So about that predawn wake-up, it really felt like I was going to hop into a boat for crew practice instead of onto a camel to ride around the dunes. Some of our camels were late, creating initial fears that some students would not have a camel all to themselves, but they eventually arrived. Camels are smelly creatures and very flatulent. Another thing, did you know that camels have a special snack stomach? That’s right, they eat some food items whole and store them in s separate stomach that allows them to regurgitate, chew, and eat it again. All the camels were tethered in lines of four or five, so I was able to hear the camel directly behind me access its snack stores. Vile.
We rode the camels out to the nearest high dune to watch the sunrise. The moonset directly behind us was more spectacular if you ask me.
The Land Rover drivers went crazy driving us back to Rissani, doing desert donuts and swerving all over.
After yet another fulfilling handful of hours on the bus, we stopped in N’qob for lunch at one of the many kasbahs in the town. In the south, Kasbahs are not walled towns, they are more of a fortified house. The grounds of the kasbah had fruit trees, a small museum, and a pool. We all wanted to stay there instead of continuing on to Ourzzazate.
Possibly the most irritating incident of the day was the fly storm in the bus. One of the boys had left a bag of garbage on the bus overnight in the desert and it had spontaneously created a swarm of flies. We had to drive with the back door open to get rid of them, and even then there were some devious ones that managed to remain for the rest of the trip.
On our way to Ourzzazate we passed through the Draa River valley, which looked remarkably like the Ziz except it was a different color. And probably had many different cultural stuffs but we didn’t stop to find out and drove right on through.
I don’t think I can adequately describe the roads on which we were driving through the Middle Atlas, or the speed at which our driver was taking them. Remember that our driver has balls of steel? They must be titanium or something because these roads had only a guardrail between you and a 1,000-foot drop and he was driving in both lanes at once. We had to have a sick break for one of our number once we got to the valley floor because we’d been lurching around so much.
We stayed with other students in a dorm in Ourzzazate. The dormitory is the result of a foundation called Association Tischka, which provides housing in the city for girls from distant towns. Since they live so far away, they wouldn’t have been able to get to Ourzzazate for high school everyday by themselves, nor would it have been acceptable for them to stay in the city alone. The dormitory, Dar Taliba (House of the Students), gives them a secure environment for them to stay while they study in the city.
We slept on bunks, so it felt like one enormous sleep-over. But I got sick again that evening, so it wasn’t all fun and games for me, especially as they only had Turkish toilets, and that’s all I’m going to say. We got to have dinner with the students and chat, so far as we were able in our mélange of languages. The girls at my table were all from Zagora, a town east of Ourzzazate. Three were still in high school but one was studying film production (Ourzzazte is the capital of Moroccan film) They were eager to hear about what we were doing in Morocco, and gave us suggestions about what to see in Marrakesh the next day.
I don’t even know if I can count this evening as being in Ourzzazate seeing as I didn’t actually see any of it. I’ll save it for the next visit.
Showing posts with label Middle Atlas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Middle Atlas. Show all posts
Monday, March 1, 2010
Sunday, February 28, 2010
southern excursion day 2
The bus left this morning under grey skies, but the rain held off. We spent the first half of the day driving through the Middle Atlas, listening to presentations the students on the bus neither wanted to do or hear.
The high point of the day was the scenery we got to see: a tizi (mountain pass), the Ziz river valley, and the beginning of the desert. The Ziz River valley carved out a gorge in most places, and in some it’s big enough that whole villages have sprung up around the river. They cultivate palms and other shorter plants that can live under the palms. The villages are the same color as the earth because they’re made entirely of mud bricks, so the only reason you can see them against the land is a difference in texture and shape.
We seem to have very interesting rest stops. No lie, we stopped in the Ziz River valley, no trees in sight, and had 15 minutes to scout out a private place to relieve ourselves. I’m sure it looked crazy from where the bus stood because there were about 35 girls running all over the hillside, ducking out and disappearing behind rocks.
After another brief rest stop, this time in the town of Errachidia, we continued on to our lunch in Rissani, a crossroads on the edge of the desert. Lunch was something called “buried bread” ( in Arabic “hubsa medfouna”). It was a Rissani calzone is what it was, although I don’t know what exactly was in it.
In Rissani we left our giant tour bus for Land Rovers to take us into the desert. A sandstorm was kicking up around this time, making the 30 minute drive to Merzouga not very scenic. There was nothing around to see anyway, except signs marking side roads to auberges (small hotels) cupped somewhere in the low hills.
In Merzouga we visited the Hasi Labiad Association, which helps women and families by providing women with income from crafts, but also by hooking tourists up with village families. The tourists get to see how a traditional family lives, and the family gets some sort of stipend (I think). Part of the money goes to a village fund, so when there is enough money every few years it goes towards a project for the village. The women of Merzouga also produce traditional Amazigh (Berber) handicrafts that they sell, either to tourists, in fairs around the country, or in Europe.
Also in Merzouga we went to the palm grove, rather uncomfortable in a sandstormish-type environment. Each family has their own plot within the larger grove and throughout there are small irrigation channels. Each family has rights to a certain amount of water as well, like a half-day or quarter-day. When they have finished using their water for the day the channel leading to their plot is plugged with sand.
Water rights are just as important as land rights; for example you could own the land but not the water on it and vice versa. I was quite intrigued by this system of sharing the water. Does it work on the based on the honor code? If you see your neighbor has had his allotted half-day but not plugged his irrigation channel, can you stop the water for him? What kind of etiquette is involved? Anyway, very interesting.
