On the Road To Marrakech From M'Hamad

Trip Start Sep 29, 2007
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Trip End Ongoing


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(Marrakech hotels)

Flag of Morocco  ,
Saturday, September 20, 2008

We woke early at Hotel Sahara and instead of going to Tombuctou, 50 days away by camel, we headed North to the imperial city of Marrakech. It was perfect conditions for the 10 hour bus journey on the CTM luxury bus directly from M'Hamad to Marrakech. It was cloudy so the air con kept temperature under control, the bus had plenty of spare seats and we had the front two behind the driver. The large, front windscreen of the bus was like a giant televison screen and we had the best seats although sitting in what we normally consider the crash zone.

We journeyed through the highest montain range in North Africa, the Atlas Mountains which runs diagonally across Morocco for 1000km. We watched the colours and extroadinary contours of the mountains change as we took steep winding roads through the mountains and observed the lives of locals on the roadsides. The roads were narrow and the cliff drops long, our driver was obviously well experienced on the drive. We overtook the large trucks containing the equipment, crew and catering services from the Prince Of Persia production and wondered how they would make it down unscathed Tombouctou that way
Tombouctou that way
 . Each corner presented a new scene of little towns or earthern , flat roofed villages hanging on to the edge of the mountains. Children on the side of the road sold walnuts collected from the groves of trees in valleys and women gathered the ripened dates from the palms. We saw donkeys laden with grasses and people working crops in the fields. We passed fossil and crystal vendors and went through many small rural towns. It was different landscape to what we had previously seen in Morocco, stunning to the eye.

An esay bus ride that took us to magical Marrakech where we would live out all our Moroccan dreams.
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