To the desert!

At 9 am on the morning of November 11th we got picked up by our driver Saad (which means Happy in Arabic) and got on the road. Saad ended up being very friendly and helpful and we all stretched out in our van and got comfortable for the drive towards the dessert. To get to the desert we needed to cross the Atlas mountains south of Marrakesh. All told, it was going to take about 8 hours to drive to the dessert, but day one was split up into a couple stops to break up the drive. The drive over the Atlas mountains was twisty and turny, with sheer-drop cliffs into green gorges. Corsica II. James Bond roads, as the kids call it.

Our first stop was at a Kasbah (walled village) in Ait Benhaddou, which is utterly picturesque and stunning (and was a backdrop in Lawrence of Arabia, Jesus of Nazareth, the Gladiator and about a hundred other films). To get to the kasbah we had to cross a river by hopping from rock to rock (with about ten kids trying to help us cross for tips), pass by a camel herd waiting for tourists and go up 206 steps to get to the top. The houses in this Kasbah are made of hay mixed with dessert clay, and are amazingly strong. The only things that can destroy the buildings are floods, rainstorms and earthquakes (rare in the desert but rainstorms are a constant threat to the houses). The only slightly disappointing thing was that it was hard to tell how much the village has had to conform to tourism- they charge an entrance fee to go into the Kabah which goes towards reconstruction of the houses- and only ten families still live inside the city walls, and those tourists have to constantly deal with tourists traipsing through the narrow alleyways.

After a quick visit to Ouarzazate's kasbah we headed to our hotel in Tinghers across from a very large souk (market place). We stared for a while at the sheep selling across the road before heading down to dinner and to chase a few cats that live in the hotel. Why sheep? See the previous posting for all the details...

On a side note, Eilidh asked recently why it was that she's never seen women in this country working, "Except for cleaning toilets." It provided a good opportunity for us to talk about cultural differences and how much more difficult it is to live in this country (as far as food preparation, shopping etc). I thought it was an astute observation and when I asked her which one she prefers for herself, she quickly answered, "to be able to work when I'm bigger." :-)

Tent stakes!