On to Marrakech, Imlil, and Essaouira

Les Jardins de Skoura was our destination riad after leaving Todra Gorge. We arrived about 1700, were shown our room and the gardens and pool, and immediately wished we were staying more than one night. It was beautiful. Nevertheless, we enjoyed our stay immensely, having a swim, and chatting to an Australian couple over drinks and dinner in the garden.

You may remember in the last blog I mentioned Susie's bargaining skills.
If there was a  Master's Degree in Haggling, she would have one! I'm still not totally comfortable with the process, but have improved, and now consider myself a passable haggler, but right from the start Susie has been into it like a local. Her opening gambit is always about a third, or less, of the price quoted, and then the disbelieving looks and exclamations of woe from the vendor and the serious haggling starts, with Susie getting up to walk out of the shop a few times before an agreement is finally reached, always with humour, and always with Susie not having moved much from her original price. Then the vendor breaks into a broad grin, hugs Susie and asks her is she really a Berber. It must have happened at least 6 times now. I consider myself the Master's Apprentice.
Susie had occasion to use her bargaining skills the morning after we left Les Jardins. The owner had told us the weekly souk was on in Skoura that day, so we motored back into town, parked the car, and prepared for battle. We wandered around the stalls for a while before finding some stuff that interested us and accepted an invitation to sit down and have some mint tea. We really are becoming quite comfortable with the ritual of tea and small talk before the real business of bargaining begins. After some protracted negotiations we again walked away happy with our purchases, and with a smiling shop owner as well. I really think they love the process more than the actual sale.

Leaving Skoura, we motored up into the High Atlas and across some spectacular high passes on switchbacking roads with thunder rumbling and lightning flashing overhead. We had a brief shower before starting the downhill run towards the plains and Marrakech, but by this time I was starving and pulled over at a dodgy looking little cafe in the hills. Susie was a little reluctant, but hunger was the master, and we ordered chicken kebabs with chips and salad and sat down outside to wait.  The young guy brought out our chicken on steel skewers, fanned up the coals on a small bbq by the road, and cooked our chicken. It was delicious.
Stomachs full, we continued, and arrived about an hour later at the outer walls of the Marrakesh medina, with me beginning to get a bit frazzled coping with the crazy traffic and not having a clue where to go to drop off our vehicle. We needed to contact the car rental company rep, but our mobile wasn't working, so we pulled into a servo and parked, Susie jumped out and went in search of a public phone. I waited, and waited. Eventually she reappeared - with a smile. She had found a phone, then had to get change, then the rep only spoke French and Arabic, so she engaged the help of a young teenage boy to talk to the rep, ran out of money, the young guy went off to get more change for her, recontacted the rep, had the young guy tell him where we were, and he said "No problem, be there in 10 minutes." Susie tipped her young helper, who ran off with a grin, and in no time at all we had handed over the dusty Prado and been given a ride to our beautiful riad, just inside the walls of the medina.

Our riad, Les Yeux Bleu, was the best yet, with a beautiful courtyard and pool, and equally welcoming bedroom. We were welcomed with mint tea by Breck, the young manager, and Mouktah the waiter come general hand, and were surprised to learn we were the only guests, a party of Brits who had booked all 5 other rooms having cancelled straight after the Marrakech bombing.
We love the way these riads, and all traditional Moroccan homes, are nothing from the street (or alleyway in the medinas). Just a door in a wall, quite often without even a sign, but open the door and you walk into an oasis of calm, away from the crowds and noise outside, with flowers, palms, beautifully tiled courtyards, and trickling fountains.
We dined that evening at a swish but reasonably priced restaurant and hit the cot.

Next day, Susie had convinced me I needed the Hammam experience. Our riad would have organised it in house, but no, we had to have the full on, public Hammam experience, just like the locals, so men having the morning hours, off I went with directions from Mouktah, towel in hand to the local. While I was getting my gear off (down to briefs) the attendant asked me would I like a massage. Sounds good, I thought - yeah, why not.
What followed was not a massage so much as a savage stretching which at times I swore was going to do my joints some damage. It got better for a while after that. In the hot atmosphere he lay me flat on my back on the smooth marble, and then face down, and washed me thoroughly with black soap then rinsed me off with buckets of water. Not bad, I thought, but that was only the beginning - then he got out the sandpaper.

