The Sahara Sands

We continued south on our road trip to the town of Zagora.  We went through miles and miles of desert, bare mountains and wide plains of rock with the occasional acacia tree.  It was a long dusty drive but we were rewarded by the fantastic hotel we had booked.  It was a huge building in the elegant Moroccan style of beautiful gardens, tiles and ceilings of intricate painted plaster work.  The hotel of about 200 rooms had only three rooms occupied.  Tourism is severely down in Morocco plus we are travelling in the off season (supposedly the tourist season is February – April then it gets too hot).

The lobby of our hotel

The ceiling in the lobby

The next day we drove to M’hamid which is literally the end of the road.  Beyond is the Sahara sand dunes and the Algerian border just 20km away.  We came upon the local market and it was a feast for the eyes - Berbers in their traditional turbans and Djellaba, dusty tomatoes and vegetables, household appliances and clothing all for sale, donkey carts and four wheel drive trucks.  (Bob bought a pair of socks and was quite pleased to know he was wearing the same type of socks as a Berber in M’hamid might wear.)

The market M'hamid

Donkeys, motorbikes and trucks all bring goods to the market

Dusty vegetables

Outside the market

Of course once in town we were asked if we wanted to take a 4W drive or camel ride into the desert.  We chose to sit in a cafe, sip Moroccan mint tea and watch the locals go by.

Street scene in M'hamid

 

Kids going home from school

Then on the outside of town we found our own sand dunes, climbed into them and wiggled our toes in the Sahara sand.

Our footprints in the sand

Untouched sand dunes

After our quick trip to touch the Sahara, we moved northwest to the town of Taroudant.  Taroudant has been called the ‘grandmother of Marrakesh’.  It is a completely walled city barely touched by tourism.  The walls stretch around the city for 6 km.  In the 16^th Century this was the Saadian capital before it moved to Marrakesh.  We walked around the city taking it all in.

City walls of Taroudant

Beautiful park with minaret

Outside the city walls

Large plaza outside the walls

One of the city gates

Fountain in the plaza

In Taroudant horse carriages are quite common.  However unlike in Marrakesh where the carriages are quite ornate and used exclusively for tourist, the horse carriages in Taroudant are simpler and used as taxis by the locals.

Horse drawn carriage

In our travels we noticed a real plastic bag issue in Morocco.  The desert near any town is littered with plastic bags and rubbish disposal in the cities is not as good as it could be.  Happily we were told that within a year plastic bags will be banned in Morocco.  A very encouraging move.

Those blue and white specks are plastic bags

Less than ideal rubbish disposal