Impressions of the desert

Some classic moments from the desert:

 

 

 

 

Telouet and back to Marrakech

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.

Camel trekking – Erg Chigaga

Caro: Wednesday started with us heading out early to buy some food for the journey we had to make to M’hamid, where we were doing our three day desert trek.  After a great breakfast back at the riad (home made yoghurt, semolina pancakes and pastries), we grabbed one of the many clapped out Peugeot 205 taxis and at Hans’ suggestion we agreed a price in advance (“Maximum 20 dirham”), and travelled to the CTM bus depot. Predictably, the driver then short changed us 10 dirham and when we pushed him for it (largely on principle) he flung 5 dirham our way, jumped in the cab and drove off. At a loss of about 50p it was comical rather than hurting our pockets.

We were unfashionably early and the bus was fashionably late, but by 11:45am we were on the road.  The bus was filled predominantly with locals, but there was the odd tourist along for the ride. We drove out of Marrakech and into the High Atlas mountains which were snow capped, stopping for lunch after about an hour and a half for a quick tagine.  We progressed further into the Atlas at a decent pace.

The road was ok but like any mountain road, it got a little hairy when two large vehicles needed to pass on blind bends. Rather than luxury, at 150 Dirham for a single ticket to Mhamid, it was a cost effective option to take.

A couple of locals seemed a little uneasy around the speed and snaking of the bus, and ended up throwing up – one pretty discreetly into a plastic bag, the other a little poorly right down the rear exit steps – which we were sitting adjacent! Next stop the driver tried to clean it up with a couple of bottles of water but it seemed to have stuck. It made the last 3-4 hours somewhat unpleasant, just being in close proximity…

The journey took 10hrs 15mins end-to-end.  The changing lanscape was stunning, going from city to mountains to country towns to lush agricultural land to sand dunes.

Towards the end of the journey a local guy who had been playing impressive Berber music on his guitar for an hour or so beforehand, struck up a (stilted) conversation with us. Barack suggested that we join him for dinner and stay at his place. We said that it was a nice offer – but that we were being met by a friend and that we had a “hotel” booked. He was pretty insistent that there weren’t any hotels in M’hamid. He was so confident that we would be coming with him that he jumped off the bus at the second last stop and ran round the market stalls buying meat and vegetables. Of course, when we arrived in M’hamid and were met by our guide, Mohammed, Barack looked somewhat bewildered as we disappeared into the darkness. The lack of commonality of language made these kinds of interactions difficult – we just didn’t have enough shared language for either party to understand what was really going on.
We also struggled with communicating with Mohammed who speaks French, Arabic, Berber and a little English. He was saying something about there being too many guests at the hotel. We think what he was explaining was that the normal hotel was full, and that we could have stayed at another hotel – but it was very expensive and since we were arriving so late at night we would only be there to sleep. So Mohammed was offering for us to stay with his family for the evening. We had no idea what was going on so we just said yes. And he took us back to his family home where his wife served us mint tea, soup and then a tagine.

We met his 4 children (Mona, Hassan, Fatima and Ali – aged between 12 and 3) who had stayed up to meet us. It seems that guests like us were not a regular occurence. Mohammed’s brother (another Barack) was also at the house, and he spoke a little more English. He explained that he was also coming with us on the desert trek.

Mohammed made up a bed for us on rugs in the family’s lounge room. We felt a little edgy and unsure that evening – after our long bus journey it was not quite how we expected to spend the night! But once the sun rose the next morning it all felt ok. We played with the kids while Mohammed and Barack organised food, camels etc. Mohammed took us for a walk into town to buy water and cloth for us to tie a touareg (berber turban). And with very little fanfare we were off – literally walking down the street behind their house, which became the desert after about 200 metres.

