIG rock folks.  It must be 6 feet high. We don’t know if there was any damage to vehicles or people, or how long ago this happened, but the temperate nature of the drivers doesn’t last long and soon the great race was on again.

Then we hit the remnants of a load of cement bags, which have come off a truck. The cloud of cement literally brings us to another stop, before we limp through at a much more lady like pace

This huge mountain range separates the Mediterranean and the Atlantic from the Sahara desert, and it spectacularly beautiful.  Apparently.  These photos are taken on the descent, which feels rather like the Big Dipper to me.  I certainly feel like mimicking the sound effects.

And then we hit level ground.  I open my eyes to the outskirts of Marrakech, after a five hour hair raising drive.   It’s a very different city to those we have been to in Morocco, and we look forward to exploring tomorrow. We are staying at a lovely riad within the Medina.

Next time I shall fly over the Atlas Mountains.  In a big plane.

 

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.

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.

 

Thursday 19 October 2017

After a bad night, we opt for nothing to eat or drink before heading off to the desert. Jillali collects us at 9am. Today we are bound for the Sahara Desert. I am feeling ok but Cherrie is apprehensive about her stomach. The luggage will stay at the hotel and we’ll collect it later, Jillali tells us. We are coming back here before going to the desert. We have already decanted our desert garb into just one small bag, the cases to stay in the hearse overnight. The hotel does not accept our luggage so it goes into the hearse immediately. Just as well, for we don’t come back here at all.  Apparently we never were going to meet the 4WD here!

Our first stop is at a fossil place. This is fossil country, harvested from the mountains nearby, with huge machinery cutting great slabs of these ancient rocks. This is surely an environmental disaster? The fossils are amazing, and are sold as bench tops, basins, tables, any number of things.

We continue south to Rissani, home to more centuries old palm groves, and a mausoleum, which we could really do without but which Jillali is keen to show us in his new found role as tour guide. He is extremely proud of the mosque, which of course we are forbidden to enter, but he nearly weeps as he tells us this is where his god lives. His faith is a sense of great pride and is quite touching. He prays five times a day he tells us, but we have not witnessed this at all. His prayers are private and obviously only when he can fit them in around our itinerary.

Our guide around the mausoleum is a Berber. We are in true Berber country here, and he wears traditional camel hair sandals.

We move onto Rissani. It’s still only 10.30am and Jillali is struggling with what to do with us. We would be happy to just keep moving, but he wants to fulfill his role as tour guide and so we follow him through the busy Thursday souk, offering all sorts of goods, from the traditional stuff you expect

to traditional satellite dishes

 

And the food, which for good reason, we find offal

Turkey anyone?

The women in this area wear black and many of them are in the full burqua. We haven’t seen much of this elsewhere. We are in a truly traditional part of the country and it is obvious from both the dress and the demeanour of the Berbers.

After the souk Jillali takes us on a date. A double date. After all, it’s date season here and the speed dating market is hopping.

And then to lunch! Despite our protestations. He has organised this in advance and we really don’t want to disappoint him. It’s only midday. An outrageously early time to eat lunch in this country, but he’s run out of things to do with us. We follow him down an alley and into a restaurant. Which is closed. But not to be deterred, he calls out and someone appears and turns the lights on. We are shown into a private dining room and seated at a table. And left there. For an hour. Jillali is heard in another room talking to his friends, and we are sitting at this table where we don’t want to be, awaiting some special food we don’t want to eat. We have told Jillali repeatedly “un pur”. Eventually, at 1pm, a huge salad arrives, which frankly looks very unappetising. We order a bottle of water and reject the salad. The proprietor runs from the room in a panic and shortly after our translator, Jillali, runs in. “Something wrong?” he asks. “No, we just don’t want to eat much and if we eat the salad we will not be able to eat your special meal”. So, salad is removed. Another half hour of waiting and eventually the surprise arrives. A Berber pizza. Yum, just what we are craving. Not. It’s not dissimilar to the Bedouin pizza we made at our cooking class in Petra. Essentially spiced beef inserted inside flat bread and oven baked. This is not what we feel like eating. Fortunately, after our pseudo-delighted first taste, Jillali leaves us to go and pray. Our prayers are answered by a packet of tissues into which 50% of the meal is placed, and in turn that goes into my backpack. We think that leaving the other half of the lunch is not impolite, besides not enough tissues and not enough room in the backpack.

Jillali returns, we confirm how deliciously delightful this surprise lunch was, and we pay an exorbitant bill, which of course includes the salad. And the water.

We proceed to a rendezvous point for a 4WD which is to take us into the desert. Except we don’t really know this. Jillali dispenses us at a table for two outside a cafe and drives off. Where are we? What are we to do? We trust our driver, we know he is responsible, his communication skills are lacking, that’s all. I take advantage of his absence to find a bin to dump the lunch. We seem to have spent much of today waiting. Eventually he returns, a Toyota Prada behind him, and we are baled into the Prada with our overnight bag and one bottle of the wine we bought a couple of days prior. Jillali joins us in the car, having parked the hearse behind the cafe. Hasaan, a Berber (how good looking these young Berber men are, delightfully polite and attentive) drives the three of us to the desert. First over sealed roads, and then over sand dunes. We arrive at our tented camp, and struggle to get down the steep dune. It’s a test on the legs, even Cherrie’s.

We are surprised to find that Jillali has the tent next to ours. I guess he has earned this relevant luxury because he has done his best to look after us since we arranged for the premature axing of Obi.

It’s about 5pm when we arrive at camp and at 6pm we are to take a camel ride to view the sunset over the Sahara.

Getting up the dune is a test like no other. It takes two strong, and very charming, Berbers to get me up.

Omar is our cameleer and what a sweet young man. We guess about 16.  I’ve drawn a map of the world, an abbreviated one, to try to show Omar where Australia is. He could be forgiven for thinking we live on Mars.

Sunset in the Sahara is quite something. The dunes magnificent, the atmosphere peaceful, until a large group of Chinese atop camels ride by screaming as if a desert fox has embedded its teeth where teeth should never be.  Many other groups of tourists on camels are better behaved and there are plenty of sand dunes between us all.  The peace is once again broken by a dune bashing Toyota – oh what a feeling that is.

But, it is a wonderful experience and we know how privileged we are to be here, looking at the mountain range which is the Algerian border.

We even like our camels, albeit their halitosis.

Back to camp an hour or so later,

 

arrangements made with Omar for a sunrise pick up, and a drink of that lovely Bordeaux we bought by the fire before retiring to the dinner tent for quite the best meal we have yet had in Morocco. Avocado salad, lamb tagine, fresh fruit. Yummo, and tummies feeling better. Only two other guests in camp who we meet at dinner. Lois and Gerry are New Yorkers who own a real estate business in Brooklyn and a second apartment in Jerusalem, which they go to several times a year. They were in Morocco last year and loved it so much they are back, with their same guide. Lucky them – their guide is fluent in English!

And so to bed.  In a tent.  In the Sahara.  Que Sera Sera