Imagine your naked body being scrubbed vigorously - I mean VERY vigorously - with a coarse grade of scourer. That removed a few layers of "dead" skin, then he changed to the fine grain scourer and did it again.  An experience, definitely, but not one I would repeat. Susie, on the other hand, for her appointment later in the afternoon was attended and scrubbed by two women who must have treated her more gently because she came back glowing and saying she would go regularly if she could. Maybe I got the resident sadist.

In between our Hammam experiences, we wandered in the Medina, approached continuously by keen vendors selling anything and everything. The Marrakech medina is far more chaotic than that of Fes, because in Marrakech vehicles are allowed, so even in the narrowest of alleys you still have to contend with small motorbikes and scooters buzzing through the crowds. And driving around Marrakech? Sheeee...it! If you're not assertive, nay, aggressive, you won't pull away from the kerb! Mixing it with trucks, buses, cars, taxies, motorbikes, scooters, bicycles, donkey carts and pedestrians, all of whom act as if the road is theirs, and theirs alone, and doing it all on the "other" side of the road, is kind of nerve jangling. A pre-dinged vehicle is definitely an asset!

Wednesday 11th, and it was time for cooking class. Moroccan cooking, that is. Prior to getting hands on, we were given a demo on how to prepare dough for trad Moroccan bread, then went out into the street to check out a Bakery. Not like your regular local in Australia, these guys bake absolutely nothing of their own - all they do is bake everyone else's bread. Just a doorway in the wall, you walk inside to see a couple of guys working what amounts to a giant pizza oven. All the women bring their family bread for the day on trays, to be baked, picked up and taken home. How the bakers remember who's loaves are who's is beyond me, but they do. Then we were treated to a chat about spices and their myriad uses by a local vendor before returning to our kitchen to put together our own very tasty chicken tajines and then dining on our productions. Good fun.

Thursday was time to go to the mountains. We negotiated a fare in a Grande Taxi (a circa 1980 Merc) to Imlil, a mountain village in the shadow of Jebl Touhbkal, the highest mountain in the High Atlas at 4200m. The drive up was exciting enough, so after finding our very basic trekkers' lodge, we spent the rest of the afternoon just taking in the sights of the village.
Next day we walked in the mountains. We engaged a local guide, Ibrahim, to take us on a walk in the local area. A young English couple had done a 6.5 hr walk with Ibrahim that day, which they said was very good, so we thought, "Yeh, that sounds good, we'll do that." When approached, Ibrahim said it would take 8 hrs - maybe we would like to do something shorter, maybe 5 hrs? We consulted...  No, those guys definitely said it only took 6.5 hrs, we'll do that one.
Well, we conveniently forgot the 35 odd year age difference didn't we? Yep, it took us 8 hrs and 5 mins, climbing and descending from 2 high passes in the process.  Truly spectacular mountain scenery reminiscent of Nepal, passing through small villages and wading mountain streams, and we were both fine until the 6 hr mark. After that it caught up with us and we were in survival shuffle mode, but we made it, totally spent but enriched. Ibrahim of course, all of 21 years old,  just bounced along in front all day, most of the time with his hands in his pockets, even when rock hopping across streams. Hate that.

Sat morning we gave ourselves a sleep in before rousing ourselves on sore knees for brekkie then walked down to the village to meet Susie's daughter Luisa and fiancee Rory, who had quite by chance booked the same lodge in the same village for a night. We spent a quiet afternoon and evening roaming the village and talking until well after dinner.

Next morning we hugged Lu and Rory goodbye, happy in the knowledge we would see them again in about a week, and negotiated another Grande Taxi back to Marrakech. From there we climbed on a bus for Essaouira, on the Atlantic coast. We had 3 nights in Essaouira, and were able to just relax and amble around. Our riad was basic but comfortable, and the young staff, Aiya and Redouane great.
The fishing port was something to see - a kaliedescope of colour, activity, and smells as fishermen unloaded catches, gulls screamed and hovered above, and locals bought the catch straight off the wharf. We climbed around the battlements of the old town, originally a Portuguese settlement, walked and explored the medina, took a long walk and swim on the beach, kissed camels, and sipped cool rose as the sun sank into the sea. Thanks to LP, we also found the best meal we had in Maroc at a funky 50's style restaurant called Elizir. The place was totally furnished in weird 50's decor retrieved from who knows where, making for a fun atmosphere, and the food was sensational.