Hassan and Fatima

 

Mohammed, his wife and his mother

We’d wanted a desert experience which was off the tourist trail, and that was what we got with Erg Chigaga. Because it is difficult to get to – a long journey from the larger towns – there aren’t masses of tourists in the area. We occasionaly saw a passing 4×4 in the distance – and the odd group of people with camels or donkeys. But these appeared to be Berber nomads rather than tourists.
The format of our days was to walk for 2-3 hours and then stop at around midday for lunch and siesta. We stayed out of the sun until about 3pm, when we would start walking again. Whenever we stopped everything was taken off the camels, who were then hobbled (their front legs were tied together with rope so that they could shuffle around – but not escape at a great pace) and allowed to forage for food. The drank only once in the three days. On the second day Mohammed took them to a well – but other than that, they just make do with the reserves of water they hold in their stomachs.

We, meanwhile, ate very well over the three days. Barack took the main responsibility for food, and took great pride in cooking us something different for every meal. Lunches were salads and dinners were soup followed by tagines with various special highlights (olives, eggs, petite pois etc.) On the second night Mohammed baked a desert bread, in the coals from a fire. It was very tasty – by far the best bread we ate all week. Both brothers clearly enjoyed berber music, and entertained us by playing percussion on plates and saucepans while cooking.

The desert terrain changed constantly – sometimes large black stones (which often had fossils on them), sometimes flat sand, sometimes dunes. We couldn’t believe how the guys managed to navigate in what often seemed largely featureless terrain. But Mohammed and Barack are “proper” Berber nomads. Barack told Tim that his family had moved into a house only when he was 9 years old (he’s 25 now). So I guess it’s in the blood. They each wore traditional blue cloaks and where we wore walking boots, they walked in sandals! Poor Barack had a blister on his foot, so often he walked bare foot, striding out at a decent pace on rocks that would have anyone else hobbling and giving up within metres.

On the last day we saw the large red dunes of Chigaga looming ahead of us (some are 150 metres high). After lunch Mohammed changed out of his traditional Berber clothes and into an England football top. His personality seemed to change along with it, and he became more of an extrovert. Extraordinary!

Mohammed had shown us a certificate from 2002 when he had gone to Switzerland to run in a marathon (and come 26th from around 500 male runners) – running in traditional Berber gear (must have looked quite something!). Now we understood where his fitness  had come from. He literally runs up and down these enormous dunes. We would huff and puff to get to the top and he would jog up.

Mohammed is quite a neat, petite guy. He called thought Tim was enormous! He called Tim the “big dromadaire” (big camel) and me the little dromadaire. Now in the sand dunes he made us each imprint a footprint, in the sand, including him, so he could marvel at the size difference (and photograph it for posterity).

We climbed to the top of the highest dune where we were joined by about 20-30 other travellers to watch the sun set. It was stunning and worth every step of the journey. Then, while all the other travellers walked down the ridge, we ran down he side of the dune with Mohammed. Fun!

The next morning we got up at 6am for the sunrise and then said farewell to Barack, who was returning to M’hamid. He was doing the journey that had taken us three days in one day. Mohammed was staying to do a 4×4 tour with some other tourists. He tied my touareg for the last time and I felt teary. It was ridiculous that we could form a bond with people in just three days, particularly when we could barely speak to them! But we had…

Marrakech

Tim: On Tuesday 17th March we flew to Marrakech. After a near seamless arrival and pick-up we arrived at our B&B Riad Sabah in the Kasbah area of the old town. A Riad, from the outside looks entire innocuous, but inside it’s a haven of peace – typically with a small central courtyard which all the rooms and stairwells can be entered from. After being furnished with good directions from Hans (the German owner, his wife Sabah is Moroccan) we wandered into Marrakech. It is, in a word, bedlam. A completely manic place.

We were walking through the souk, and you have to imagine that Caroline morphed from female Australian into an evolved version of Gollum.  When approached by a souk seller and asked what she might like to buy, she exclaimed “NOTHING!” and walked away.  I tagged along behind and caught the souk seller mocking her, saying “nothing, nothing, nothing” and asking me whether I was with her or not…

We were recommended Chez Chegrouni in the Square Djemaa el Fna which we wandered up to for a good lunch. We wandered back to the riad for a kip, and some time sorting out the blog. That evening we went to the restaurant Dar Es-Salam, where famously Hitchcock filmed a scene for The Man Who Knew Too Much. Really good food, comical waiter, and lady dancing with a ‘candle hat’, a belly dancer, and live Moroccan music. Impressive for the first night.