High Atlas Mountains & Marrakesh

Started off this morning with no wakeup call from the call to prayer, chickens, or roosters, today it is a donkey, we are really going to miss these morning noises when we get home.  We wanted to walk around the area we were in a little, so we went down and asked the waiter who was setting up for breakfast where we could go.  He gave us the general direction, unlocked the front door, called the dog to go for a walk with us and off we went.  It is very small where we are, a little non paved road that wraps around the village it seems like.  We had a very happy dog out with us, she definitely knew where she was going, but we forgot to ask her name before we left, and she didn’t come to dog or chien, but we did arrive back safely with her.

Our escort for our walk this morning

Our walk through the Palmeria

Love the shadow on this building

Pomegranate blossom

Our room

Breakfast this morning was different as we were able to order eggs how we wanted them prepared.  Plus we had those little square pancake crepe things, and the typical warmed up bread as toast that was leftovers from last night.  Fresh squeezed OJ, which again tasted like they added a little lemon juice, which we have been told a couple of times now.

Breakfast done and our driver picked us up to start our travels towards Marrakesh.   He first drove us around the town a little more and pointed out our first Kasbah, which is really like a castle village that contains everything, the store, the mosque, a number of homes.  These are between 100 and 200 years old, made of mud and straw and most look like they are about to fall down.  Some are still inhabited, but many are empty, it will be a shame if they are not worked on soon.  Actually I thought they looked like really intricate sand castles, the ones made with the fancy pails with all the grooves on top, and the sand is just exactly right that the patterns stay when you remove the bucket.  Problem is many of these look like the sand castles have started to fall down. 

We stopped at another carpet place along the way.  We told our driver that we wanted him to come in with us and tell them we had already been given the whole speech already and we just wanted to see small carpets.  I was easy prey as they had 7 kittens.  In the room we were in 2 kittens were hidden behind pillows, we didn’t even know they were there until the mother cat came in and called them out of hiding, oh so cute.  So we are now the owners of 2 Berber carpets.  Goodness knows that we probably paid far too much, but it is done, and no more going into carpet stores.  Lots of joking as well as I told the driver he needed some kittens, I told him I would look after them on the drive, but no he would not take them.  

Where we bought our carpets

We next stopped just to take some pictures of the Ait Benhaddou Kasbah, which is a cluster of Kasbahs that is UNESCO site and was used in many movies, Lawrence of Arabia, Gladiator, Jesus of Nazareth are a few.  We did not go in, just stopped to take some pictures. 

Ait Benhaddou Kasbah

Ait Benhaddou Kasbah with our driver Hassan

We did stop at the Telouet Kasbah and went inside.  This one is not as old as the others we have seen, parts are newer and parts older.  It had some beautiful tile work in the newer restored section, and fun to walk through.  It belong the king of the region.

Telouet Kasbah - the non restored section

The next part of our drive may be the part we have enjoyed the most of our entire trip.  We travelled through a pass that was 7400 feet in altitude and it was one Berber village after another.  A very pretty scenic drive with not too many cars, no busses or trucks can go on this narrow road so it was quite quiet as well. 

Look at where this person is walking from, what a life...

Laundry day

Creating a wall

Our favourite day for scenery

Very windy roads

caves

Looks so much like sand castles falling down

We stopped for lunch at a very local area.  There were about 20 restaurants and when our driver went by he said he did not get a close enough parking spot so turned around and went back.  He asked if it was fine and I said yes as long as there was no raw meat hanging outside.  So off we follow him into the restaurant with hanging meat outside…..  I went right inside, he asked if I wanted lamb or goat, um, then he said we would get a vegetable tagine as well.  So Andre went with him to pick the meat, you literally point to what you want, they cut it off the hanging animal and put it on the BBQ. Here they weight the amount of food and you pay them by the kilo.  they got ½ kilo.  I skipped on this and pretended it was coming from the nice grocery store wrapped package again.  We sit outside at a nice table, we were delivered knives forks and plates, not sure that everyone else was, plus we got bottled water instead of a jug like others had, I have no idea how they knew we were tourists!  Our bread arrived and the tagine, I took some potatoes, carrots, and then I felt a bone, I asked why is there a bone in our vegetable tagine, only to be told he didn’t order vegetable tagine, he ordered tagine with vegetables in it.  Another lost in translation.  I asked what the meat was,  it was beef, so I did try some and it was really good.  Next the BBQ meat arrives, I also tried a little of this and I asked if it was goat or lamb, he wasn’t sure as he gets the 2 mixed up in Arabic, but he thinks it was lamb.  So who knows what we ate, but we did have a few laughs.  Joey will appreciate that when he said he didn’t know if it was goat or lamb Andre went on to explain the difference between a goat and a lamb to him, yep a classic.  I must say the entertainment was good at lunch.  We are deep in the Atlas Mountains at this point and there was a Sheppard moving his sheep down for water right across from where we were having our lunch, next the sheep all need to cross the road which backed up the traffic a little.  At this point in our travels we are back on the main road as well, many trucks and busses, so very funny to see everyone stopped and waiting. 

