Farah Al Janoub Hotel 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 ...

... contests - goat herding involves lots of stone throwing.
Some firewood gathering is involved & the Berbers are into bread making each evening. There are other nomads on the move (some with tourists) and we get the invite to tea at a random cave complete with smoky fire; pretty soon if it's not dusty it smells of smoke.
Quite a lot of the trek is on dry river beds & that is not the easiest - it's much more interesting on the ...

... with our guide who wants to charge double for this unwanted service. In another valley there are roses growing. They make rose water from the roses which are grown around the edge of other crops. There are lots of old kasbahs in the area, many in ruins and we wander through one of them. Its dark and cool inside as the clay walls are very thick and the windows small.

So a lot has happened in the past couple days but I dont have long to write about it all. I went on a three day trip with seven other people, all of which spoke english which I was thrilled about. This little excursion was definetely the highlight of this trip. We drove hundreds of miles through Eastern Morocco to visit some amazing sights. We went to Dades Gorge, a mini grand canyon with mountains all around ...

... rumours go on as someone asked me about the film a few days later! Slight panic until Sam tuned up as no one else in the queue looked like they were doing the race. Sarah from Best of Morocco had said this flight was for Facing Africa runners, what she meant was those she couldn't fit on the other flight. 5 of us in total. I convinced Sam to jump the queue and check in with me so we could sit together. Her ticket had been canclled so ...

... at the Hotel Palmerie" We had been spotted by friends of the owner of the dessert agency, the guy we had spoken to on the phone. Being that we were stuck at this road block we didn't have any thing better to do so we decided to head to the Hotel Palmerie. Although we didn't know exactly where it was or what we were going to do there we hoped it would get us where we wanted. In'sh'Allah. We got more than we bargained for.

... tourists will arrive over the next few weeks to Morocco as the temperatures become bearable.Its crazy hot, your lips crack up and skin flakes up in the dry heat. There are no laundromats here that we have seen because all the women wash the clothing on their rooftops and dry it there too. It dries in twenty minutes. The women stay at home in Morocco as is the culture and do not go to work. We have been doing our laundry on the rooftops too but it would have been handy to ...

... of tooth removal. Reasonable price for a night in the desert and the deal was sealed over "whisky berber" better known as warm sugar syrup with scattered tea leaves - local version of chai, consumed en masse and in vast quantities - hence the local knowledge on dental extraction. Ali and Mahjoud introduced us to our camels the next morning and we were off, but not before donning some Berber garb for the trip. We started from Oulad Drāssi ...

... seen anywhere : adobe fortified villages set amidst lush oasis , against a backdrop of ocher, black or red cliffs. It is no wonder that Hollywood regularly uses the region as the set for countless movies. We apology for the ****** photos : they only give a fain idea of the intensity of the colors and the enormous scale of the views. But what ? You have been warned , it is well worth the trip. Just come and check it out for yourself.

... for sunrise to boot. Instead of heading back the way we came after that though, we kept going south, and after following some valleys downhill for a few more days we managed to cross the High Atlas mountain range. Its a great way to go if you get the chance, with a good balance of solid trekking and Berber (the indigenous people of North Africa) characters. Its also undeniably a medieval world there- although a few places in the ...