02/10/24 – Ooh Are Mrs Ouarzazate

Drove from Tinghir to Ouarzazate (try pronouncing that with a mouthful of crushed ice)… just south of the High Atlas, gateway to the desert – no sign of Charles Atlas – some might remember – if a manly bloke didn’t send Chas Atlas money for bodybuilding, he got sand kicked in his face on the beach! The town was built by the French Foreign Legion in 1928 to quell the troublesome south. Didn’t you go to the Foreign Legion to disappear? The town was on major trade routes. There are telltale signs as we arrived – wide roads, lack of rubbish and sense of prosperity – the lack of rubbish is unfortunately not common in Morocco, sadly.

Arriving at Ouarzazate, we called into a good Carrefour, which was full of USA students all cluttering the crisps and cakes aisles. Which, of course, was fortunate as not where I wanted to go!

Brian had preceded us to the campsite – a good size with plenty of room for our tented villa! We took Zoa and Corrie for a walk but had to change route due to wild dogs – another feature of Morocco and they don’t look or sound friendly! Supped and retired for the night…..quiet until some unruly (drunk) behaviour – and the local airport launched an aircraft at 1:00 am!

03/10/24 – Kasbah and in search of the resevoir

Today, we didn’t go far – Dropped the laundry off at the local ‘pressing’ … Two loads c.€7. Straight into breakfast … K went for the tagine cooked Eggs Berbere … again I had a cheese omelette – managed a little Arabic language with Abdou – Salaam a Lekum…

we succumbed to a guide to visit the only historic monument… the Kasbah. Only built since the 1780s. 50 families used to live here. Our guide had very good English but slightly difficult to understand.

All the houses had secure store rooms for the treasure brought on the caravan routes.  Hundreds would kip down on any square in of floor. They did have wash before entering each kasbak, thankfully. A Unesco site, but some floors were not accessible as unsafe.

Back to the tent for a bit. Then we attempted to walk to the reservoir, but the path became a mud bath. We found paths to the river.

04/10/24

What a commercial, touristy day! What – us?
The Atlas Film Studios was €8 pp, and the compulsory guide told his he had no wage, just tips. A 45 min tour, which told us not a lot about the film set industry. Just looked at a few sets and were told which films have been partially shot here. Definitely not MGM! Didn’t look like much had happened for a while. One of our tour group acted as Cleopatra for the guide’s video film…  There was another studio down the road with high fences and security gate which looked a lot more in business.

We drove up to Ait Benhaddou. We had lunch overlooking the Unesco mud village on a hill. Stunning. Except for all the bus loads of tourists from Marrakesh. And well restored.

05/10/24

Easy day. Early farewell to Brian and Zoa. They’re off in search of the sea. They are here less than us. Found a replacement SIM for the next month. Brunch … not a proper omelette berbere – basically scrambled with tomatoes and not a tagine or hint of spice.

A bit of tent cleaning … first floor wash shock / horror. New area tomorrow.