Ouarzazate

10/11/24 – Breaking a long journey

Ourazazat town is better pronounced as “Owzazat” as in 2 outs in cricket! Or “Owsyerat”. The local Carrefour provided welcome dog food – and unusually – beer!

Leaving “Howsyermate” the clever satnav took us on a major tour of a new road area ready for hundreds of new houses – added a half hour to our journey – “owzourdickysatnav” then?

*Acres of housing development land. Electrics and roads in. But not Barratts mass building. Just the odd 5 storey block randomly here and there. Presumably private purchasers.*

*USA gas station film set along the road*

Saffron area at Taliouine – a stop and purchase. A marquee up for the end of the saffron festival. Didn’t get to go in as outzazate for lunch.

*Taliouine* *had a huge market, bustling*

*Some lovely girls directed us to the ice cream seller in the fun fair*

*Our nights stop was an Airbnb of poor quality – the wc had to be ridden sidesaddle – Thomas Crapper would have been amused!*

*And no day complete without a scenery shot. Lots of long flat dessert today*

11/11/24 – Another Driving Day

Taroudant breakfast in a side street – yoghurt and cake in a quirky small cafe….lots of markets and too crowded.

*The Souks have speciality sections, Brian dubbed this chippie street*

*My twin tub in Jez’s garage is 9 years old, missing a lid and didn’t come with sparkly knobs. Time for an upgrade?*

*Taroudant has the best preserved medina walls in Morocco. You could walk round all 7k; we didn’t!*

*Scenery definitely upping a gear as we approach the Ante Atlas*

Drive to Taftout. Tent up in record time – it gets quicker – we viewed 2 campsites and settled on “le tete de lion” – the Lion’s Head – an indistinct shape in nearby rock. German noisy shenanigans at 2:00 am – K spoke to them at the time. K: I was impressed that I remembered a) to be polite and b) the word for quiet in German.

*The only good thing about the rubbish apartment of last night was the washing machine. Tent up and washing out. Nice pitch with own shady patio*

*The granite glows pink in the evening and you may just make out the lion’s head*

12/12/24 – Rocks and an Oasis

“Chapeau Napoleon” – a massive rock formation that looks like nobody’s hat – and the man never got to Morocco!

However, a drive to “Blue Rocks” was much more impressive – a Belgian artist, Jean Vermame, wanted a worthy memorial to his late wife – in 1984 he painted a vast area of large rocks – blue , pink and a little yellow – bizarre but striking.

*He had help from the local fire brigade to apply* *the 18 tons of paint. Some has been repainted since*

Drive to an oasis via some narrow mountain roads with steep drops and some subsidence – stop for soft drinks and return on the same tracks.

*A harsh barren mountain landscape. No vegetation nor livestock, but the odd hamlet*

13/11/24 – Museums and Motor Repair

We drove a short way out of town to a Berber house museum. This was most informative – the guide had lived there as a child. Three families still live there in the summer but mostly live away to earn a living – due to climate change almost nothing grows in a previously rich land – massive water shortage. In September there was heavy flooding in many areas. Here they had just 10 mins of rain. The first rain this year! Water is piped down from the mountains / oasis we saw yesterday. As a lad, our host explained that water was plentiful for daily washing, crop irrigation etc. A government minister wanted to make the area into a joint protectorate but some of the families fought and the project died. No funding available.

The next museum was the Memorial to the Resistance- 104 exist in Morocco – we visited one – very knowledgeable guide – independence from France happened in 1956 but squabbles continued with Spain. The world’s largest peace march happened in 1975 to free Western Sahara – sponsored by King Hassan II – partly successful but followed by guerilla fighting.

*Dull displays but guide good*. *Shame not more visual for the school trips*

Lunch in Restaurant Nadia nearby was excellent.

I check our not so ancient Mercedes vital signs weekly and the engine oil level needed to be topped up. K met a chap who came to the campsite looking for business – a car and motorhome mechanic. We followed him to his patch – he topped up the oil and sorted our slightly loose foot parking brake – €30 – a good result at the end of an excellent day!

*A bit more dessert off roading to get to the garage. Lots of vehicles being worked on: a motorhome having a full re-spray for €1500*

*Took Corrie a while to clock the visitor*

*Seen lots of these Barbary squirrels scurrying across the mountain and dessert roads*

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.

*We passed through a major rose growing area. We only saw a tiny strip of roses but lots of distillation and cooperative shops*

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…

*Omelette berbere served with chips this time! More scrambled than poached but still 😋*

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.

*Another typical dish … chicken pastilla. Spicy shredded chicken coated with icing sugar and cinnamon. Actually delicious*

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.

Clune Gap Years

A journal and reflections of our motorhome travels

Tag Archives: Ouarzazate

Taroudant to Tafrout