As we've been travelling along enjoying the landscape the past few days, we've been intrigued by the slogans written with stones, in Arabic, up high on prominent hills. Most of these remind exhort citizens to put Allah first, their country second & their King third. This one though is more political. It translates to 'The Sahara Is Ours" & refers to a small region (in the Sahara) which is trying to win independence from Morocco.
The Todra Gorge is narrow with sheer, high cliffs rising up on either side. Yet another gorge with a narrow river prone to flooding if there's much of a rainfall!
Nestled under overhanging cliff faces, which are beloved of rock climbers, is a new hotel...
...& it provides our 'stork' feature for today. Fake stork & fake starting of a fake nest adorn the top of these fake Kasbah towers. Why? To look authentically Moroccan of course!!!!!!
Leaving Todra behind, we headed for the small town of Tinejdad. In El Khorbat Ksar there, we enjoyed a meander through their museum of Berber life. This not only showed us the method used for building kasbahs, but also a few 'interesting' medicine options!!!!
There were also magic spells....important if the medicines weren't as effective as originally hoped!
Within the grounds of this Ksar was a charming restaurant set up in the garden. The pigeons are not pets...they're for eating & form the main ingredient in the famous Moroccan delicacy; Pastilla, which is pigeon meat cooked with cinnamon, raisins, honey & nuts, wrapped up in filo pastry. It is surprisingly delicious!
Our lunch was, however, pigeon free...we opted for Moroccan omelette!
Our timing wasn't brilliant when we left the Ksar, as it coincided with getting stuck behind a MILLION school children all on their way back to school for afternoon lessons!!
Our driver Rachid is very quick at spotting interesting things & knew we'd want to stop & photograph this sign...
... just as well, because soon after we actually did see camels!
Closer to Erfoud we commented on the moon-scape-like mounds that seemed to run parallel to the road. They are the remains of an ingenius method of tapping into artesian water supplies & using it for irrigation.
We aren't going to the desert proper this trip, but Rachid, being of the desert, felt we should have a photo taken looking as if we WERE in the desert!!!!!!!!
Soon after our arrival in Erfoud, we were whisked of again for a special treat for Jeff. Knowing his love of archaeology, the regional coordinator arranged to take him out to where they are currently digging up fossils from the Devonian era. Here again we saw mounds of human activity on the horizon, this time they were digging down...
...for these types of treasures, which they would then take back to the factory for cleaning, polishing...
...displaying & selling. It was all very impressive, but alas (to our guide) we were not in the buying frame of mind.
Another big day with lots of interest & input!!
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