We headed east over the Middle Atlas Mountains, after staying at Midelt in the Berber village countryside. Drove thru lots of dusty towns, the funny thing is the Coca Cola signs are everywhere and the roadside shops with coke are well painted compared to surrounding shops/sheds. The closer to the desert the more conservative the womens dress becomes - full black and the face is covered. Elsewhere it is very varied and very colourful. Enjoying very authentic lunches at very local stops one would not normally step inside! However all enjoying the keftas,tajines,couscous. Breakfast is usually pastry, crepes and local bread and jam; being careful of too many dates and fig jam before desert outing.Fruit not always available. We reach the end of the tareseal qnd turn on to 13 kms of flat but corrugated gravel/sand with yellow rocks on one side and white rocks on the other as road markers! Arrive at out Auberge where we meet our camels and just take daypacks and water; surprise a proper toilet here, phew!! Water table is only a metre or so down so no real water shortage! We choose a blanket as our saddle for our camel and to sleep under- head off for an hour, probably for a couple of kms late afternoon- we make those long beautiful shadows in the orange dunes with our camels which makes up for the discomfort of the saddle. Our camp eventually appears and we arrive beside a sand dune 150 metres high! Some of our lot climb to the top; me about one third of the way! Totally exhausting! Night settles and the just-past full moon arrives: candles are lit and out tajine dinner arrives. Just beautiful, peaceful and full we drag our mattresses out of our tents and lay down under our blanket and listen to our 2 Berbers play their drums and we watch the stars appear. As the moon is so bright it is hard to sleep and at 5.30am some of us go to the nearest dune to the east to watch the day break over the next hour- just a donkey and rooster to break the silence- amazing shadows form and change- a photographers paradise. We say hello to a new camel; this time I had a 2 blanket saddle and was more comfortable- we plod back for the hour to the Auberge to wash and have breakfast. And the proper toilet!!!
Back on the road over the corrugations again and back to the bitumen heading south to the Todra Gorge where we are at the moment enjoying a two night stop. Lovely sitution with swimming pool- quite authentic Berber style accomodation but again with en-suites. Great atmospheric restaurant here with entertaining maitre-de and large open fire with huge bellows that impressed Mike! Not that its cold- days have been up to 36 but we are in the bus in the heat of the day. Scenery in this gorge is amazing - watched 5 teenagers clambering up the steep but crumbly sides of the gorge yesterday- they were quite stuck and then broke into 2 groups. We watched them for several hours till they made it down. The gorge walls are 985 feet high. We are staying near the entrance thank goodness where they sky gap is wider! This morning we walked along the road, then met a locql man (with broken French like us) who guided us thru the old kasbah, bought a smallish berber rug from a co-operative and then the guide led us back along the river, women are washing their clothes, washing grain for bread etc, and veges are growing - very fertile (and muddy I found often). Villages establish in theses gorges for the water sources- quite fascinating; would not want an earthquake. Will catch up agqin from.... off to Ait Benhaddou and Ouzazate, then High Atlas in a day or two and stay in the highest mountain area of North Africa.....
