26th
Jan 2016
Mustapha,
mountains, and coffee at the top of the highest paved pass in Morocco
Well, we started
the day early, but everything conspired to mean that we never really hit the
road to Ouarzazate until after noon !
First I had to fix a zip on the tent – And if any of you have ever tried
to fix a zip, it is NOT easy. And this
one is 6 foot long ! Anyway, after about
30 minutes, I got it sorted, although from experience, once a zip starts to go
wrong, it keeps on going wrong. Then the
sticker man Mustapha (Skidmore’s favourite Arab name !) came by for the third
day – I had fobbed him off with a Bukra Inshallah for the past two days saying
I was too busy, but today I had no excuse !
So I ended up with a few camels and palm trees for this my Saharan
adventure – Photos will be posted when they are fixed to the car ! Then we had to fill our drinking water tank
up, and that took a while, then we had to pay, and after that we went off
looking for a place to fill up our calor gas bottle. On the way there we passed a shed that we
thought was covered in rocks, only to find as we got closer they were hundreds
of storks ! While stopped there a car
stopped and a guy introduced himself as Mohammed and asked us if we were OK and
where were we headed. When we told him,
he told us he came from Tagounite, way out in the Sahara desert, and said if we
passed though there to stop in and take tea with him ! Very friendly chap. After that, we found the
gas bottle filling place, but they refused to fill my bottle so we left. After that it was off to look for a
supermarket, but the road took us through Marrakesh first, so that took a while
too ! Finally, about noon, we got on our
way to Ouarzazate ! I was exhausted before we started !
The road to
Ouarzazate follows Route 9 SE from Marrakesh, across what is termed the High
Atlas. Once out on the road away from the bustle of Marrakesh, it was a
delightful drive through villages, market days, and the usual trail of donkeys
and people on the road. We stopped for
fuel in a little village, and while there had our lunch, during which I noticed
a couple of young boys waiting for a bus (presumably), sitting on their bags.
There was an old man with them, so after our lunch I took over a few sweets and
asked the old man if I could give them to the boys, and he was so happy ! The boys enjoyed them, so Janet took a coffee
sweet over for the old man as well.
Lovely moment.
Soon after that
we started to climb. We passed through a
little town that was obviously having its market day, and the road was blocked
with cars and donkeys and people carrying enormous baskets across the road
! As usual, lots of donkeys heading down
the road fully laden from the markets.
There is a river
(or rivers) that we seemed to follow most of the afternoon, and although it was
just a dry riverbed now, it obviously becomes quite a torrent when it rains,
and there were several places we passed where buildings had been undermined, or
the road washed away. Would like to see
it in full flow ! As we climbed the houses in the villages
rapidly became mostly rammed earth, and there were a lot of ruined houses in
every village – Rammed earth doesn’t last too long in the rain, I guess.
We climbed and we
climbed, and the road got twistier and twistier, and we passed lots of pottery
places and villages with their mosques.
Some villages were wreathed in smoke – It turned out to be from their
fires heating all the tagines for all the hungry travellers on the road ! The scenery was stunning – Totally different
from the South American Andes, or other mountain ranges we have seen – It is
very soft soil, and easily eroded by rain, and this is what has carved much of
the scenery.
Eventually we
reached the final part of the climb up to the top of the Col du Tichka, at the
summit of the Tiz-n-Tichka pass. Near
the summit there started to be vendors on the side of the road offering rocks
and stuff from the desert, the most stunning that they waved at us as we passed
were bright red or orange thunder eggs, which we knew just couldn’t be the real
colour ! The road to the summit is quite
a wild pass, and one section is along a narrow ledge with a big drop off on
either side – Fortunately we couldn’t really see it until we were past it and looking
down on it from above, then it gave us quite a surprise ! Not a good place to
fall off the edge !!
At the top we
stopped for a coffee, and were immediately surround by fossil and rock salesmen
– When one offered me a red thunder egg I told him that it wasn’t real and he
had dyed it – At which he smiled and said “The Japanese like them!!”. We had to engage in good hearted banter with
several vendors before we could escape
to the little coffee shop, where we enjoyed a super strong, but super tasty, Moroccan
spiced coffee. Rashid was our host, and
chatted to us while we enjoyed the coffee, and then showed us around his
shop. On the way back to the car we were
obliged to visit most of the other little stalls as well, and Rashid was
laughing as we tried to get away ! A
very pleasant interlude !
Down the other
side of the pass, it was only twisty for a while then it opened up into a plain
that took us most of the way into Ouarzazate.
This town is where many films are made – The Sheltering Sky, Gladiator,
Mummy 1 & II, Asterix, and several others, while a lot of Alexander the
Greta was shot here in 2003. Even parts of Jewel of the Nile were shot
here. As we entered town, there were
some studios, with more sets visible as we came through town. The whole town is
surprisingly clean and well laid out – It has obviously benefitted from the
movies, and is so very different from the somewhat primitive villages we passed
through coming over the mountain pass.
But the time we
found out camp site it was almost 6 pm, so it had been a long day, and the sun
was going down. We are in a walled
enclosure just outside the main city, but will have to explore a little in the
morning before we move on south towards the Sahara……….
Pics at last - Will annotate later https://picasaweb.google.com/110185357936043625130/0406MarrakechToOuarzazate02?authkey=Gv1sRgCJTp1aKMlbrVSg
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