East from Marrakesh

Drumming session with Berber hosts (click on picture for full screen)

Imlil

Imlil is in the mountains south of Marrakesh. Ian had a job to take some photos for Mountain Voyage. MV is a British travel agency that does treks into the Atlas. Over the years it has also built and operates several boarding homes for girls so that they can attend high school in Asni. If the boarding homes weren’t there they would be herding goats and having children by the time they were 16.

Mountain Voyage owns or has an interest in several hotels in Imlil. We were surprised about them needing more photos because they have some beautiful glossy brochures and booklets.

Abdou became Ian’s assistant for the day, carrying the tripod and marching Ian up and down hills at a brisk pace. I joined them later to go up to the jewel in the crown of their hotels, Kasbah Toubkal. According to a poster we saw it is among the world’s best 100 hotels!

The walk there went through the village and of course we had to stop to look at carpets, slippers, jewelry etc. I couldn’t resist some red leather slippers but I did resist the carpets!

Ait Ben Haddou

We rented a car for our ‘grand tour ‘. Getting out of Marrakesh was scary. There isn’t a lot of traffic but what there is, is chaotic and unpredictable.

As we drove over a pass in the mountains we saw lots of roadside stands where men were selling rocks, pottery, fossils and minerals. We stopped to look at some popsicle coloured geodes. The blueberry ones were lapis, the lime green were malachite, the grape were amethyst! “Did you hear that the word gullible has been removed from the dictionary?”!

The sun was setting and we were looking for a road that went off to the left according to our map.  And there it was. We turned left. There was a young man by the side of the road and just to be sure we asked him if it was the road to Ait Ben Haddou. “Oui, Madame.” As we started to go he stopped us. It was a donkey cart road. He told us there was another road and if we would take him he would show us the way. As soon as he got in I expected him to pull some geodes, dates, or a carpet out from his jacket. But no, he was just a nice guy wanting a lift.

The Kasbah we were looking for turned out to be a gem and the people running it were wonderful, though I suspect them of being a cell of the FLB – Front de Liberation des Berbers!! Every time they got a chance they slammed the government and ‘les Arabs’.

Our host invited us for an outing to an oasis. On the way there we saw a weird site. The two lane, modest highway suddenly grew into an eight lane highway with gutters, drainage and extravagant lamp posts. We turned off the road into acres and acres of wide newly paved streets, round-abouts, gutters and drainage, lamp posts and nothing else! It was vacant and had a decidedly abandoned feel to it. According to the revolutionaries of my imagination it was built over 3 years ago for the King’s visit then abandoned.  

At the oasis, we had mint tea with a  desperately poor Berber family in a mud hut.  Where’s that guillotine? 

This region is the ‘Mollywood’ of North Africa - “Lawrence of Arabia”, “Gladiator”  “Cleopatra”, “Babel” and I’m sure many less notable films. Easy to see why with stunning red canyons, the big sand dunes and crumbling “Kasbahs”. We looked up the meaning of Kasbah today and it’s original pre-tourism meaning is fortification or administrative centre.

Aside: One of the reasons we were so slow is that we were waylaid by an insistent hitchhiker. He stood in the middle of the road and held up his hand. He was resplendent in blue. He is a camel herder and was on his way home to Agdz after 25 days in the desert. 

He wanted to offer us some hospitality and asked us home for 'the a la menthe' so-called Berber whiskey. Home turned out to be the biggest carpet and souvenir shop I've ever seen! We broke down and bought one but swore to each other that we will not accept anymore invitations for tea.

We were on our way to the desert but being the slug-like tourists we are we stopped a couple of hours short at a Kasbah surrounded by gardens, a camel enclosure and an ancient Islamic library next door!

The owner is a lithe and lovely 70 year old German woman with shocking red hair. The story was a bit convoluted but it seems Doris and her Moroccan partner (a handsome man about 15 – 20 years her junior) started the business 15 years ago. They were business partners and lovers. She declined to marry him in order not to lose her widow’s pension. Meanwhile, her lover married.  Doris says the three of them remain friends. They live in the same house together. We had homemade jam that Doris says “My partner’s wife makes it.”

Our plan to see the Big Dunes and sleep out under the Saharan sky were dashed today by high winds.  The fine sand whipped across the highway and blurred any views.  The sky was dull beige. So retreated back to Doris’ garden.