Saddlesore in the Sahara (by Anne)

Marrakech was first on my list of places I have always wanted to go.  I was not disappointed.  It is an exotic and fascinating place.  You could spend weeks getting lost in the Souk and never get bored.  The Riads were we stayed were beautifully decorated.  There was no escaping the permeating smell of spices anywhere in the Medina.   

Fez (at least the Medina) was similar but even more ancient and primitive.  Walking through the markets we saw a camel head hanging on a stick.  At the butcher stall they had cages of live chickens so that you could pick your chicken for the butcher to kill and pluck on the spot, or you could take it home to do it yourself.   Jaws and the intact teeth of some dead animals were discarded on the street for clean up at the end of the day.

The most interesting thing I saw was what can only be described as a “chicken bouquet”.  An elderly man on a motorcycle had about 40 chicken tied neatly by the feet.  The white chickens spread out evenly to form a large, perfectly round bouquet.  The most amazing thing is that these chickens were still alive but docile and did not appear to care that they were hanging by their feet riding down the street.

The mosaics were extraordinary.  In Fez, we had a driver take us around the outside of the medina.  One of the stops was at a pottery factory where they did mosaics as well as pottery.  We walked through the area where the artisans worked.  They sat on the concrete floor and either hammered small pieces of unbelievably evenly cut tile or worked piecing together the mosaics by laying the pieces color face down.  There was no space between the pieces of tile and therefore very little grout was needed.  The finished product was table tops.  I wish I could have taken one home with me.  The marble table tops were even more stunning than the tile.

 

Several people asked me if I was of Moroccan descent.  One man even started calling me Fatima.  Jackson thought I might be upset by this and told me when the man was not within hearing distance that I was not a “fatty ma” but I was a “thinny ma”.

We thought a night in the dessert would be a great experience for the kids. It was a 10 hour drive through the higher Atlas Mountains.  The scenery changed constantly and we stopped several times on the journey, so it wasn’t as bad as it sounds.  One stop included a Kasbah were we had a brief tour of a Koran school that had an ancient library.  We were able to view books kept in open air protected only by glass fronted bookcases that were over a thousand years old.

When we finally arrived at camp it was already dark.  Fortunately, I was well prepared with flashlights. (I know no one will be surprised by this) I used to think Bermuda was such a wonderful place for viewing stars as there is little light pollution, but in the Sahara, there is NO light pollution whatsoever.  I don’t even know how to begin to describe how much you could see with the naked eye.  Our driver showed us our tent and then drove off to meet us the next morning.  The camp had maybe ten tents total, but only two others were occupied.  We were given one candlestick and that did not last long, so we were glad to have the flashlights. For those of you who are envisioning SATC2, which was filmed near where we stayed, you would be mistaken.  Boot camp would be a more accurate description.   And for the middle of summer, it was freezing.  I slept in several layers of clothing along with my fleece, my winter gloves and four wool blankets.  The loud banging of African drums kept Jackson and I awake for a long time.  Paul and Savannah can sleep through anything.

We woke at dawn to watch the sunrise from the top of the sand dunes.  The colors were subtle making it difficult to capture in photos. At 8:00 am sharp we were loaded on the camels. This was after Paul had put on all of our turbans that we had purchased the day before.  He actually did a nice job, and they stayed on the entire journey.  I think we were expecting the Disney Land version of a camel ride -  get on the camels for a fifteen minute ride, take photos and then move on.  We were not prepared for a three hour journey on camel to the next town to meet our driver.  To say it was uncomfortable would be an understatement.  But the good news was it made the thirty hour journey ahead of us to South Africa not seem so bad after all….

Anne & Jackson overlooking "camp"

 



Savannah & Anne on Silly Billy