Feeling relaxed and ready for Portugal, we bussed back to Marrakech, the airport, and our flight to Lisbon.

Mohammed and Fatima of the Desert

Our 3 week visit to exotic Morocco started rather slowly, mainly because, somehow we had managed to book ourselves on the slow vehicular ferry to Tanger, rather than the fast catamaran that everyone without a car normally gets. We felt a little unusual being the only passengers to walk, not drive onto our ferry, but, not to worry, we enjoyed our sedate passage and arrived relaxed in Tanger, found our hotel and settled in, then walked around to the nearby train station to book our tickets for Fes the next day. All good, except that when we walked into the station at 1015 next day in plenty of time for our 1040 departure, we both looked up at the Station Clock above, and read 1115! We found out later that Morocco had just changed to daylight saving, early, and we had set our watches an hour behind. Buggar. Next train didn't leave 'til 1700. Thankfully they allowed us to transfer our tickets to the later train, and we wandered back to our overnight hotel to wait.

After an interesting train ride spent chatting to a single Moroccan mum with 2 teenage daughters, we arrived in Fes at about 2230, were met by our driver, and transported to Dar Anebar, the riad which was to be our home for the next 3 nights.


The next morning, after a bit of a sleep in, we met our hosts Aziz, Mustapha, Mohammed, and owner Ahmed over breakfast, then ventured out into the wilds of the Medina. Naturally, we got lost, but that's half the fun, and in the process we managed to check out the tanneries (just follow your nose, you'll find 'em!) - fascinating because they still process the hides all manually, outdoors, same as they have done for centuries, bought a leather poof and wallet, a blue Moroccan dress for Susie, got my head shaved, and popped out the wrong side of the Medina in the rain.

For the next day's activity we had decided to visit the ruined Roman city of Volubilis, and Meknes, so after brekkie we walked out of the Medina (no cars inside) in search of a driver for the day. No sooner had we hit the outside, than our man , Azedine, materialised beside us (they have a sixth sense, these guys), we negotiated a fee for the day, and we were off.
BTW Later on, I'll tell you a bit about Susie's haggling skills.
After a very pleasant drive of about an hour through beautiful country, we arrived at Volubilis, negotiated a fee with a local walk-thru guide, Rashid, and away we went. Rashid could talk the leg off an iron pot, but was entertaining and very knowledgeable, and we spent an interesting hour wandering around looking at the remains of the first Roman settlement in Morocco.
We then went on to Meknes, had lunch at a restaurant owned by Azedine's mate, who's brother naturally owned the carpet shop next door and invited us in for a "look", but we managed to fend off their friendly efforts to sell us something.
Major point of interest for me in Meknes happened to be right across the road from our lunch spot - this was the entrance to the underground prison/dungeon where the bad bastard Sultan Moulay Ismail, architect of Meknes' 17th century glory days, kept thousands of white slaves his Saracens had brought to Morocco after raids along the European coast of the Med and up to England and even Ireland. I had only recently read a book, loaned to me by paddling mate Russell, on the subject, so was fascinated to walk down into what would have been hell on earth for the poor souls incarcerated there.

   
Our car was delivered to us the following morning, a slightly worn manual diesel Prado, which we proceeded to make even less new over the next week. After a quick check of our steed we were off to the next-to-the-dunes outpost of Merzouga. We had some fun navigating out of Fes, but eventually found the right road out of town (Sheila is not programmed for Morocco, so we were on our own!), and tooled out into the lush green hills before climbing over the Rif mountains. Once over the mountains the country became progressively drier until we were driving in the desert, finally arriving at the Kasbah Mohayut at 1700, just time enough for a swim in the pool and glass of wine before dinner in the beautiful courtyard.
We had the next day free until our scheduled 1700 camel departure for our overnight camp in the dunes, so engaged one of the hotel staff, Mohammed of course, to show us around the local area. Mohammed was a very proud, educated local Berber, who among other things, took great pleasure in showing us the democratic water usage system used by the locals for crop irrigation. There is a channel running from a series of wells, and each landowner is allowed to unblock the channel into his plot for a total of 4 hours per week. This is overseen by the village headman. We also managed to spend some money on a couple Berber rugs, and listen to some great live African rhythms (bought the CD) from a group descended from black Nubian slaves.
It was during this outing that I failed my 4WD test in sand - managed to get bogged within 100m! But miraculously, within a minute of us bogging down a local man appeared with a shovel, helped dig us out, and was walking away without wanting anything until we called him back and offered a little something for his trouble, which was graciously accepted. After that I was banished to the passenger's seat for the rest of the day and Mohammed took over. Shame.

