Morocco- Marrakech and the Sahara Expedition

Morocco is the most exciting place I ever went. It is terrific and it marked the first country in North Africa which I went. Morroco is definitely my most perfect destination for travel!! We could have enjoyed the trip more but both of us were down with severe cold ( have not recovered from Czec) and hence our first day after 4 hours flight from London was spent in the Moroccan Hotel. On the second day, we plucked ourselves to get out into the streets and managed to just hang aroung and booked for our tour to the Sahara. Marrackesh has been the capital of Morocco , as well as for smaller countries up through history.One of the most interesting place was the Jamaa L-Fnaa Square where you get to see snake charmers, interesting water bag man and storytellers till the wee hours of the night .In the evening, the street stalls would begin to march in and enticed you with the sweet aroma of the Moroccan dishes.Of course, even though i was sick, i was pigging out in the street stalls ,drunk myself in the orange juice stalls and got energised when i started my shopping in the suuq. Super cheap!!!And I love all those gypsie styled dresses, bags,baskets,jewellery and slippers!! The true adventure really began the next day when we hopped on to our 4x4 minivan to begin our Sahara Expedition with four other couples.

From Marrakech to Ait Benhadou: Visit of the Kasbashs

It's going to take us 2 days to reach the desert but along the journey, we will be stopping to visit various sites. The first one is Ait Benhadou. It has one of the most exotic and best-preserved Kasbahs in the entire Atlas region since it has money powered into it as a result if of being used for scenes in as many as 20 films, notably " Laurence of Arabia" and more recently the" Gladiator.It is now under Unesco Protection. The winding mountainous road made us almost puke ( remember we were sick) but all were worthwhile as we were greeted by the beautiful Atlas Mountains .....

And getting to wind through little settlements in the desert which I think none of us will get used to staying in them. Amazing structures with packed hay, grass and cement.
The familiar scene you saw in the movies.....the preserved Kasbahs
You will see these little ones trying to earn some Dirhams by assisting you to cross some rivers and probably giving you some handmade crafts which you maybe fooled to pay.But they are harmless and in fact some are really adorable and just love to tag along by your side. Many times in my trip, I will get to see many small kids and adoloscents hanging around and I wonder if they ever receive some proper education.

This is such a common sight you will get to see in Morroco. I fell in love with the donkeys after this trip. They were simply one of the mildest, painstaking and industrious animals on this earth. Check out this .

We headed to Quarzazate for our lunch. Quarzazate is a pretty quiet and nondescipt place,it's especially noteable because it is the starting point of the excursions in the desert. It is also well-known for its Studios of Cinema and its large Kasbah Taourit ( The structure at the background in the photograph below)

Thereafter, we continue our journey and made our way to the Dades Valley which threads its course between the mountains of the high Atlas to the North and rugged Jbel Saghro range to the south.The biggest oasis and the line of the Kashbahs that give this route its nickname " Valley of thousand Kasbahs", begin just before the town of Skoura.Here, we spent our night in a hotel which got us frozen. Both Ronald and I couldn't even bother to bathe and wrapped ourselves in the thick blankets which hardly provided wamth.

