Marrakech! - Day 9

Many desert plants in the garden

Cell Tower...in disguise

Marrakech - A city that has always seemed exotic and far away. It's actually quite delightful, busy, active and interesting. We started off meeting our local guide, Zabida, who was witty and very knowledgeable and heading to the Majorelle Gardens. It was built by a French artist, Jacque Majorelle, but after his death, it was rescued and refurbished by his friend, Yves Saint Laurent. It's tiny but amazing with the paths around the pools and buildings, with plants from numerous locations brought together. It would have been stunning in the spring or summer with the promise of so much color. It included a small museum with information about the Berber tribes, dress, jewelry and way of life. Very interesting excursion into an unknown world. 

Koutoubia Mosque

From there we visited the Koutoubia mosque. This mosque has an interesting history. It was first built upon the grounds of a palace, owned by the now defeated ruler. Well…it was later determined that is was misaligned towards Mecca (off by 5 degrees) so the decision was made by the latest victors to build a new one, aligned correctly. It was an exact replica of the first mosque only now, it was determined in the future…it was 10 degrees off. Apparently both mosques stood together for 30 years before the first one was finally destroyed.

Sultan's tomb

Women's tomb

From there we headed to the Saadian Tombs, the burial site for the sultan and selected members of the dynasty from the 1500's. Men only, of course. The women were buried in a separate section of the tombs. The tombs have been restored and much of the area is being worked on.

We wandered through the medina, the marketplace, and watched so many men working on handmade pieces. Again, it was amazing! We finally had lunch at a rooftop cafe where we found a terrific view of the open centers of  a number of homes. The places here are quite literally built on top of each other. Homes have no windows in these cities. All the natural lighting comes from a hole in the roof directly onto a patio inside the house. While a number of them are now covered, some are still open to the sky - and the necessity to deal with rain inside your home. 

Old Caravan Road - Day 8

View of the valley

We continued up the windy, narrow, twisting, one lane road, that, yes, cars did pass the crawling trucks, that were still carrying goods along the caravan route. This was the old caravan road from the Sahara to Marrakech! It was a steep, treacherous road in a car and took us the better part of a day to travel the part we did. Can't imagine riding a camel, or walking, that route!

Hand carved walls

One place we stopped at had some interesting rooms in various stages of preservation. If you look through the window in the picture, you can see the green valley - with the forbidding mountains in the background. The hand carving on the wall is phenomenal. The lower section is done in a plaster type substance, then there's the beehive honeycomb work and wood carving and painting above. The detail is exquisite.

However, once again, as we drove through the forbidding, rugged mountains, we would come upon an oasis. We stopped at the Kasbah Telouet, a village built by the French at the top of the Telouet pass along the main road heading to Marrakech. We were again greeting with barren roads with sudden glimpses of greenery, water, and, or course, numerous settlements. The living is tough but they have always lived, off the land, herding sheep, growing and making everything they need. They will occasionally venture into town for something and you can always find enterprising people selling their produce on the side of the roads.

Arabia on left, Egypt to the right

Little did we know, the desert setting lent itself to numerous film companies, with vast spaces to build sets for very famous movies; movies including Cleopatra, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Patton, Lawrence of Arabia, Jesus of Nazareth, The Mummy, Black Hawk Down, Hidalgo, and many others. It was fascinating to move from a setting of an Arabian street to the entrance to an Egyptian temple simply by turning around. A Tibetan monastery appeared through a door with Noah's ark right beside it. Despite myself, I'm now interested in seeing a few movies just to see how the various scenes actually played out from the props (the giant rocks that are thrown at invaders...they're Styrofoam!)

Route of 1000 Kasbahs - Day 7

The Road of 1000 Kasbahs is a link between the high peaks of the Atlas Mountains and the Sahara. The landscape is sensational, with craggy sandstone and limestone hills (Jeff loved the geologic formations) populated with the stark contrast of beautiful oases of palm groves and rose gardens. 

