Barbary apes.
Nomadic shelter.
Rachid and I inside the tent.
The family who hosted us.
Another nomadic woman begging for money.
The Hotel Kasbah Asmoa where we are staying.
Me, Theresa and Andrew in the pool.
The little village of mud huts...
...and villagers
The view behind the hotel.
Sunday,
September 17th.
Happy
Birthday Mom!
This
morning we left Fes and began our trek south towards the desert. The
first stop was at a huge supermarket in the new part of Fes. This is
much like Walmart and sells everything. We each bought supplies for a
picnic lunch. Then we drove for an hour before stopping at a new
town. This town has been built for tourists because of the snow they
get here. There is a ski resort here and they are building more
hotels and infrastructure to accommodate the influx of Moroccan and
European tourists who come here to escape the heat of the summer.
When we crossed the Mid Atlas Mountains we came across a couple of
Barbary apes by the side of the road. We stopped for a few photos
before continuing on.
The
scenery was beautiful and varied. We travelled through the fertile
valley with orchards of peaches, olives and apples and as we climbed
we drove through a cedar tree forest. As we drove we saw tents of
nomadic Bedouins and their sheep. As we descended the mountain pass
we stopped at one of these nomadic communities.
This
is one of Intrepid's ways of giving travellers an authentic
experience that it would be very hard to have otherwise, visiting
real local people; and it is a way for them to support some of the
local people. I have been involved with a few visits like this before
with Intrepid and GAdventures and was very happy and comfortable with
them. However today, I found it awkward. When we arrived there was a
woman and her child waiting for us. I assumed it was her tent we were
to visit; not so. It turned out that she lived too far off the road
for us to get to. So Rachid and our driver Samir went to one that was
closer. I felt bad for the other woman who hung around us. We were
brought into the other family's tent and asked to take off our shoes
because they had laid out their best rug for their visitors. (The
comment was made: so that we don't get the dirt dirty.) In the tent
we ate our picnic lunches, took photos of them and their dwelling,
talked about them and they watched us eat and served us a cup of tea.
The family welcomed us because they knew they wwould get a sum of
money from Intrepid and most of the visitors leave money too. It
didn't feel right to me to be eating our food there while they sat
and watched. Rachid interpreted questions for us to the man of the
family while his wife, son and daughter sat outside (was this
tradition or was there not enough room inside, not sure). When we
left many of us left leftover food or fruit and treats that we had
bought specifically for this visit. When we exited the children, the
original woman and a few other people were milling around with their
hands out. Having typed all of that, I was one of the ones taking
photos and and exploiting them with mixed feelings.
We
then left and continued on our way through the Mid Atlas Mountains to Midelt and our hotel for the night, the Hotel Kasbah Asmoa. This could be an
amazing place. It is a beautiful looking kasbah, a large fort like
structure. Inside it is built in the Moorish tradition with several
beautiful rooms and a courtyard with a pool! We all had very large
rooms with two double beds and a sitting room. But, it looked kind of
tired and their were things that weren't quite up to snuff. The pool
was murky and the tiles around the edge were broken in a number of
places and other tiles were just laid on top to cover the hole. The
courtyard was overgrown and needed tending. Fixings were either cheap
or or broken. However, it was still a great place and just reminded
me of the saying from my last African trip: TIA – this is Africa,
it is what it is.
A
few of us took the plunge and had a dip in the pool, without
submerging our heads. The water was cool but felt great in the sun.
We hung around for a couple of hours before we met up again in the
lobby at 5:30.
Samir
drove us to a remote dirt road area where we got out of the van and
went for an long walk through a little old family village. This is
apple country and we walked through the orchard and past a number of
mud and clay houses. Rachid explained to us the about the old methods
of making houses and the newer brick models, which are becoming
popular even though they are not as insulated as the mud ones. This
area experiences both the extreme heat of the summer and the snow and
cold of winter.
We
saw a number of families in the street and all were friendly when we
greeted them. One young girl who was excitedly following our group
ran out into the street and was hit by a car. The whole community
rushed out and there was some yelling and shouting but luckily she
was not hurt.
When
we got back it was time for dinner in one of the lovely rooms. I had
oven baked, tinfoil wrapped trout; go figure, in the near desert.
After dinner most people were tired and wanted to get ready for our
excursion into the Sahara tomorrow. I sat in the front lobby blogging
and Rachid joined me and we had a couple of beers and shared our
thoughts about how to solve the problems of the world, before
retiring.
My Joe,, that is quite a day I was going to say la di Dah,,,staying in a hotel with a pool !! but it didnt sound too luxurious You are a great traveller Joe and even though you may have felt bad about taking the picture of the Mom and Baby,, its a terrific picture
ReplyDeletehmm, hotel looks better than the tent!
ReplyDeleteGotta agree with Mike!
DeleteYour "people" pictures are always amazing.
ReplyDeleteI have added Morrocco to my bucket list. Amazing! Bring me home some olives and dates. xoxo