Zagora & the story of the 5,000 Camels

Another early morning, another tasty crepe-like thing.  It was so early, we were actually down trying to get breakfast before the kitchen opened, so we just had yogurt and breads.  Then we followed another guy out the door with little more than a word and jumped in the back of another van.  This time we were so early he drove straight through the main square and there wasn’t a soul in sight.  It was kind of crazy to see how different it was then, compared to the evening when it is just a huge mass of humanity.  He pulls down and alley, and we sit for about 15 minutes while he talks with someone, then we drive across the city to another alley, and sit and he talks with someone.  Then we leave and drive through another alley, but get blocked by a guy with a donkey pulling a cart.  So he backs up the van and turns around.  We go back to the corner where we met up with the folks from the previous day.  He stops, someone else comes and opens the door.  Points us to another van with the front door open and we hop in and take off for another adventure.  

I don’t know if Sarah knew what we were getting ourselves into, but I sure didn’t.  We drove and drove and drove.  And about an hour and half into the ride we pull over for a pit stop.  We were about to enter the Atlas Mountains.  Then we keep driving and driving and driving.  I’ve never seen a landscape like that, again for the second day.  And I am quite amazed at the roads these guys drive in these vans.  And we’re passing huge tour buses on these tiny mountain roads.  Going through these tiny tiny villages.  And the driver has on an Arabic radio station, and of course some Pitbull comes on, among other songs I recognized every so often.  

Pictures from our first pit stop. 

After about 4 hours driving, we pull off to the side of the road to see this fortress.  It’s called Ait Ben Haddou and it’s where they filmed part of Gladiator, among about 30 other movies.  It’s crazy, it’s a mud village that has been there for 1,100 years.  What’s even crazier is that there are still 10 families that live in the village, with no running water, or electricity, but they walk over to the new village if they need anything.  

Up until 1960, they still lived and made money the old way, by trading salt with passing caravans from the Sahara.  But since then they have made money from tourism and movie filming.  We met our tour guide Mohamed that actually lives in the new town, and we walked toward the fort. 

The walls are covered in Mud that needs to be redone every time it rains.

Then we got inside and he showed us one of the guys that lives in there and how he makes art the classic Berber way.  They only use three colors, yellow, blue and black.  The Yellow comes from saffron, blue from indigo, and the black comes from tea.  But the tea is painted on clear and then heated over a flame to caramelize the sugars. 

We got one to put on our wall, so you’ll have to see it.  It’s really beautiful. 

Then we were given some free time to explore the village. And we went all the way to the top to look out over the area.

From there… lunch, then back in the van.  Mohammed showed us where we were on the map  and where we were headed, it was about half way.  We were headed about 100km from the Algerian border.

Marrakech is at the top, he's pointing to Ait Ben Haddou, and we're headed near his armpit

I don’t need to bore you will all the driving, but we saw some pretty neat things along the way.  There was a river that we drove next to creating an oasis.  See if you can figure out which side of the road the river was on:

I think this is the very definition of Oasis.

Then we stopped to look at a huge gorge through the mountains before we headed down the back side to the desert. 

 

PS - I think this is where I ripped my pants.  More on that later... 

And then more driving.  Finally we ended up in  Zagora, it’s actually a decent sized place, especially compared to some of the places that we have been stopping and driving through all day.  But we continue through the city and come out the back.  Stop one more time for water, etc.  Then drive out into the desert a little further.  It’s almost 7 PM.  We had been driving for nearly 12 hours.  We get out of the car and in no more than 5 minutes they have us on the backs of camels and we’re walking toward the camp, watching the sunset over the Sahara.

Once we get to the camp, we get off the camels, which is really cool.  They kneel down and almost lay completely flat and you just step off.  Almost like stepping off a bicycle.  Other things that I learned about camels: They walk kind of funny and you can feel every step.  And their feet are really interesting.  They have these huge pads that make it so their feet don’t sink into the sand too much, and they can just step on rocks and whatever else and not worry about it. 