Lunch time, was it lamb or goat??

Lunch time view

Hassan preparing the Green Tea with mint for us

Back on the road and I have decided I need to move to the front seat.  I asked our driver how much longer on the twisty roads and he said 15 minutes, I thought that may be 15 minutes too long so I asked him to pull over so I could move to the front seat.  It has gotten way too bumpy and a very twisty road and nothing worse than getting car sick.  The problem with the move is I am now on the side with all the cliffs, and when I look over it is making me a little sick, so I am now just trying to look straight out the front window.  Well after about 15 minutes I said I thought we were finishing the twisty road, he said no, 15 minutes was for the end of that part of the road, the whole way to Marrakesh is windy.  Another lost in translation moment, thank goodness I changed seats!

Yes, this is a 2 way road

Nomad homes in the summer

Time for Wendy to move to the front seat

Arrived in Marrakesh at around 6:30 PM.  We say good bye to our driver as we are not sure if we will see him again.  We do not need a driver in Marrakesh, but someone will be driving is to the airport in Casablanca on Sunday but he does not know if it will be him.  We are dropped off at a very busy corner and 2 young guys help us with our luggage to find our Riad.  We are trying to pay very close attention so that we can find our way out later without having to ask for help again.  There are no cars allowed in the section of the old town where we are staying, so we at least need to know how to get around the little section of town. 

The traffic arriving into Marrakesh

Arrived at the Riad and once again it is beautiful.  The bedrooms all overlook the courtyard, there are 10 in this larger Riad.  We go through the check in process which we have now become pros at.  You fill in these papers which have your name, birthday, where you came from, where you are going next, your passport number, and the number that immigration stamped you with when you entered the country.  All of this information is then passed on to the police station.  Why we are not sure, but we have had to do this everywhere except when we stayed in the tents.  So finished our paper work had our green tea with mint and cookies welcome treat, dropped off the luggage, got the map and we are off to explore.

Our room for 2 nights

There is a quicker way through the Souks to walk to the main square, but we are not that brave and decide to wisely walk out to where our driver left us off earlier and walk the main street.  The streets are crazy with people, taxis motorcycles everywhere.  It is a school holiday here, so lots of Moroccans visiting as well as the tourists from other countries, but it definitely seems like there are more Moroccans than anything else.  We are about a 15 minute walk from the square and I was really surprised when we arrived.  I have seen lots of pictures in books, but it definitely does not do it justice, a square is not the correct name, it is a huge city block.  We decided to head right down the middle, but it is so crowded you can’t really see much of what is going on.  There are big circles around people doing different entertainment, some playing music, some different games, some dancing, and we saw 2 men boxing in one.  We didn’t see any snake charmers, that will wait until tomorrow I guess.  Honestly there are so many people that I have a very hard time seeing over the crowds.   There are different entrances into the Souks and we ventured in a couple of times but we didn’t want to get lost in the dark so didn’t explore too deep.  One side has at least 2 levels in parts, we hadn’t seen that in Fez.  There are some beautiful candles here that I may need to look into buying, if we have any money left!  

One thing you can watch for if you are ever here, go not catch yourself at the exit to a mosque when all the men are coming out and the women are waiting outside with their children, this was crazy, men trying to go one way or another to go back to their shops that they had closed down while they went for prayer, men trying to find their wives and kids, plus a mix of tourists like us not knowing where they are leads for lots of congestion.

Water sellers

Crazy busy in the Souks

At night this section of the square fills up with food vendors

First time we say multi level to get lost in

Koutoubai Mosque, always something to look for when you get lost

Decided to leave the square at about 9PM and head back towards the Riad for something to eat for supper.  Neither of us are overly hungry, guess it was the goat or lamb or whatever that filled us up.  The first 2 restaurants that we went in to were full, at this point I was ready to just call it a night and have breakfast tomorrow.  We saw one more sign further down and went to Le Jardin and were able to get a table.  We may have been seated in the bar section, but it was really nice, there was a man there tonight playing guitar.  The bad part was how long it took to get our meal.  Andre ordered the soup, I ordered Penne pasta, 45 minutes later we were served.  I think the kitchen must have been the problem, lots of tables were very slow.  Finally back to the Riad at about 11:00 PM, worked on the blog a bit then off to bed.  Looking forward to our walking tour we have booked for tomorrow morning, we will not get suckered into paying for a full day tour again!