Still sick

 First thing this morning after breakfast (I tried a bun only) we took a walk in the valley of Todra Gorge and it was a wonderful time.

In the valley are very small plots of land. We saw women working their vegetable and herb gardens, and while it would have been nice to take their photo in their traditional garb they would not allow it. 

We shared the small single paths with local people and animals

At the end of our walk we ended up on a road with people visiting from everywhere it seemed. Lots of motorcycles and smallish tour buses. This is absolutely a “must see” for tourists.

Breathtaking scenery!

We carried on for a few more hours of rocky, boring Sahara desert, passing a few towns along the way. We stopped at one point for lunch in a small city and I tried a small chocolate milkshake. Note to self; DO NOT do that again as I had a setback health wise again and am writing this while Caro has supper with the group. Another member of our group, Helen, took very sick last night and had a worse day than me

The city where we had lunch is the Hollywood of Morocco and many famous movies have been made there

We came to our hotel with the express point to see a UNESCO heritage site here. A Kasbah called Ait Ben Haddou. 

Parts of Gladiator 2 were filmed here. We walked across that bridge to get to the base of the hill and then walked, winding our way through the tiny streets of the town in the photo up to the top of the hill.

Yucky day for me

 I  missed the festivities last night as I started feeling woozy and couldn’t eat much at the supper.

I went straight to bed and Caro came in an hour or so later  after having a bonfire and seeing the stars (I assume)

We both ended up with a crappy sleep.

The entrance to our hotel complex. You can see the tracks in the sand where you drive in across. There is probably a mile drive across the desert to get from the paved road to the entrance

This morning three of our tour group had paid for a jeep excursion which was great for us as we lounged around  pool and used the wi-fi.

This is where we were.

We were on the road by about 12:15 picking up the jeep excursion people about 30 minutes away.

The day was really long for me as I got worse before eventually feeling a bit better tonight. I didn’t get out of the van except for the meal and I didn’t order anything except sparkling water, At our lunch stop we had musicians play local music. It was actually quite neat and most of us got up to dance when the musical group asked us to join them.

Almost 4 hours of typical Sahara scrub land. Not sand dunes like we think of but just flat rocky landscape with occasionally bushes (I missed most of this anyway as i was trying to sleep). We went through a few dusty,dirty towns which are as close to being “the middle of no where” as any places we have been to.

It is 8 PM as I write this. The rest of the group is at supper. I ate a fresh date and it seems to not give any troubles! YAY 

This area is gorgeous and tomorrow’s blog should have lots of photos 

Sahara camel ride

We went on a camel ride last night into the desert. The idea was we would get up into the dunes to see the sunset however there was cloud cover.

The following is a collection of photos from the camel ride.

Now the fun begins

We didn’t have the helmets on for too long. Actually I had no trouble with my staying on the camel as it stood up (I was impressed with myself LOL!)

Sahara desert-Morning and afternoon

 

We were on our way at 7 AM. A few of us were a little “off” in our stomachs however the Irish lady was very ill and we had to stop a few times for an emergency run for any available tree or rock. I gave her our travellers diarrhea medicine. 

The drive today was absolutely phenomenal as we headed up into the Atlas Mountains. We saw many areas of dry wasteland followed by irrigated fields. As we ventured higher into the mountains we stopped a couple times for driver breaks and for fresh bread ( one time) and apples another. The apples tasted just like those from our tree. 

We stopped for lunch at 1:20 in a town that is famous for falconry. There are rich people from Qatar and area that have houses here so they can enjoy this sport.

We continued on through fantastic scenery and lots of ooh’s and aah’s; driving around corners where if you went off the road there was no hope.. Quite a few Oasis’s surrounded by palm trees

We stopped at a town for last chance snacks,pops and ATM’s and then headed out about 30 minutes to our overnight destination which was a hotel built on the edge of the Sahara with dunes “right there!!” The final mile was driven over a rough dirt track into a little paradise of a place. It is 39 degrees today so we have time to go in the pool

Incidentally we are 30 miles from the Algerian border

Amazing day in Fes

 I had one of the best sleeps ever last night with Caro waking me up after 10 hours!

We were in the bus and on the streets by 9 AM and honestly I needed to see the photos to remind me of what we had done, which was a lot!

We went to a pottery co-op where they showed us how they make the world class pottery. 

We went to a viewpoint to see the Medina (the old part of the city) with crazy small passageways and with literally thousands of shops to buy anything you wanted. Everything inside this photo  below is the Medina

Crazy,Crazy, Crazy!!! We had to walk in single file and keep together ALWAYS as it was “So”easy to get lost. The photo below gives an idea of the width of the streets we were navigating at times. Our guide Mohammed said this is the biggest Medina in the world and I believe him. Truly a remarkable experience!

Check out the photo below. We found “everything” for sale

We had a lunch inside the Medina (goodness knows where we were exactly)

Next stop, a four generation family weaving store where they are using a loom and making beautiful items and of course these are for sale

Our final stop was a tannery. Because we are not used to the smell we were each given mint leaves to put under our noses while we saw the tanning pools and looked at their beautiful leather products.