We get to the camp and they welcome us with more mint tea.  And we’re all just sitting around talking.  Our group had twelve people in it.  2 from Brazil, 2 from Chile, 2 from Denmark, 2 from Spain, 2 from Singapore and us, the token ones from the US.  Including the Berbers, we had every continent covered except Australia and Antarctica.  At this point I looked down to see that I had split my shorts right in the crotch, but what exactly am I going to do since we only brought enough clothes for one night?  The dinner was great, more tajine.  Desert was just some melon.  Then we went to our tents.  It was actually pretty nice, and a permanent tent we had cots and even a door. 

 Inside our tent

Outside our tents at night with the moon showing.

Everyone was hanging out in the middle of the camp site, when the guides pulled out the drums and started playing and singing.  Sarah happened to grab her journal to write about our day, when one of the guides came over and was asking her about it.  He started looking at it, and asking her what the words were.  He spoke enough English to communicate, but can’t read it.  So Sarah was showing him what the different words were.  He started to write his name (Ishmael) in her book and then asked us about our names.  And he wrote them in her book as well, in Arabic.  Then he was summoned over to the circle to play the drums with his friends.  Everyone got up and started dancing and it was a lot of fun.

At the end of the dancing and singing, they opened the food tent back up and we went inside with our new friend Ishmael.  We sat there for hours, talking with him as much as we could and learning Arabic words.  And translating them into English.  Showing him how to write various English words.  All the other guides came over and were laughing at us trying to speak Arabic.  They were trying to teach us words in Berber, which is actually its own distinct language, with its own alphabet, that’s closer to Greek than Arabic.  They even got a kick out of hearing about Pepe and his travels. 

Ishmael was asking about our life in the US, we were asking about his there.  It was really an awesome experience.  I’m sure it sounds like we just sat down and had a chat, but it was quite involved.  Sarah and I speak nothing but English.  We had one of the guys from Brazil that spoke Portuguese and some French, and taken some courses in English that he hadn’t used in years.  Then we had the Berbers, who speak, very little English, but speak French, Arabic and Berber.  Trust me when I say they speak a lot more English than we speak Arabic or Berber, or French for that matter, but it was still quite an ordeal to have this night happen.  We would point to something, say it in English, he would nod if he understood.  If not, then we would turn to Daniel, the Brazilian and try to get him to translate into French, if he even understood.  I even broke out some of the French I remember from like 4 or 5^th grade.  They were impressed that I knew how to count to ten in Arabic from our old friend Mustafa.   It was such an amazing night and something that I will never forget.  Again, it was just so much fun to sit there with someone that is so vastly different and laugh and learn. 

In the morning they had coffee and bread for us.  And we hopped up on our camels.  Ishmeal had told us that mine’s name was Haydoo and Sarah was riding Teyti.  It was super windy as we rode on back to our pick up station.

Notice the wrap on Sarah’s face.  It turns out that the turban the Berber’s wear has nothing to do with religion or anything else, it’s solely for function.  You wrap the top to keep the sun off you, and then the long part you can wrap across your face to keep sand from blowing into your face.  It’s pretty interesting to watch them put it on as well, they just wrap about 20 feet of fabric right up around their head.  I got a small one, and I can show you kind of how to do it one time.

You can see how it works.  Ishmael is on the far right.

Adil, our driver, showed up a little late, he claims that he just over slept, I tend to think he was partying a little too much in Zagora at the hotel.  He did say that he has to prepare for Ramadan in two weeks.  So you have to get everything out now.  Adil doesn’t drink, so that wasn’t it, regardless, we have a hell of a drive back.  In the meantime, Adil told us about how he  makes this drive a couple times a week just depending on what trips have been booked.  I guess his favorite to drive is Essaouira, there and back in the same day, and he gets to have some tea and take a nap on the beach then sleep in his own bed at night.  Our trip wasn’t the worst, about eleven hours there, night in a hotel (for him) then wake up the next morning and about 8 hours back (we stopped a lot less on the way back, just two little ones in Ouarzazate (pronounced Waarzahzot) and for the bathroom breaks and gas and stuff).  