The next day , we woke up . And after a Berber Breakfast meal, we began to trudge through the fertile palmeraies of the Draa which are crammed with date palms, olive and almond groves. Mid way, we were being led to a Kasbah where the Berbers stayed. None of us understood what's going on as the guide was not English speaking. Luckily, a Latino saved our day and began to explain us. As we followed the guide, we were unknowingly led to family which made carpets ( Basically they are the ones who sold to retailers in marrakech who charged exhorbitant rates for the carpets we saw)!!! And yes, all of us began to make eyes with each other to signal we have fallen into a tourist trap!!!!But nevertheless, we were all patient and waiting to see what the man is up to in his sleeves. Gosh, don't be fooled by these people , thinking they were some uneducated and uncivilised tribal people.They were excellent businessman. He spoke fluent English and he was " hospitable " and served us mint tea ( by the way, this is a tradition to receive guest). After that, he began rattling and we had a mini educational talk on the Berbers and the culture and values. We learned Berber language from him as well. So after the while, the true self revealed but yet he did it in such a way that we did not feel compelled to buy. And all of us agreed that his carpets were truely genuine, handmade, durable and nicely designed ( the carpets were only made by the females and each symbol on the carpet has some significance of blessing ,good health and stuff like that) Of course, we did not reveal our interest that we want to buy. While he was gone to bring us some carpets, we decided to devise a strategy - collective bargaining!!!Haha, yes the more the better bargaining power we had!!! And guess what , who was the best bargainer? Me? No way, i am bad at this. If i can reduce the price by 5 dollars , i will be in heaven. is my BABY!!! I am so proud of him. According to the rest of the group who could not stop praising him for his assertiveness and bargaining power after the whole experience, Baby eventually reduced the four carpets which we bought by 50 %. Well, I mean we bought one and the rest of them belonged to the other couples.One carpet expert in the group said we have paid a reasonable price for ours and it was definitely worthwhile. I felt comforted eventually coz i thought we have spent too much. Anyway, if you get to visit us and get to see the carpet, you will know how it was bought and the interesting journey behind it.:P

We also saw the cultivation of coucous ( Morrocan main dish ) and mint leaves which was served basically in most of our meals. Most of the time, we would also have tajines ( the name for a conical kinda cooking vessel and Morrocan recipes). The tajines were delicious but it can get quite boring after a while. They are also famous for their omelettes. Check out the spread we have during one of our lunch break below.

About 50km south of Erfoud is the tiny village of mergouga and nearby is the famous Erg Chebbi, it is a totally magical landscape which deserves much more than just a sunrise glimspe.And yes, we have eventually reached the highlight of our tour!!!This is part of the Sarhara desert where dunes themselves are fascinating,changing color from pink to gold toured at different times of the day. It is a great place to appreciate the immense, clear desert sky. Everybody was so exhilarated!!!

I could not tell you how beautiful the desert is. You got to really expereince it yourself. I wish I could spend a few more days in the desert and lived a nomadic life with the Berbers.The Sahara is vast,quiet and serene. A perfect romantic getaway for couples who wished to spend their time under the tent, gazing at the stars and if you are lucky, get to spot a lucky shooting star. Of course, not forgetting the fun camel riding which got us all amused. We spent about 1.5 hours riding to our campside,marvelling at the beautiful sunset. The camels are real adorable and yes very interesting. My camel kept throwing out white and gluish liquid. I asked my guide if he was sick and he said it was their saliva!!!I had lots of video clips of me mounting up the camels which was totally hilarious and would be uploaded soon.

There were really nothing much to do at the night. Since Baby was sick, I bravely went with the gals to climb the dunes in the dark. Gosh, that was tiring . The dunes were steep and each step we took, our feet sank deeply into the sand. Who knows if there were scorpians lurking around? ( but we heard there were more of them in winter)We practically couldn't bother much and just want to make it to the top to catch a glimspe of the view. And guess what, we finally made it but only to realise that over the other side were numerous sand dunes. We could not make it to another one and decided to do a ' sand slide ' down the dunes. And so, baby took a picture of me and Judy( the aussie babe) while we were having fun tumbling down the dune.heheh.

And so after this rigorous exercise, the group was worn out and we eventually brought out our thick blankets and wriggled ourselves around the campfire , enjoying the free music entertainment and story telling given by our guides. We were going to prepare ourselves for the moon-rise. ( yes , we get to see moonrise, sunrise and sunset). i wish i bought myself a more powerful camera but unfortunately my canon ixus couldn't really take the beautifully lited full moon rising from the horizon. The night was simply spectacular and unforgettable. i am so thankful that i got to spend it with my Babe. Truely, it reminded me how mighty the lord is. i marveled at his beautiful creation,thinking if this is exactly how the night looked like when Jesus is born.Somehow, i drifted into my dreamland. I guess Ron probably carried me back to the tent.And the only thing i could remember hearing was the faint "Berrrr" noises made by the camels who were sleeping just outside our tents.

Morocco is simply magical.:)