Ouarzazat, Morocco

We've just come back from a two-day trip into the Sahara, including a night in a berber tent in the Sahara.

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The cooking course was excellent! We made the two standard dishes of Morocco: couscous and tajine. The couscous is made in multiple steps, steaming it slightly, adding a bit of water and oil, mixing by hand, and then repeating three times. Our couscous actually came out quite light and fluffy! Tajine is basically a stew, cooked in an earthern pot slowly over coals. The locals all have a place that they take their pot to slow-cook. Ours was a few doors down from the riad, in the basement where they had a firepit for the hotwater for the hammam. Many people already had their tajine cooking, and so we had to mark our names to identify our pot. Unfortunately we had to walk through the streets in white aprons that screamed tourist!

We ate our meal with a bottle of Moroccan red on the rooftop of the riad, by candlelight with the sounds of the market off in the distance. It was really nice.

From Marrakesh we took a long bus ride through the Tizi'n'Tichka pass, with many hairpin turns. Many people got sick from the journey, including Heather. She was happy to finally get to Ouarzazat.

Ouarzazat relies heavily on the movie industry. That also means that there are not many places catering to backpackers. We stayed in a kasbah, just for the experience. In other countries, these would be called crumbling adobe buildings. However, in Morocco they're called kasbahs, The Clash wrote a song about them, and now they're expensive places to stay.

The kasbah actually contains many buildings in a fort, all linked by tunnels under the main floors. This provided protection in the old days, and the system also kept the living floors quite cool during the day. (It was 42C outside when we stayed here).

Our room was really nice, with dark pise walls and crimson upholstery, giving it an oriental feel. Plus, it had a/c!

Aside from the nice room, though, we didn't get a good feel from the town. The next few days promised more heat, long bus rides on winding roads, and so-so accommodation, in order to reach the dunes of the Sahara outside M'Hamid. So, we dropped into a travel agency, and signed up for an organized tour.

It's low season, so there was just Heather and I in a large Toyota SUV, along with a driver and a go-fer. Instead of taking a couple days by public bus, we were able to hit all the highlights in the Draa Valley in one day, reaching the dunes by mid-afternoon. It was another hot day, reaching over 40C. (A dry heat, which supposedly makes it feel better). There were some great views along the drive, of kasbahs and palm groves and Berber villages. Our driver (also the guide) was excellent.

We reached the Erg Lehoudi dunes around 6pm. There was a strong wind, and it was not pleasant to be outside the SUV, facing the blowing sand which gets into everything. We climbed the tallest dune (I was surprised at the lack of footprints from other tourists, as even in a strong wind, footprints take a while to be erased). We quickly ran down (the wind had packed the sand into a hard surface, so it wasn't a fun run down loose sand that I was expecting).

Dinner was couscous and tasted quite good, with a little bit of grit (did I mention the sand gets everywhere?)

Into the night, the wind died down and the desert became quite pleasant. The stars were amazing.

We woke up at 5am in order to catch the sunrise. It's not the actual sun that's impressive, but rather the lighting on the sand dunes. It was well worth the early rise -- the untouched sand dunes were really impressive. The only other time I've seen sand dunes without footprints was in the Gobi Desert in Mongolia. It was really a treat to see untouched dunes again.

The drive back to Ouarzazat was much more pleasant, because it was in the (cooler) morning hours. A couple of seemingly mandatory stops at carpet shops and the inevitable cup of sugary mint tea later, and we were finally back in Ouarzazat. Our first priority was a shower, but first we had to have more tea with the tour operator and look at fine Berber artefacts. Finally we checked into a hotel, showered and cleaned up.

Tonight we're relaxing, and having dinner out. The first night here (before the Sahara tour), we ate at an Italian restaurant (which caters to the many Italian film types here). We had gnocchi in a gorgonzola sauce, and spaghetti in pesto sauce. It was a nice break from Moroccan (I generally like the food of the country I'm in, but it's nice to have some variety now and then). Tonight we are looking at a French restaurant.

Tomorrow we're off to the Todra Gorge for some trekking.