But, then he has the 3 day 2 night camel trek out further into the desert, and he drives 6 hours one day, 8 hours the next, and then the way back to Marrakech is over 12 hours, straight.  And this isn’t driving down a major US freeway, these are tiny switch backs through mountains and little roads shared with donkeys and bicycles all through the tiny towns. We only drove like 300 km or about 200 miles, in 10 hours. It is kind of like driving through Belize for those of you that were there with us. 

 Notice the huge truck right behind Sarah.

Oddly enough,  it did start raining as we entered the Atlas mountains.  That was a welcome change since it was hot, like really HOT!

Back in Marrakech, we get dropped off at the main square and walk back to our hotel.  Funny, now walking through the square, packed with all sorts of stuff, doesn’t bother us any more, it’s just life.  You learn to ignore all the people yelling at you and just go on your way.  I’ll tell you this… I don’t think I’ve had a better shower then the one I had that night.  About 18 hours in a hot van with no AC driving though the Sahara with a night spent in between sleeping in a tent with sand and wind whipping up all around you.  It just really felt good to bathe. 

That night we walked around one last time… picking up some knickknacks.  Sarah is getting pretty good at bargaining.  And we had dinner, one last tajine before we head out tomorrow.  We even tried some Moroccan wine, which was funny.  I asked about it on the menu, and the girl says, I don’t drink, but people tend to like this one. So we tried it, it was different.  It must be brewed by French, since there wasn’t a lick of Arabic on the bottle.  I don’t know that it was the best wine I’ve ever had, but it’s definitely the only Moroccan wine I’ve ever had.

The next morning we woke up and went out to wander around a little one last time and pick up some last minute things.  We walked around the main mosque in  town.

Looking in the Gate of the City wall towards the Medina

The city wall... Notice the holes in it, They are for expansion as the mud dries.

That way it won't crack.  Also allows for a place to attach scaffolding for repairs.

And we tried to walked around La Mamounia which is a super fancy hotel that hosts dignitaries and heads of state when they visit.  I believe Churchill used to stay there.  But since I had shorts on, we weren’t allowed in.  Crazy they don't let you wear shorts when it’s like 105 outside. 

Walking back to our hotel to get the shuttle for the airport we’re approached by a guy.  He’s Berber, and apparently his sister lives in Wisconsin?! But he was trying to sell us some stuff, but he did say that Sarah was very beautiful, and he would offer me 5,000 camels for her.  I thought about it for a while, I mean that’s a lot of camels, but after much contemplation I finally decided to decline.  

Off to Spain to continue our trip, I can’t believe it’s already 25% over.  You know, we keep talking about it.  Neither of us really knew what to expect in Morocco.  We didn’t know if Sarah was going to have to cover her hair or shoulders (she didn’t) or if we were going to be harassed to buy stuff everywhere we went (for the most part, yes we were) or if the people would be friendly and open to Americans (they were extremely friendly, and I hope it was more than just for money).  Things were different, yet somehow familiar.  Should be able to figure this one out:

While we didn’t know what to expect, it drastically exceeded all of our expectations.  We really enjoyed it, it was so different.  It was beautiful, it was fun.  We’re really going to miss it.  It’s funny as we boarded our plane we were talking about it.  I wished we had more time to go further south along the coast to see more of the coast, Sarah wants to return to go to Fez, Meknes and Chefchaouen, all cities to the North.  I have a feeling we might be back here sometime. Here’s where we ended up driving and visiting. 

Goodbye Morocco.  I really hope to return one day, but on with the adventure.  It will definitely be nice to see some friends from home.