Morocco: The Desert Tour Begins

 

At 6am, it’s dark and the silence is punctuated only by the shrill call of some early rising bird. At breakfast, there is only one other group eating, and the birds that dive down from the rafters to pick at early morning breakfast spread—pastries and bread with goat cheese or jam, orange juice, tea, sweet cakes and muffins. The tour arrives half an hour late, but the receptionist says in Moroccan time, they’re early. One of the guys, a hungover Argentinean named Tomás, apparently slept though their 7am pick up time. We meet the two Mohammads, driver and guide, and three solo travelers; Tomás, Keith from Texas, and Joe from Canada, as well as Mirjam and Florian, a quiet couple from Switzerland.

The drive begins, first through the dusty outskirts of the city, then into dustier more desolate desert, and up until the view becomes lush, green, and mountainous. Our first stop is at a little café-restaurant called Tagdalt, for breakfast. Mom and I have already eaten, so we climb up to the terrace and snap photos of the red hills speckled with green clumps of foliage, the big sheer cliff sides and the trees. The café bathroom is grubby, the blue walls chipped and faded. Along one side are doors leading to what resembles a shower stall with medium sized blackish hole in the ground. The other side has toilets. It smells horrible, and as I’m pulling up my leggings, someone begins rattling on my door. I hear my mom say, “Someone’s in there,” and I say, “Occupied, one second,” and wave my hand over the door. Finally I exit to find a baffled looking Asian couple, still attempting to tear open my door.

The group of Asian tourist are dressed in a wild array of clothing and accessories—one lady wears a dress with a strange print of sloppily painted dolls with exaggerated red mouths, one or two of the women are wearing germ masks, like surgeons, and one man is even wearing a big black turban over his otherwise non-Moroccan attire.

After the group finished breakfast, we’re back on the road, stopping to photograph an older Berber village—it reminds me of the caves in the Sacramonte, but more square, a big neutral brown stack of houses growing out of the hillside. I watch a young man guide a sheep along a path, then scoop it up in his arm and carry it across a little river. The turquoise doorways and yellow, orange, pink clothing hanging out to dry stand out against the earth-colored backdrop.

As we drive, the snowy tips of the mountains loom closer and closer, and soon we see patches of snack beside the road. We stop again, up high, and a little cluster of men try to us sparkling stones and hand made trinkets. The road is scattered with little shacks displaying geodes and teapots, camel carvings and jewelry. At our next stop, a man places a snake around Joe’s neck. He offers it to us next saying, “Not poisonous,” over and again. The other men come up to us with foreign currency and try to trade it for dirham. “No bank,” they say.

We continue on for lunch, where we stop at a place called Labaraka, and sit together around a circular table in a room covered in colorful cloth, with a tent-like ceiling. The menu is in French, but we manage to order a Moroccan salad, a delicious and refreshing combination of green peppers, tomatoes, red onion and black olives, and a Berber omelet, in a tagine. It’s accompanied, of course, by the flattish bread that resembles a cross between pita and sourdough. The food is delicious and the waiter is a smiley man who has acne and seems shy, but bemused. We follow the meal with bitter mint tea.

After lunch we walk to Ait-Ben Haddou, a fortified city along the Ounila River, where movies like Gladiator and Lawrence of Arabia were filmed. It’s a big sprawling stack of reddish earthen towers coming out of the hillside. We cross the water on a footpath made of sand back and head into the maze of earthen structures, winding through the chunky cobbled streets, under big arches, past painters and souvenir shops, up crumbly stairs, past little homes, carpet looms, and donkeys, and finally through a faded pink doorway into a Berber home. The walls are textured earth, covered in fine cracks, and the rooms are illuminated with big squares of natural sunlight. We climb up a narrow staircase and follow the pungent smell of hay and wool to a little sheep enclosure within the house. The animals eye us suspiciously. Next we follow Mohammad to a little terrace where we can see the desert, the mountains, the little river, and the rest of the village. Outside are colorful pots and terracotta tagines. We enjoy the sun for a moment, and then descend into a little room that once served as a prison. It’s decorated with trinkets now; teapots, swords, vases and pots, and illuminated with candles. We sit around a low table and drink tea. “Berber whiskey,” Mohammad jokes.

We head back outside and begin to work our way uphill until we reach the top, where we have a perfect panoramic view of the snowy mountains, the red desert, the sprawling town, the river with it’s patches of lush green. We stop for photos and enter the little building perched on top. 

We head back to the van and drive onwards as the sun slinks down out of sight. The streets are suddenly full of foot traffic, women covered from head to toe walk alongside their more modern companions in jeans and head scarves, children and men in robes on and motorcycles alike. It’s dusk when we arrive at our hotel for the night, and a chill has set in. Our hotel is adorable, adorned with busy tiles and geometric shapes. We settle into room 30; it’s dimly lit with a low little couch and two small beds with thick woolen blankets. We freshen up and rest for a moment, then head downstairs for dinner.

The dining room is heated with a smoky fire tucked into a hearth in the corner, and we are served delicious soup with big pointed wooden spoons, the typical triangles of bread, vegetable tagine with chicken to the side. Afterwards we peel big cold oranges for a messy dessert and chat sleepily for a while.

The beds are small and a little stiff, but the wooly blankets are thick and heavy. I fall asleep almost immediately.