MOROCCO - HIGH ATLAS
PART 8 of 8
This is the final part of our journey through Morocco. Our road trip continues through the roads and off-roads of the huge Atlas Mountains. The temperature there in December varies between +15 or +20 in the noon and drops down until 0° and in some regions to the minus degree (depending on the altitude). In total we drove over 2.500km in eight days. Our whole journey lasted two weeks, eight days of which where on the road.
Tidrite
Horseshoe in Dades Gorge
Dadès Gorges
Dadès Gorges
Tizi n'Ouano pass - 2910m
Our Duster after the off road in Tizi n'Ouano pass
Azilal Province
Agoudal
Agoudal
Azilal Province
Azilal Province
The Atlas Mountains in the Azilal Province
Lake at the Bin El Ouidane
We had some action on the way to the airport that is worth to mention. Two hours before our flight we are approx. 15km away from the airport. But one of our passengers decides to play egocentric and loudly refuses to walk 800 meters through the old town of Marrakesh to her hotel. I didn't want to end up our trip in a scandal, so I had decided to take a try. After a few hundred meters I had stopped the car. It was impossible anymore to move forward in that narrow streets. People, dogs, goats, children, mopeds and bikes were all over the place. The idea of that we have to drive back somehow, drop off the car and catch our plane in less than two hours made me nervous. But still our passenger didn’t want to get out and walk the rest. It is not easy to make me mad, but that was it: “Get out of the car!”, I yelled. “Fuck you!”, were the last words of our passenger. The diva smashed the car’s doo’s door in anger and left. Now Emre and I had to get out of that anthill as fast as possible.
"Baaam!", something hit the car. "Emre, I think I hit someone", - an angry man's eyes cached mine. I though now we will be burned alive here. Suddenly an elder man appeared in front of the car and started to help up to drive away by moving people apart. I guess it took us 20 to 30 minutes just to get out of medina - the old town. The next challenge was the navigation. GPS doesn't work in Marrakesh (as well as in Fez). So, Emre navigated me. It took him a while to figure out the map but nevertheless we are on the road into the direction of the airport. Less than an hour left until the gates are closed. Of course we took the wrong turn. Getting back on the road. I am turning the orange light signaling that I am turning right. I am looking at the side mirror and see an endless line of mopeds just driving blindly without any intention to let me do the turn. I stopped. Behind me is madness and anger. The horns are buzzing. No driver's solidarity at all. I have no other choice rather than find the best moment and just turn. Just a few centimeters saved us from a crush. The moped they are like those lemmings from the computer game: blindly following the line. We are happy that they managed to brake at the last moment.
The next challenge. We are on the airport’s parking area and looking for the logo of the firm where we took the car. No luck. We call the owner. It turns out the guy who rented us the car is a shady non official car rental, so there is no logo., we have to find the right parking lot. Left the car and now we run with the heavy bags to the gates. With understanding, people in the queue let us forward. Security control, pass control - we made it! The whole stress was for nothing. Three hours delay. As we have heard later, an egoistic passenger refuses to obey the airline’s rules and he and his family had to be taken off the plane. The whole procedure took them three hours.
Still, hungry and tired we are back to Barcelona. Another unforgettable journey. We all hope that the pandemic will be over soon and we can continue to get to know other cultures of our Planet.
EPILOGUE
Morocco impressed us with its scale, nature and culture. There are many places that we could not visit that time. Probably the next time we go deeply into the desert and explore the coast from Essaouira to Dakhla.
Marrakesh at night
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MOROCCO - ATLAS MOUNTAINS
PART 7 of 8
Our road trip through Morocco continues. After Merzouga we headed towards the serpantine roads of the Atlas Mountains.
Tinghir at the sunrise.
Tinghir
Our host Mustafa in his house
The rock walls of the Les Gorges Du Todra.
Village Tamtetoucht
Tamtetoucht
Tamtetoucht
Tamtetoucht
The Atlas Mountains
To grasp the mighty of the mountains you can find a white car and a camp at the right bottom corner of the photo for the comparison.
The Atlas Mountains
Tizi n’ Takkat n’Liloud pass. Elevation 2800 meters.
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MOROCCO - MERZOUGA
PART 6 of 8
After Zagora we drove to Tinghir, where we stayed one night. On the Christmas day we went to see the other part of Sahara Desert that is situated near the small town Merzouga.