Kasbahs, of course, abound, the walls of Skoura and Ait Benhaddou’s Kasbahs the same tawny, purple hues as the surrounding rocky land. This particular Kasbah is an example of southern Moroccan architecture. It is primarily a collective group of dwellings. The homes are inside defensive walls, crowding the people together. The homes themselves vary greatly, some very modest and others are like small urban castles. There are also many community areas including a mosque, public square, grain threshing areas as well as cemeteries (one Muslim, one Jewish).  

I've heard of oasis located in a desert but never realized the stark contrast they actually make in the landscaping. We were driving through barren rocks (Jeff loving the extreme geology presenting itself) when we came around a corner to see a wall of green below us. Water was present and literally changed the world from the Browns rocks and dust to green! The contrast is believable and gorgeous.

Desert Camping - Day 6

Desert camping...this was nothing comparable to camping in Qatar (at least the camping trips we have taken). Here we were actually out in the middle of nowhere, no one riding on the dunes, no sounds. It did take a while to locate our starting point - in the dark- but we finally made it to the patiently waiting camels and Omar, our guide. It's hard to describe the trip to our camp on the camels. It was absolutely magical to ride across the dunes -moving silently, the full moon glistening, lighting up the wandering dunes, hearing the occasional animal but mostly just enveloped in a magical cocoon of silence. It was a phenomenal ride!

The desert camp was a mixture of the nomadic tent with modern conveniences - the tent was   "typical" Berber style made from camel or goat hair and many woven pieces decorated the entrance to the tent, keeping the cold air out and the relatively warmer air inside. Once you opened the flap, however, the luxury started - and typical Berber ended. A number of rugs were layered on the floor, on which was located a double bed, the weight of the blankets was delicious to sleep under! Through the next wall of curtains we found...a complete bathroom! 

They served us a fabulous meal with meats (and veggies) prepared with Moroccan spices - they don't seem to have very spice foods but these were quite nice. After the meal, we were treated to a musical performance, again in the historical style. They played various kinds of drums and other percussions instruments and one young man danced to the beat. 

Jeff had wanted to get pictures of the Milky Way that night but, alas, the sky was totally covered with clouds. Even our early morning rising to great the sunrise found too many clouds to get a good picture, though we certainly enjoyed the morning silence and warming sun. 

Riding back to meet our driver was another treat, seeing the passage we had taken earlier, feeling the warming sun on our backs and greeting camels and herders coming out for the day. Wish we could have stayed an entire day - the silence was fabulous with no cars or bikes kicking up sand on the dunes there!

Volubilis - Day 5

Processional Gate

We headed off to the Roman ruins next at Volubilis. It is both a UNESCO site and a current archaeological site, with summers filled with archaeologists and students as they work in the ruins. It is probably most famous for the gorgeous mosaics and colorful tiles depicting Roman mythology. Considering how much of the site was plundered for building materials, it's amazing that the mosaics were so well preserved.

During the 3rd century, it was the capital of Idris, as well as an important outpost of the Roman Empire. It was located in a fertile agricultural area, one of the frontiers of the Roman Empire. The Romans built a number of major public buildings including a basilica, temple as well as a triumphal arch. It was a prosperous community, primarily from olive growing, prompting many people to build town-houses with the large mosaic floor the area is famous for. When it was finally taken from the Romans, it continued to be inhabited by various other groups that settled in the area. 

Much of the ruins actually were intact until the Portuguese earthquake in the 1700's. The demise of the area was hastened when much of the stone was removed by various Moroccan rulers as they searched for stone to build Meknes. One the site was partially excavated and identified as Volubilis, it was eventually designated as a World Heritage Site.

Note the bird nest on the right

I’ve got to take a bit of a bird walk... We’ve noticed, frequently, as we’ve toured around Morocco, that there are these birds, big birds, BIG birds who build big nests – BIG nests! Here are a few snapshots of these critters from around the country…