Caro: Because we only had a week in Morocco, we didn’t have time to spend another three days camel trekking back from Erg Chigaga to M’hamid – so we arranged a driver to pick us up and drive us out of the desert. The journey which had taken three days on camel took 90 minutes by car.
Our driver, Ali, was fairly nondescript – but appeared to know a great deal of the Moroccan population. Wherever we went (and we were with him for two days, and covered hundreds of kilometres), when we drove into a town he would beep his horn at someone, and stop for a chat.
We got to Telouet late in the afternoon, and were taken by the guesthouse owner (also Ali – henceforth known as Ali II) to the Kasbah for a tour. It’s a striking building and very interesting, lots of partying went on there on the 19th century – but now the place is in ruins.
We were desperate for a hot shower but hot water was not forthcoming sadly. Ali II and his dad both tried to make it work – but all we got were surges of scaldingly hot water, or cold water. Warm evaded us – so to avoid injury we elected to wait another day till we got back to Marrakech for the long awaited shower (five days without washing – a personal record, definitely, and not to be encouraged).
It turned out that Ali II knew Mohammed (it is a small world – but also, both were from M’hamid originally). Ali II was telling us about a man from England who he had worked with in the Sahara a few years ago. The man had been making a film. Ali II described the film to us but it didn’t sound familiar. Later he pulled out the DVD and showed it to us. It turns out it was “Bear Grylls: Born Survivor“ which featured our guide Mohammed as a Berber/Nomad “expert” and included him killing a very venomous snake.
It was great to hear some English – and to learn a little more about the desert we’d just been out in. But there was a blackout midway through – which meant waiting by candlelight for the entertainment to resume. We got there in the end – very interesting viewing!
The next morning we had a cooking class with a berber lady at the guesthouse. Given she spoke no English, this became more of a demonstration rather than a class. But Ali II provided some commentary along the way and I think that Tim and I could confidently knock out a tagine if we ever wish to. In the course of the class we made two – a beef and vegetable dish, and a lamb, fig, prune and almond dish. Tim and I were given the fruit and nut tagine for lunch (as the guests) and the others ate the beef one. It was bloody good, if I may say so myself…
After lunch we hit the road and returned to Riad Sabah. Our last two days were spent walking the souks, looking for lanterns and jewellery (and not buying anything!) – and enjoying more of the cuisine. We met some fellow Aussie travellers (Tristan and Robyn) at our Riad and shared a meal with them on our last night at the square, Djemaa el Fna.
The format of the food market is about 70-80 street stalls all hawking for business. Part of the experience is in engaging with all the sales guys. They can tell where you’re from by the way you’re dressed, and use all their knowledge to lure you in. So in our case it was lines like ”Our food is lovely-jubbly ” a la Jamie Oliver. We chose number stand number 22. We had an ok meal and then bit of a scene at the end when it came to paying the bill (their bill total didn’t resemble the costs attributed on the menu in any way). It seems there was some creative addition around bread and salads we’d been given which we’d understood to be complimentary+ a little more, just for good measure. But we’d already learned that we had to have our wits about us, and we simply elected to pay only for the food we’d ordered.