Driving to Merzouga’s Erg-Chebbi was like breathing in freedom. Long highways in the middle of nowhere. Free open space as far as your eye can see. Gas pedal is pushed down until the end. The velocity is 160km/h, that was the maximum that out Dacia Duster could run. The speakers grooving the car by the sounds of Meshuggah. It’s Emre’s birthday and we have the best hashish in the country with us gifted to us by one soulful host in Tinghir.
In the right down corner you can see our car. Emre has driver’s license but almost non of driving experience. Straight highways of Morocco is a perfect track and Emre has birthday. Let him drive!
Lonely camel near the highway on the way to Merzouga.
Merzouga, Morocco
We had a similar feeling to Marrakesh as we entered Merzouga. Although the town is small the streets are very busy. Once we parked our car out of nowhere a dude appeared. He was like a leech that you can not get rid off. Over and over again he followed us and tried to sell us his tours to the dunes. We had a tour reservation. Our connection was a man called Said (but not that Said from Zagora). That one should be a trusted one, because Said is the affiliate of the AirBnB hosts where we were staying in Tinghir. As we arrived, the other tourists were waiting for the caravan to take off. Those tourists with the ridiculous fashion: safari hats, ugly pink T-shirts Hollister and yellow or green clown shorts below the knees. We arrived at 15:00, so I was worried about the time because I wanted to photograph the desert at the sunset. Said calmed me down and offered mint tea and vegetables.
I didn't want to do that, but I was thinking that it can happen and yes, indeed it did have happened. We had to ride camels. Seeing those poor animals, who ride back and forth heavily weighted tourists non stop, you simply don't want to make more harm to the animal. But you have to ride it because its the part of the rules. The camp where we were going was about 5 km away from Merzouga. After an hour of ride our asses didn’t feel happy at all.
Camel ride is an enslavement for the animal and torture for the rider.
Quadracycles, 4x4 Jeeps and Road Off Motorbikes - all these reminded us of some kind of an amusement park. I knew that I could forget about the meditative silence that professor Fuder told me about back in my student years. On every dune tourists were taking photos of the setting sun. Mohamed in his red turban greeted us with his wide smile and stoned eyes. “Welcome!” - he shouted and guided us to the camp.
Erg-Chebbi is elevated 730 meter above the sea level and the dunes are around 150 meter above the surface.
In Erg-Chebbi you will not find a virgin dune, all penetrated by the human feet and car’s tires.
Sunset in Erg-Chabbi
Celebrating Christmas and birthday of one of my best friends smoking the best hash on the top of Sahara dunes, what can be better? Emre is smart, intelligent, has good sense of humor and he is a man of kind values. Sometimes in your life you can meet a person and you realize immediately that you have a very special connection. You understand that you have found a friend for life. A journey is one of the best ways to test a friendship. This is our second one and its only getting stronger. Can’t wait to go with him on our next trip.
At that night we felt in love with berber music. It has simple and groovy beats with detailed changes and slight shifts. They sing with short phrases, the melodies are simple and catchy. That was very unconventional Christmas for us.
If in Zagora in the whole camp we were the only guests, then in Merzouga we shared the place with tourists of different ages from France and Italy. It is dinner time and, of course, it is Taijin again. French guests brought some vine with them (although it is not that easy to purchase alcohol in Morocco). It was the Christmas Day, Jesus and Emre had birthday. Our hosts were lazy. Despite the cold night the hosts resisted to make the fire. Somehow we persuaded them to do the camp fire though. But once the fire almost went down they refused to tell us if they had more woods and where it was. Luckily me and a french military girl (unfortunately I can’t reveal more information, otherwise I will be wiretapped by the french DGSE) went on a mission and had found the hidden woods. I had to give a large bribe to one of the hosts in the form of the best quality hashish. The laziness of our hosts didn’t stop there. It was Christmas and Emre’s birthday. We were exited to hear berber music, because it is so groovy and hypnotic. We really felt in love with it. But our hosts refused to play (they were first class musicians). It had nothing to do with their religious concerns. Simply idleness. Our hosts - all men. Italian girls used their flirt and the berber percussion fired up the night into the rhythmical dance.
That day and night I will never forget. 300 km highway in the middle of the deserted huge area. Those huge dunes. Emre’s birthday and that nigh under the clear sky and the campfire.
On the next day I woke up early and went alone on the top of the highest dune that was available. I have never climbed huge dunes. The dunes were about 150 meter tall only, but because of the sinking feet in the sand you start to have a feeling that all of this is a mirage and you will never reach the top, simply because you stay on one place all the time.
