Morocco - Sunday 6th May

Lou had spent heaps of time trying to find a tour out to see some of the Moroccan countryside and the desert but as we were only in Morocco for 5 days, it was tough. She eventually found one and we were picked up by our guide Iddir, at 8am in his styley new Prado, ready for our adventure (which was a relief in itself, as the whole booking process was very old school – Western Union).

His story was that he was part of a Nomad clan when he was younger, and a group of Oxford Uni people came through the desert trying to get the nomadic children to get an education. So he learned English and was going to be an English teacher, until he decided to pack it all in and start up his own tour guide business. Interesting (if it’s true!)

So we made our way up the Atlas Mountains, through the dramatic Tizi ntichka pass which is 2260m high, and had pretty spectacular views. There were heaps of little Berber villages that we passed, Iddir explained that the government wanted to keep people in these villages to prevent a mass exodus to the cities so they supplied them with satellite TV and mobile reception, so the little mud huts all had satellite dishes which was a bit weird looking.

So we were cruising down the highway before the driver abruptly made a turn off the road onto the desert path, no warning, no sign posts,and then said you might want to take off your seat belts – you will be more comfortable….WHAT? A million things were racing through Lou's head and she was pretty convinced that this was going to be the start of the kidnapping (we had already had a discussion about which guy we could take down if they started anything funny).

But, it was all kosher, apparently we were taking a short cut in order to spot some chameleons and the "road" was pretty bumpy. We did manage to see a couple, and Hamish swears he saw a snake even though no one else did.

Our next main stop was the famous Ait Ben Haddou Kasbah, the largest Kasbah in Morocco, a UNESCO matrimonial historical site, now, a house of many Glaoui family members. A Kasbah is defined as a building with 4 columns, built defensively to protect a villages wealth. They kind of looked like massive sandcastles, filled with tiny little winding tunnels. This is also where Lou made the comment that this place must have influenced the famous Clash song – "Rock the Kasbah", and Hamish rubbished this claim and refused to believe those were the lyrcis….look who's laughing now (Lou is always right - sometimes).

We had a late lunch in one of the little restaurants set up to catch the tourist trade, a set menu of harissa soup, more tagine and fresh fruit which also included dates that were growing everywhere in this area.  

We continued on the “Road of the thousand Kasbahs” through the Dades Gorge, then we
hit the town of which they have dubbed the Hollywood of Africa, known locally as Ouarzazat. They have filmed many movies like Gladiator, Lawrence of Arabia and the classic Sex and the City 2. And they have a movie studio set up which doubles as a hotel, it's all quite weird but we had the obligatory photos outside, before moving on.

Next stop at Kalaat Mgouna, “the rose’s city” known for roses and its annual festival during the roses harvest in May. Our guide bought Lou a love heart made of fresh roses and the smell was incredible, it was so pungent (you will be pleased to know that Lou carefully transported it back to London and is now drying in our flat). And every little shop along the road was selling rose based product, a big seller was rose water which they seemed to want spray all over you as soon as you walked in the shop.

We continued on to the heart of the Dades Gorge, with our final spot being the amazing rock formation “the monkey toes”, mountains that actually look like they are man-made babies fingers and toes, so we stopped and took the obligatory photos.

We stayed the night in the gorge, in a hotel that was pretty average but we were real tired from the drive so it didn't really matter. We had chicken cous cous for dinner which again was pretty average but filled us up.

Highlight: The tour guide not kidnapping us as in Lou's dream, and the amazing diversity of landscapes that we saw.
Lowlight: Probably the hotel dinner?, not many lowlights on this day at all!
Interesting Fact: Our guide must have made some of this up, but it seemed that every time there is an area with lots of one thing in it (ie roses, Kasbahs, iguanas) then the road through is called "the road of a thousand <insert name of object here>.