We made it back to the Kasbah with just enough time to become Mohammed and Fatima of the Desert, ready for our camel ride out into the Erg Chebbi dunes for our dinner and overnight stay in a Berber tent. Trying to take photographs from the back of a moving camel is a bit of a challenge, but nevertheless I took a gazillion, some of which may be okay, and we arrived at our camp with plenty of time to fan out and catch the shadows as the sun sank into the dunes. Fabulous. After dinner, our Berber hosts treated us to some Moroccan rhythms and singalong by a campfire before we all wandered off to our tents.
Up early the next morning, we were back at the Kasbah by 0830 hungry for breakfast.

After settling up at Kasbah Mohayut we headed East again towards the High Atlas mountains and our next destination, Dades Gorge, finally arriving at our riad, Chez Pierre at about 5:30. Lonely Planet described this place as a "climbers' hotel", and I was a bit baffled as I hadn't seen any decent climbable walls close by, until it dawned on us that it was LP's little joke, referring to the endless stairs guests are obliged to climb to get to their rooms! Sheesh! Actually, the rooms were a bit scruffy, and we were a bit disappointed in the place....  until we sat down to dinner. Our chef, Nadia, wife of the Belgian owner and mostly resident in Paris, was a sensational cook. Her fabulous meals made us forget any shortcomings in our accomodation!

Next morning we engaged a lovely local guy, again a proud Berber named Mustapha, to show us around off the usual tourist routes using our vehicle. And show us he did. He took us way up into the hills off the bitumen, we wandered through irrigated plots next to streams, bounced along rocky tracks, through tiny villages, and even visited a nomadic Berber camp in a cave. The men were all away with the sheep and goats, but we sat down with Grandma and her little grandson for a glass of mint tea and chatted, Mustapha doing the interpreting. Next time you pour yourself a glass of water from the tap at home, spare a thought for these people, who walk 2 hours to collect water in plastic containers, then carry it all the way back.
Mustapha, we found out, has his own company guiding trekking trips in the High Atlas, as well as being right into music - playing in a band which will be going to London to perform soon. On our way home he proudly showed us his "Music House" - his new home which is at present a work in progress, about half built. We were also introduced to his youngest brother, Ayoud, (Mustapha is 3rd of 9 children!) 15 years old and will steal many a girl's heart over the next few years, and to his Mum, who proudly showed us her maths book after coming in from school. How about that - 9 kids over 19 years, and now has decided she needs an education and has taken herself off to school. A lovely lady.

For our entertainment the next day, we wanted to visit Todra Gorge, which meant a fair backtrack on the bitumen, or, as LP puts it "If you're up for a bit of a challenge, you can link the 2 gorges via the "piste" which links the upper ends of the 2 gorges. Our mate Mustapha said, "No problem, Rob can drive it!", so off we went in search of the "piste". After some spectacularly high winding driving through the upper Dades Gorge the terrain eased a bit and we started looking for our turn off. It only took 4 stops to ask for directions before we drove past it. Susie said "That must have been it." "Nah, couldn't be, it was just a couple of ruts!" It was.
And so commenced 40 odd clicks of 1st and 2nd gear driving along rocky ruts, river beds, and over harrowing drops in truly awe inspiring country. During the 2 hours it took we passed one other vehicle, parked off the track in the river bed thankfully, and not coming at us on the side of a mountain, and occasionally and briefly discussed highly unlikely and undesirable things like flat tyres and breakdowns out here.
But, we made it through without a problem, and after stopping at a mountain outpost for some lunch, we drove onto the bitumen and into the very narrow upper end of Todra Gorge, only to encounter PEOPLE. Hundreds of them, and cars everywhere, as well as little motorbikes buzzing around like bees. It was Sunday, and it seems all of Morocco likes to go to Todra Gorge on a Sunday for a picnic.

We got out of there as fast as we could, and motored on to Skoura, and the next stage of our Moroccan travels.