After about 40 minutes I have finally reached the top. Desert is just unbelievable. As I have mentioned earlier, Merzouga is not that silent as Zagora. I though that I could get an hour of complete silence, but quadracycles and jeeps started to penetrate the wise silence of the desert with their churl engines.
While sitting on the dunes I was thinking about my conversations with the military woman. My brain tried to figure out how does it come together - professionally being in a military, engaging in the war zones in different continents and have such a great humor, joy of life, cuteness and very kind way of thinking. The stereotypes led me to the controversies. My brain played out different scenarios about what her character could be. Perhaps she is so nice and positivity-spreading person because she tries to compensate a part of her that knows that the military is an archetypal apparatus to protect and protect also means to kill, and maybe to kill not in the name of protection, but led by the notion of conquest? I would love to visit her one day and continue our philosophical conversations. But what a great night in the desert, beautiful morning and what a pleasure to be alive.
Another lonely camel on the way back
The night was so freezing that I got cold. We drove back to Tinghir to continue our journey back through the Atlas Mountain. But this time we will take another route through the mountains…
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MOROCCO - ZAGORA
PART 5 of 8
Our next destination is the desert Erg-Chigaga near Zagora city. After passing the Atlas Mountains the landscape changes drastically. Huge open areas, dry soil in terracotta tones with little vegetation and rare oases. I have never been to a desert before, so I was exited to see one for the very first time.
Oasis on the road from Hay Almansour Adahbi to Zagora
Abdo on the roof of Kasbah Oulad Othmane.
Abdo is a young man, who is curious about politics and geography. In his free time he loves to write texts for his hip-hop compositions. Abdo would love to travel around the world. For many Moroccan it is not easy to get a visa and not many people in Morocco have the financial possibilities to travel abroad. For some people, even if they have a job in a large city, it is financially tough to visit their parents who live 300km away.
Foum Anagame Pass, Zagora
In Marrakesh we met a man called Moohaa, a berber who has his small tourist office in the old medina. Moohaa immediately connected us with his relative Said, who has a camp in the Erg-Chigaga desert near Zagora town. Erg-Chigaga is a huge deserted area with a few sand dunes and is a part of Sahara Desert. Erg-Chigaga is less known among tourists and usually has much less visitors than the Erg-Chebbi in Merzouga, especially in the winter time.
Said is a hospitable man. He doesn’t talk much and doesn’t try to entertain his visitors as other hosts usually do in touristic hot spots. In his presence you start to feel relaxed and calm too. Emre and I had a feeling that being in Said’s camp was, probably, one of the most authentic cultural experience on our trip. Unfortunately on this journey we didn’t have many opportunities to really get in touch with culture and to know people as it was on our trip to Siberia, where we were living one months with different Shamans. That’s why we are thinking about making another trip to Maghreb in the future to learn more about berber’s culture.
After meeting us in a small village near Zagora, Said guided us the way to his camp driving his old Renault 4 through the desert.
This image was made by me sitting in the drivers seat, pushing the gas pedal and simultaneously holding the camera in front of my eye while Emre was holding the steering wheel.
Odin (on the photo) works in Said’s camp. He was open to us and curious about our stories. After the talking and playing music we all enjoyed the silence of the desert’s night and crackle of the camp fire. From time to time each of us went away from the camp fire into the darkness to enjoy solitude. The night sky was completely free of any artificial light pollution. It was my first long trip without a tripod, so I haven’t done any proper image of the night sky. Instead I simply enjoyed starring into the black infinity. During the winter in the desert the temperature can drop from +18℃ in the daytime to +3℃ in the night. Said had many blankets made of the camel wool. That night was cold. Each of us needed four to five blankets to get warm.
Moroccan’s cuisine is tasty, but the variety is limited. It was an overload of Tajine for us. Almost everywhere we went we had Tajine or couscous. At one point we had a new name for this country - Tajinestan.
Zagora, Erg-Chigaga.
When I was studying design at the FH Düsseldorf I had a professor in the film class Dieter Fuder. Once he told a story about his first experience in the desert and how much he was overwhelmed by the silence that prevailed there. Since then that story never left my mind each time I thought about the desert. Erg-Chigaga was my first experience in the desert. Now I understand what professor Fuder meant. The silence of the desert is beyond the words, its is magical, it is endless and wise.
Zagora, Erg-Chigaga
After Erg-Chigaga we went to explore M'Hamid El Ghizlane and it’s surroundings. M'Hamid El Ghizlane is a small town with 7500 inhabitants and is situated about 100km from Zagora.
