Lonely Planet Morocco
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The Marrakesh Express
The coast to the mountains
East of the Atlas
Quest for the Sahara
Todra gorge & Marrakesh
Meknes & the north
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Travel notes from Marrakesh 2
Hi Everyone,
I'm back in Marrakesh again! As you may have gathered it is a bit of a transport hub for the country.
When I last left you I was suffering from a fever. After e-mailing you all I headed off to see Dr Arrad, who could speak English, who prescribed some drugs for me, which did the trick. I rested up altogether for four nights in Marrakesh before hitting the road again. I took a bus east through the Atlas Mountains to Quarzazate. It was a fantastic ride through the mountains; the scenery was breathtaking. I only wish Damon Hill wasn't driving the bus, there were too many hairpin bends for the speed he was going. It was all right if you didn't look out of the window!
As on all trips something weird happened when I arrived in Quarzazate. I checked into the Royal Hotel and ran into four Canadians and two Japanese travellers. It turned out that the two Japanese were making a television programme for Japanese TV. The show was an educational programme teaching English, where Yoshi goes and travels around a country meeting English-speaking travellers. So we were filmed having dinner that night. The following day they gave us a lift to Ait Benhaddou, a famous Kasbah where Lawrence of Arabia was filmed along with about 20 other films. The wadi flowing past the Kasbah was in flood so to get across we had to pay for a mule to carry us through the water. Yoshi and Emi gave us a lift back to the main highway where we parted company; they had a flight to catch back to Japan. They seemed to be legitimate as at the Kasbah other Japanese travellers recognised them from the show. I told them to send me a video. We will see if I will be famous in Japan.
The four Canadians and myself have been travelling ever since. After visiting the Kasbah we headed out to the desert at Merzouga. That afternoon we only got as far as Tinerhir, where we stopped for the night in a hotel, which resembled a prison block. Next morning we continued our journey by grand taxi to Rissani, the biggest nightmare of a town I've found so far on this trip. Rissani is at the end of the road and trying to get transport across the desert for the last 30kms to Merzouga took us over two hours. Most people wanted to sell us a carpet and couldn't understand our concept of wanting transport to Merzouga now, and not in three hours time. 'Come and wait in my shop' was the usual line. Eventually we finally found a truck to take us to Merzouga and we left the chaos behind us in a cloud of dust. There is no road to Merzouga, it's just a hard stony desert plateau, and on the horizon the giant sand dunes of the Sahara desert spilling down onto the plat eau. The dunes are huge some reaching up to 300m in height.
We arrived by the middle of the afternoon and immediately arranged five camels to take us out into the Sahara for an overnight trip. I became very attached to my camel, who I named Bumpsie. Bumpsie was the best camel out of the lot! Anyway we trekked on our camels out into the dunes for about two and half hours with the sun setting behind us. We were headed for a small oasis at the base of a giant dune, by the time we got there it was almost dark and the stars were coming out. The oasis was small, only five palm trees and tussocks of grass. We had dinner, tajine washed down with plenty of mint tea. The rest of the night was spent watching the stars before bedding down for the night on a blanket. The silence was complete that night, not even an insect buzzing. Unlike in Tunisia, we were the only people we saw that night in the desert, there weren't 200 other tourists on camels around the next dune. I woke at six just as it was getting light and climbed half way up the giant dune and sat there watching the sunrise. Again everything was perfectly still and quite. It was the most relaxing time I'll be having on this trip. By mid morning we had saddled up and packed up camp and I rode Bumpsie back to Merzouga.
We took a truck back across the desert to Rissani and got into a grand taxi as quick as we could and went back to Tinerhir. That evening we took a short ride up to the Todra Gorge where we spent the night. Next day we got up early and spent the day hiking up the gorge and climbed up the side and got a great panoramic view of the gorge twisting below us. At the end of an exhausting day we went back to Tinerhir, again, for the night. Tinerhir is a small town and by now most of the locals knew us and we knew them. This time we didn't stay in the prison block and found a much nicer hotel, for less money after a bit of bartering.
This morning we took a bus straight through to Marrakesh. We are having a bit of a piss up tonight, which is why I decided to come back here again before heading up to Fes. Beer isn't the easiest thing to find here, but I know a hotel bar from my first visit to town.
Marrakesh is a cool place to hang out anyway, so I don't mind being back here again for a night or two. I only have six days left before I catch my flight back to Tunis on the 12th. The rest of the travel plans are to head north to Fes and the Rif Mountains. From there I should easily be able to get back to Casablanca.
I must go; I need to freshen after being on a bus all day. Then its beer time, for only the fourth time on this whole trip - that's why I'm getting excited!
Regards
Geoff
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