We had a VERY Busy day and the finish (at least for Caro) was a full body massage and exfoliation here at the hotel. While Caro was having the massage I spent the last two hours fighting a very poor internet.@@$#$.  LOL

Caro made the comment tonight that our first few days in Casablanca were Ok but overall disappointing. However all those feelings are gone as the last couple of days have been outstanding.

FES

 Our GAdventures group consists of 1+2) a couple from Cork area of Ireland; he a dairy farmer; she a retired nurse.

3+4) a youngish couple from the US; he a pilot for United Airlines and she a nurse

5) a 73 year old retired doctor from Canmore, Morocco is her 100th country. Today was her birthday

6) Ahmed, middle aged Yemini living in the US (Muslim)

7) a youngish senior lady from the US

8) a youngish senior lady from Ottawa-Hull area

9) a young lady from Switzerland

Our guide is a Moroccan named Mohammed. He is also Muslim so he and Ahmed excuse themselves to pray 

Today we met the remainder of our group and headed out

We went up the highway towards Rabat before turning inland.

The countryside is beautiful and we were informed that during the spring and summer it is very green

Our first stop was the well preserved Roman city of Volubilis. At it’s height it was on the border of the southern most area of the Roman empire and was there for protecting the Roman interests.

It was 33 degrees today and we had an hour long tour of the city.Certainly fascinating and I really enjoyed it.  An interesting thing to learn was that in the movie Patton this site was used to represent ancient Carthage. Our tour guide showed me the clips from the movie, and “yup” it was filmed there!

Our next stop was a very delayed lunch at a GAdventures supported charity (same as the Balkans trip).We had a very tasty meal followed by a tea ceremony (of sorts) and a Q+A about the culture in Morocco regarding women and their roles.

Afterwards we headed into the city of Fes at which point the decision was made by the group to Not go to the optional supper/show. This activity will probably be available tomorrow night. In the mean time as we were checking in to our hotel they offered a Moroccan massage exfoliation scrub called a Hammam. Quite a few of the group (including Caro) signed up for it. Cash only! And as I had just paid our mandatory tips bill (cash) to Mohammed I took the opportunity to go to a cash machine with a few others. The lady from Canmore was unable to get cash from her debit or visa credit card however I was able to get another $150 bucks for future use with my EQ card.

We decided as a group to take it easy tonight which is a real bonus as the internet is slow and it took ‘forever” to load the photos to the blog

Rabat

 After another terrible night of sleep we dragged ourselves out of bed about 6:30 to start our day.

After breakfast we headed out to an ATM to get money from my EQ Mastercard, only to be informed I had reached a daily amount limit already and couldn’t get anything (must be on a revolving 24 hour cycle- not a calendar day). While at the ATM I tried both the ATB credit card and ATB debit card-but got nothing! (At least this time my ATB debit card on-line showed  a reversal of the withdrawal, unlike yesterday)

At 9 AM Rashid showed up for our trip to Rabat, at which point he informed us that the fellow in the car was not his father (like he told us yesterday it would be) but a friend of his father’s, and not only that, he, Rashid was not coming with us like he stated he would be. That threw me off a lot (feeling VERY uncomfortable about the situation) and we had to make a quick decision if it was safe to go or not. We decided to go for it!

The hour long drive went smoothly and we got to Morocco’s capital city Rabat shortly after 10 AM. Abdul took us first to an archeological site within the city called Sala. It was extremely beautiful!

We spent a bit of time in there before heading back out to Abdul and his car. 

He took us through the city, which is amazing; so green and clean. Of course the king lives there and it is the capital so it is well kept up.

As I look back at the photos on my cell I realize that I never took that many. We stopped at a couple of spots including one overlooking the river joining the sea. There were lots of people on the beaches, lots of boats on the river and it really was nice.

As I write this it is 5 PM and I can hear the “call to prayer” from the nearby mosque. It happens five times a day however it doesn’t bother me, in fact Caro wants to see a mosque and people arriving for prayer at some point on the trip. Interestingly as we were driving earlier in the day Abdul’s phone (which “chirped”every time there was a speed camera or a police stop and otherwise was silent), suddenly started blaring out a call to prayer. I saw Abdul make a few motions with his hands as he drove us. Interesting!

One other observation we have made is seeing the large number of cats on the streets and virtually no dogs. Very different from other places we have been.

We decided not to get a tour of the Royal Palace and with that we were finished with the city sites. Because we had plenty of time to get back, Abdul drove us via the coastal highway which has a 60 km/hr speed limit but allowed us to see many kilometres of the wild coast line (with occasional beaches). There were beautiful house on the way, especially on the Rabat side (rich politicians I guess). Closer to  Casablanca there were many apartment buildings and honestly the construction going on in the area was significant.

Incidentally even though Rashid had told us that Abdul spoke English we reverted to using Google Translate into Arabic so we could communicate efficiently. We have certainly found this app to be important as we travel around to various countries.

Upon return to “home” we headed down the street to a money exchange hole in the wall where we exchanged all our Canadian dollars for Dirham ($135 Canadian).

Tonight we met up with our group for orientation and information.There are 11 of us in total and 7 were at the meeting. Afterward we walked quite a bit a ways to a nice restaurant and started talking to our fellow travellers.,

After the meal I was able to get some money off my EQ credit card  YES!!!!