On down the road to our auberge. Because of the inclement weather (sand is weather?) our planned camels for that afternoon were cancelled and we lounged about the auberge (Auberge Ayour) for the afternoon. Once the wind calmed down quite a few of us ventured out into the dunes behind the town. It’s really an island of dunes, only 28km by 3km, but it was big enough for us. Since the wind was still blowing I had my scarf wrapped around my head. I was very stylish. The sunset was gorgeous, but not as beautiful as our buffet dinner.
On this whole trip, everybody ate way too much. I think it was something to do with the ability to eat if you wanted, and not being told to “kuli, kuli” by family members. The fact that it was a buffet, with VEGETABLES, no less, made it even better. I still couldn’t avoid the hubs.
After dinner we had a performance of Gnawa music. The term can be used to refer to the people of western Africa, or the music, or both at once. The group uses big dumbbell shaped castenette thingies, a 3-stringed lute, drums, and vocals. They cross a duple and triple beat, so it’s very catchy. The musicians are also dancers. The dances are vey simples though, just moving back and forth, side to side, to the beat. It’s a very meditative kind of music and dance. We got up and danced too, but I don’t think we were quite as meditative about it.
It was such a beautiful night that some of us decided to sleep on the roof of the auberge. My room was on the roof anyway, it was a tower room, but sleeping under the starts seemed much more appealing than in a stuffy room. The night was wonderful, but like all such attempts, I slept very little. I got a bit too cold for my liking so I went inside. We had to get up at 5am anyway, so nobody got much sleep.
The high point of the day was the scenery we got to see: a tizi (mountain pass), the Ziz river valley, and the beginning of the desert. The Ziz River valley carved out a gorge in most places, and in some it’s big enough that whole villages have sprung up around the river. They cultivate palms and other shorter plants that can live under the palms. The villages are the same color as the earth because they’re made entirely of mud bricks, so the only reason you can see them against the land is a difference in texture and shape.
We seem to have very interesting rest stops. No lie, we stopped in the Ziz River valley, no trees in sight, and had 15 minutes to scout out a private place to relieve ourselves. I’m sure it looked crazy from where the bus stood because there were about 35 girls running all over the hillside, ducking out and disappearing behind rocks.
After another brief rest stop, this time in the town of Errachidia, we continued on to our lunch in Rissani, a crossroads on the edge of the desert. Lunch was something called “buried bread” ( in Arabic “hubsa medfouna”). It was a Rissani calzone is what it was, although I don’t know what exactly was in it.
In Rissani we left our giant tour bus for Land Rovers to take us into the desert. A sandstorm was kicking up around this time, making the 30 minute drive to Merzouga not very scenic. There was nothing around to see anyway, except signs marking side roads to auberges (small hotels) cupped somewhere in the low hills.
In Merzouga we visited the Hasi Labiad Association, which helps women and families by providing women with income from crafts, but also by hooking tourists up with village families. The tourists get to see how a traditional family lives, and the family gets some sort of stipend (I think). Part of the money goes to a village fund, so when there is enough money every few years it goes towards a project for the village. The women of Merzouga also produce traditional Amazigh (Berber) handicrafts that they sell, either to tourists, in fairs around the country, or in Europe.
Also in Merzouga we went to the palm grove, rather uncomfortable in a sandstormish-type environment. Each family has their own plot within the larger grove and throughout there are small irrigation channels. Each family has rights to a certain amount of water as well, like a half-day or quarter-day. When they have finished using their water for the day the channel leading to their plot is plugged with sand.
Water rights are just as important as land rights; for example you could own the land but not the water on it and vice versa. I was quite intrigued by this system of sharing the water. Does it work on the based on the honor code? If you see your neighbor has had his allotted half-day but not plugged his irrigation channel, can you stop the water for him? What kind of etiquette is involved? Anyway, very interesting.
On down the road to our auberge. Because of the inclement weather (sand is weather?) our planned camels for that afternoon were cancelled and we lounged about the auberge (Auberge Ayour) for the afternoon. Once the wind calmed down quite a few of us ventured out into the dunes behind the town. It’s really an island of dunes, only 28km by 3km, but it was big enough for us. Since the wind was still blowing I had my scarf wrapped around my head. I was very stylish. The sunset was gorgeous, but not as beautiful as our buffet dinner.
On this whole trip, everybody ate way too much. I think it was something to do with the ability to eat if you wanted, and not being told to “kuli, kuli” by family members. The fact that it was a buffet, with VEGETABLES, no less, made it even better. I still couldn’t avoid the hubs.
After dinner we had a performance of Gnawa music. The term can be used to refer to the people of western Africa, or the music, or both at once. The group uses big dumbbell shaped castenette thingies, a 3-stringed lute, drums, and vocals. They cross a duple and triple beat, so it’s very catchy. The musicians are also dancers. The dances are vey simples though, just moving back and forth, side to side, to the beat. It’s a very meditative kind of music and dance. We got up and danced too, but I don’t think we were quite as meditative about it.
It was such a beautiful night that some of us decided to sleep on the roof of the auberge. My room was on the roof anyway, it was a tower room, but sleeping under the starts seemed much more appealing than in a stuffy room. The night was wonderful, but like all such attempts, I slept very little. I got a bit too cold for my liking so I went inside. We had to get up at 5am anyway, so nobody got much sleep.
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