Hotel Palmeraie 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 ...

... been built by the owners but been done in an authentic way. The walls are mud and the ceiling lined with palm canes in lovely patterns. The area is a very desolate stony landscape but there are sudden patches of green wherever water is available. We get taken on a wild goose chase through extremely narrow bumpy lanes of a palmerie (lot of palm trees) and have an ...

... to Ouarzazate. I wondered why Helen looked so blank when I mentioned the bus ticket last night. We had forms to fill in at the passoport control and long queues. We got our bags fine and went through. We found our driver and got money changed as the others came though. Neil from the Isleof Man and David from Ipswitch, he's climbed Everest, not quite to the top. Not sure what the other guy was called. He sat in the front and took ...

... 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.

... the call to prayer as we raced around the roads. Fun! Lu and I also rode donkeys around the village, which was cool. I got to ride on my own . On the way, Sali, one of the guys in the village, invited us to visit his house to see his animals. He had turkeys, ducks, chickens, rabbits, dogs, and a tiny baby kitten. His house was amazing - he built it himself and it was two stories, like a mini-kasbah, with four towers on each corner and all made of adobe. We saw some real ...

... of the hill - I stayed back and had a long hot shower. I wandered down the street not long after and saw the kasbah from ground level. (Gladiator filmed here - as was Lawrence of Arabia). A few of the others met me down the street and we walked back in the darkness to the hotel, meeting the rest for some more harira soup n salad.... It had been a long day so I crashed pretty early in a comfy bed with no snorers around..

... and there are no tourists there! Inside of the half-ruined building there is a surprise, very nicely decorated rooms similar to Bahia Palace. The building is quite self-containted, it even has camel caravans parking lots. Moreover, our guide is actually educated (french-speaking) and is a real guide, not just a "here, go this way"-person. The way back to the main road is Karolina's possibility to show her good driving skills;). Btw, as we've gradually found out ...

... t remember how this was determined) had the most elaborate room. Photos of that room will be titled as "# Favoured Wife". Another great experience was having a French, gourmet feast for lunch ... a nice break from tajines. This restaurant run by a French chef, who is a retired Foreign Legion pilot, is in the middle of no where - and so worth the trip. Every course was mouth ...

... started trying to open my door and reach his arm in to grab stuff, we then panicked about our bags being stolen, but luckily the trunck was locked and only the driver could open it. The driver pushed them away and then drove us out of this mess. What a relief, we had finally gotten away from the entrapment of the desert and Rissani. We now had a 2 hour taxi ride to get to Todra Gorge.(7 people in a cab). We arrived in Todra gorge late in the afternoon and ...