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While we saw some interesting sights today, they were nothing to compare with yesterday’s adventures. We spent most of the day on the road.
My clever iPhone camera has adjusted the light to make the scene appear to be well lit. But it is 5:30 AM and the Road Scholars have just roused themselves from their peaceful desert night’s rest so they can enjoy watching sunrise over the dunes.
First, a little coffee.
Our desert camp was equipped with a sunrise, sunset loveseat viewing station, but as far as I could tell none of the Road Scholar‘s took advantage of it.
Nobody used the sand board either. I never figured out who it belonged to. Certainly none of the Road Scholars. You bet I'd have pictures if I'd ever spotted one of the Road Scholar dudes darting down a dune on that thing.
The sun will rise over there I am pretty sure.
All we have to be is patient.
Waiting.
You can tell it's down there over the horizon.
Gonna pop up right about ...
Now! Told you.
Kinda bright all of a sudden.
The Road Scholars are catching it all on their cameras.
Nancy, Bob and Bernie found their own viewing dune.
And there it is, right on time.
And there we are with sand between our toes.
Bill likes doing this stuff.
Morning sun over the Sahara.
More sand ripples.
It's beautiful out here.
Except where the tourists mess it all up. It is not easy to walk in the stuff. You put your foot down and the sand may seem firm or it may give way. You never know what’s going to happen with each step. Too much of this would have been exhausting, but my knee and I survived.
Back at camp with its lovey dovey seat and mysterious sand ski.
You have to say goodbye, Bill. And don't worry, you don't need more pictures of sun on the dunes. You are never going to forget this.
Regular desert will never live up to what we've seen.
If we had a wild ride to the camp, we surely must have another wild ride back to the bus.
I like pictures of sand ripples.
Lotsa dune zooming has been going on around here.
Bye dunes.
Bye camels.
It's been fun.
But we gotta go.
He hates to leave.
But we gotta hit the road.
We've been riding awhile and suddenly we see a lone camel near the road.
He'd trying to hide behind that post I think.
The dromedary, also known as the dromedary camel, Arabian camel, or one-humped camel, is a large even-toed ungulate, of the genus Camelus, with one hump on its back. And now you know.
Let's stop and look at the camels.
The camel herder's daughter has come to say hi.
Apparently some guy was tending to some other guy's herd of camels and he was keeping them close to the road so that when tourists stopped to take pictures he could extort some money. I think Nabil actually gave him $20 in the spirit of Ramadan or something.
Keep watching this and you'll spot a rare white camel.
The people in the nearby town just love to go to the top of the hill in the evenings to watch the sunset while they are sipping tea. So somebody painted the path.
It's rest stop time and Bill is enjoying a Magnum bar with caramel. It is harder to find good ice cream in Morocco than it is in Japan. Bill misses his green tea ice cream.
We are entering a small town -- one of many we'd see today. See the old adobe structures that are falling into ruin?
In most places like this the adobe walls are crumbling as the old ways of construction give way to the new and old buildings are left to deteriorate.
See? The new buildings are quite nice. This is Tinghir, a city in central-eastern Morocco. It is the capital of Tinghir Province. The city is located in the Todra valley at the end of the High Atlas, facing the Jbel Saghro. Tinghir is known for its palm-grove and the Todra Gorge. The palm oasis covers about 30 miles on 500-to-1,500-metre-wide tracts along the Wadi Todgha. The Todra Gorge is a series of limestone river canyons, or wadi, in the eastern part of the High Atlas Mountains. The famous part of the gorge is more than 15 kilometers or 9 miles long. The city of Tinghir has a population of 42,044 and the province has 322,412 inhabitants. The predominant ethnic group is Amazighs.
There's a nice hotel here, a good place for lunch.
Hotel Kasbah Lamrani is a hotel in Tinghir, Morocco. It has a traditional Moroccan design, a lounge with a fireplace, and air-conditioned rooms. The hotel also has an outdoor pool. The hotel is near Tinghir Park and Todra Gorge. Mosque Ikalalne is a local landmark.
The Road Scholars have seen enough tagines now that they're starting to play with them. Bernie, behave yourself!
I think nearly everybody agreed that this was the best lunch of the trip so far. We started with pumpkin soup and it was delicious.
Well this is interesting -- skewered chicken chunks.
Let me tell you -- those skewered chicken chunks were absolutely delicious. Tender and juicy and tasty and well, absolutely delicious! And there were rice and vegetables and eggplant chunks that were fried and crispy and just plain good.
Our waiter was a showman.
This turned out to be one of our best meals. I think everybody enjoyed it.
This place really does have a pool.
And a lovely lobby.
With a fancy ceiling.
I know I've mentioned this before, but Nabil really is an outstanding guide. We are fortunate to have him.
Snow on the High Atlas mountains.
This shows where we are. The lush farm lands are on the other side of the High Atlas mountains. We are out in the Moroccan desert.
On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair.
We've found some civilization.
Just another town.
Just another adobe building falling into ruin.
Nabil said we are driving on the road of 1001 Kasbahs.
Apparently it is the fashion now to build homes in the style of ancient Kasbahs. And sure enough, we saw lots of buildings like this along the way.
We spotted a Jewish cemetery and stopped to take pictures.
Today we are willing to take pictures of anything.
I searched the internet and actually found other pictures of this cemetery, but no good explanation for how it came to be here.
Well, it's here because people died, but you know what I mean.
Those High Atlas Mountains are awfully snowy.
Even a traffic roundabout with a
statue of a rose in the middle. Morocco's Rose Festival occupies the
souk area of El Kelaa Des Mgouna, the town responsible for the rosy
festivities. During this time, travelers come from all over to
attend the festivities where a Rose Queen is elected to reign over
the year's scented crop.
For miles and miles we could see a
tall tower rising from the desert floor with a brilliant light on
top. Nabil said it was part of a solar power project, but he didn’t
give us much more information on it. So I have done some Googling.
If you want to know more about it, click here.
Now we are in Ouarzazate. This is our hotel for the night. Nabil was almost apologetic because this really isn’t the nicest hotel of the trip, but it is satisfactory. Road Scholar wanted to put us in the five star hotel in town, but Ouarzazate is the Hollywood of Morocco. Lawrence of Arabia was filmed here as well such lesser movies as the Emirates scenes of Sex and the City. Since nobody knows when Hollywood is going to book up the really nice hotel, Road Scholar thought it would be prudent to put us in a hotel we wouldn’t get kicked out of. It's not exactly upscale but it's clean and we'll make it through the night just fine in this monument to adequate.
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