Les Palmiers Errachidia

... looks just like it does in the mnovies, all golden red sand and blue sky. We had chicken tangine for dinner, and went up one of the dunes, and one of the other girls and I rolled down! it was so much fun. that night, the gudies brought out their drums and were playing, so i danced to Berber drum music, under the stars, in the middle (well, the edge but it looked like the middle) of the Sahara Desert. We all slept under the stars, and it got COLD. But ...

... there is still a healthy tradition of rogues and charlatans here. Being the low-season and very few tourists around, the touts are worse now and they already have the reputation of being the worst for hassling in Morocco. Added to this is that we are female and travellers and without a male escort. The taxi ride started out okay with the guys trying to make conversation and there was even a police officer as a passenger in the car with us. Then after ...

... as Rasheed explained how the families sleep, eat & co-exist with their livestock either on the terrace in summer or in the downstairs room in winter where they also light a fire to offset the dark and dankness. We also stumbled across her husband's home distillary, which she was a little concerned about, but we reassured her that their secret was safe with us! Apparently they make a mean date based spirit ...

... of water, building of a barrage, and starting a women's weaving cooperative. For the 3rd priority, I set up a meeting between Rabha and some of the men in the association. Rabha is a woman who runs a weaving cooperative in a village near my site. She also happens to be the definition of "the bomb". She is very smart, motivated, and quite the looker.. A few weeks earlier, I had asked her to come down to talk to some of the women in my village regarding the ...

... to do will be unsound if there isn't a strong foundation to build upon. I've also taken a serious look at the resources that are here and the ones that aren't. I decided it was time to seek out help from surrounding communities. In September and October, my counter-part and I went door to door in my immediate community and asked whomever we could find a list of about 18 questions in order to gage a variety of beliefs and knowledge related to health- questions ...

... you are in my kitchen. A giant bag of yummy shebakia. Did I really just buy a kilo?!? I can't stay away, you're like (insert addictive substance here). I'm trying to do this to integrate with my community, but you are a siren calling to me, tempting me to break the agony from when I get up to the sunset call to prayer. So now, you are both a love and an enemy. Ugh. I guess I'm going to have to end this. There are a ...

In the morning we continued on through Midelt and on to the first casbahs in the valley between the Middle and High Atlas ranges. Here we also encountered our first beggars of a different sort than the monkeys - little French-speaking rug-rats repeating "Photo, dix dihram". What? Ten dihrams? That's more than a dollar. I'm not paying ...

... i didnt want to go anywhere with them. We started walking in the direction we thought town was and we saw a sign saying hotel - so we headed towards it. They all came after us then on motorbikes and the two taxi drivers in their cars and we got a bit scared, there was no one else around and they probably wouldnt help us if they saw us anyway. The guy apologised to Claire for shouting at her but we think he was still trying to get us to his ...

... time in 2 weeks where I get to sleep indoors on a real bed. Hot showers too. The decor itself is not very impressiveby moroccan standards, but it is still beautiful. Two seperate terraces, dining room, lounge. Did I mention I have my own room? I dont know yet what the plan will be for tomorrow, but I know for the afternoon we take the camels out to watch the sunset in the dunes.

... we h*ve *n unobscured view of the sun rising p*le *nd h*zy over the desert ... it definitely m*tches our own slightly h*zy mood. On our s*unter b*ck to c*mp, Cl*ire upd*tes her r*ndom photo collection with * postc*rd shot of long sh*dows *g*inst the s*nd. B*ck to our o*sis hotel *nd thoughts of * morning dip in the pool *re put *side ... *pp*rently it's my d*y to be Tour Le*der. Oh joy! And wh*t * d*y! I ...