Hotel Tamlalte Boumalne Dadès

... We are staying with him and his family tonight, sleeping on the rooftop terrace of their house. Abdullah spoke quite good English and introduces us to his family. The introductions take place over a traditional Mint tea in a living room that is draped with traditional Berber carpets. The room also appears to be the weaving room as there is a carpet making machine in one corner with a half completed woven carpet there. Abdullah's mother arrives with the mint tea for everybody ...

... nomad camp where we met a 76 year old man, his young 2nd wife and 2 children (4 years and 18 months). He made us tea with Lemon Thyme which grows up on the mountains. We stayed there about 30 mins, then started the climb down to the village below which we could see as a tiny speck was below us. Going down was much easier (like the sand dunes), just had to be careful where to put your feet. I slipped and landed on my bottom once. There were quite a few wild dogs ...

... faint and dizzy from lack of food, lack of sleep and exhaustion. Mike waited with me though and talked me along (thanks honey) and we caught up to AJ and Mike at the top of a dune. Another massive climb, freezing cold and a bitterly cold wind was blowing constantly getting sand everywhere again, but it was such an exhilarating experience. We took heaps of photos and stayed up there for about 45 mins waiting for the sun to appear ...

... about it later: This keyboard is different than the other ones and it's hard to type. And I need a break still. I'm almost home and will finish in a few days when I get back to Madison late on the 13th. We found a cool city south of Casa called El Jadida. It's a beach town and we got a nice hotel with a pool and the people here are cool because they're not used to too many tourists. The Tourist Tax is low; if at all. i.e. they rarely rip you ...

... us. About 12 hours or so each. And then since we had no hotel reservations, we set out to try to find something at dusk, perhaps my least favorite thing to do while backpacking. The name of the game is to drop the anchor (pack) at a safe place ASAP. Marakesh is much larger than either of us realized. And absolutely full of tourists because of the Easter break. We found our way to a French run hotel to find it was full but there was a chance that he ...

We left Marrakech in the morning and took a road over the Atlas mountains to Ouarzazate, a very beautiful journey. We got fairly close to the peaks, still snowy in spite of the waning winter, and it was the first time I saw snow closeby. Not much and I could not touch it from the bus, but still nice. It's funny, though, to see snow for the first time when I'm in Africa. From Ouarzazate we dodged the flies in the bus station and took another bus to ...

... a fierce and bitterly cold wind that was funneled into a frenetic hurricane by the 400 metre walls that enclosed the gorge. We put on all the clothes that we had bought and prepared for five more frigid hours. However, our hike brought us up from the gorge floor and into the surrounding rocky cliffs where the sun came out and soon we were sweaty and hot. The scenery, like most of the Moroccan countryside, is rocky, rugged and raw. We enjoyed the beauty as we moved up. High ...

... agricultural land of Fez (including many cacti and succulents), the sand of the desert, the dry and rocky (and sometimes lush) Atlas mountains and the very rich farmland of the oases. Morocco is also a major producer of roses (first brought to Morocco from Saudi Arabia), hence the rose soap, face cream, etc. The roses must be spectacular in the spring. (We also learned that Morocco is the second largest producer of phosphate in the world.) En route to Ait Benhaddou we stopped ...

... what you're going to come across around each corner. Jamie's near perfect sense of direction manages not to get us lost - hopefully a good sign for when we get to the bigger medinas of Fes and Marrakesh... We returned to the town for tea - vegetable tajine and chicken couscous for Jamie, washed down of course with sweet mint tea, which every time we've been to a similar place, takes a while to become accustomed to. Next stop Volubilis: a huge roman town on a different scale to ...

... Hassan and Isham are part of an 8 member Moroccan drum band). We put Kirsty on a bus to Marrakesh, and then Hassan and I set out on our adventure. The first night Hassan took me to his friend's house where they drank a bit and danced all night (the Berber people are not the stricktest of Muslems - and are ...