With M'Hamid El Ghizlane ends the national highway N9. After M'Hamid El Ghizlane there are no significant settlements only huge deserted sand area that extends to the domain of Algeria.
Our next destination is Tinghir and Erg-Chebbi in Merzouga…
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MOROCCO - DRAA-TAFILALET
From Drâa-Tafilalet starts our road trip. Finally away from the busy and chaotic cities into the vast open spaces, valleys and serpentine roads..
PART 4 of 8
Drâa-Tafilalet is one of the twelve regions of Morocco. The main economic occupations are agriculture and animal husbandry. But in the last years desertification makes these activities difficult.
From Drâa-Tafilalet starts our road trip. Finally away from the busy and chaotic cities into the vast open spaces, valleys and serpentine roads of the gigantic Atlas Mountains.
Village Telouet
Village Telouet
Kasbah Telouet.
Kasbah is a citadel, a few buildings connected together.
Kasbah Telouet was built in 18th century and was a site of pasha Thami El Glaoui 1912 - 1956.
Unfortunately the condition of Kasbah Telouet is quite poor. There are visible cracks on the carrier walls. Parts of the walls on the outside have major damages. Hopefully this historical heritage will get a proper renovation and will not fall into pieces, and no one gets hurt.
Kasbah of Tifoultoute
Sunset behind the Atlas Mountains
Our next stop is the Sahara Desert, Erg-Chigaga, situated near Mhamid and the boarder with Algeria.
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MOROCCO - FEZ
It is a mixture of pigeon feces, cow's urine, salt and water that are used to…
PART 2 OF 8
On the next day we headed towards Fez, a city known for its old medina with more than 10,000 narrow streets without the street names and house numbers. What makes it even more difficult to navigate through medina is that the GPS doesn't work at all, which gives a perfect opportunity for many dudes to gain money by guiding the lost tourists. And again, as it was in Chefchaouen out of nowhere a dude emerged and wanted to show us the city. We have agreed. It was a 19 years old boy who knew the city very well. Besides bringing us to his commercial partners (tanners and weavers) he showed us some insider places too.
Fez is one of the most touristic towns in Morocco. Similar to Chefchaouen, everybody is trying to sell you something using aggressive sales tactics. Once we even had an argument with a seller who invited us to his shop full of decorative furniture, dishes and small knick-knacks. At the beginning he was funny, way over hospitable and polite. As he forced me to speak out my final price for a jewelry, he was not not happy with what he had heard. He threw that jewelry on the floor with anger, screamed: “Get out!” and called me “dirty”. That story became our running gag for the whole journey.
Walking through endless mazes of medina is an experience. The old city is divided by districts and each district concentrate a special handicraft. Metal workers, carpenters, tanners, weavers, ceramic etc. A special aspect of Moroccan architecture is claustrophobic narrow streets that may look dirty and shabby but once you enter a house a beautiful interior might appear to your eyes. Fountains, picturesque furniture, delicately crafted carpets, national music instruments and harmonious mosaics on the floor and the walls create a peaceful and coherent environment.
After this trip I became even more sensitive to interior design. When you browse through booking websites of Moroccan apartments, riads and houses you will notice how many accommodations you can find with beautiful interiors. I wish Spanish homeowners would have a better taste. For example, you want to rent a nice house on Costa Brava. You browse hours through ridiculously kitschy interiors until your eyes start to vomit. And all this for shamelessly high rent prices. At one point you even begin to wonder if all you see is a bad joke.
Place R’cif
Panorama of Fez medina
CHOUARA TANNERY
The most popular place in Fez is the largest leather tannery in town called Chouara Tannery. It was built in XI century and it still operates in the modern days. The whole process looks disgusting. What striked us the most is the unbearable stink that we could not get out of our noses for days after visiting the tannery. The stink comes from the mixture of pigeon feces, cow's urine, salt and water that are used to soften the animal's skin. As we were told, Chouara use natural colorants such as mint, poppy flowers and henna to color the leather. After the leather is dried, bags, babush, jackets etc. are made. We had a kind and helpful host in our riad, with whom we had a conversation about the Chouara Tannery, I was impressed that some men, with whom I have spoken, work there for more than 20 years doing that hard work. Our host told us, that working in the tannery is a prestigious and well paid job in Morocco.
Chouara Tannery
Cow skins
Drying animal’s skin
Ready products - traditional Moroccan slippers “babush”
The next stop Marrakesh…
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