Dar Kamar Ouarzazate

Just quick entry to set the map pin. Suffice I lucked out and nabbed a guide in Merzouga who just happened to be headed to Marrakech to pick up 3 Spanish clients to guide them on a 10 day tour of Morocco.

Thus, instead of struggling w/ mind-boggling taxi negotiations to navigate to Quarzazate (about 8 hrs. from Merzouga), I verily whizzed south across ...

... the family and get the tents up whilst Ahmed produces that Lamb Casserole with soup.
The goats live pretty much by daylight so it's an early night before the 5.30 dawn chorus.
The next 6 days then follow the pattern of early starts and trekking up to 6 hours and a lazy afternoon waiting for the goats to catch up. We climb to 3200 metres & experience the temperature swings at that height as well as some residual winter snow.
Overnight ...

The drive from Taroudannt gets more and more barren and the road deterioates to a single lane of bitumen and becomes more mountainous. Taxis and trucks play chicken with Terry so we spend a fair it of time in the dust. Fortunately there is not much traffic. We are staying out of the town again in a kasbah, which is a large house with four towers built around a courtyard ...

... of photos. The driver took us around the outskirts of the city we were didn't get an essence of it really. The building looked beautiful thoughtd adobe walls. Soon we were heading out towards the mountain. I presume the Atlas. We were the wet side of them as there's was so much agriculture, this disppeared as we headed up to the high pass close to the snow line. Two stops one to buy water the other, toilet. It got dark quickly at 19:00.

... to those of us from countries where there are such things as sand bags and alternative routes. But in Morocco, the dammage done by a day or so of rain is fixable only by Allah and we were at his whim. While brainstorming about our next course of action we were approached by a man who got our attention by with a "Hey! You are the two French and two Americans who are going to the dessert with Hassan. Abdo is waiting for ...

... dance). Wandered back down the Kasbah again past little market stalls back down t the creek for another crossing and back to Action's place. We then sat downstairs next to the kitchen and had a cooking demo by Action and his sister who showed us how they make tagines and couscous (a slow, tedious labour intensive process I don't think I'd have patience for). Mike kept eating all the carrots and capsicums. Dinner was delicious - soup and tagines.

... want to pay, vendor will offer a lower price, then offer half of what you want to spend, he will again offer lower, then we raise our price to what we wanted to spend and the deal should be done. We are looking forward to giving it a go next time. Because we broke the fast last night with the staff and some other travellers, a Brazilian- Spanish couple, we did not need to eat any dinner, it was on the house. The usual soup, egg, dates combination. We woke up on our rooftop ...

... midi, ce qui nous laisse encore le temps de visiter la Kasbah de Taourirt (qui a aussi appartenu au Pacha de Marrakech, le pacha El Glaoui). Lahcen nous depose en début d'après-midi au Dar Daïf, une jolie Kasbah maison d'hôte en banlieue de Ouarzazate. Hélène se laisse même tenter par un hamam, pour finir en beauté (et enlever la crasse du desert :p).

... those smelly camels and eventually back to our hotel feeling like we had been out all day even though it was only about 4 hours. One amazing morning. More long drives followed. Morocco is a huge country and we sure did a lot of driving! Leaving Erfoud behind us we headed for the Todra Gorge. This is a narrow canyon that rises about 200m high. After a lunch break here we went to Ouarzazate (pronounced Warzarzat) for the night.

After a bit of commuting from Fes, I ended up at the Cascades d'Ouzoud. I hadn't planned an overnight stop, but I got there too late in the afternoon to find transport out. That, as it turned out, led to one of my best nights in Morocco. The falls are of course spectacular, but the highlight was afterwards, when tasty food came out along with a band of stoned Moroccans, who got us to join in their drumming circle before retiring to sleep ...