The Land of 1000 Kasbahs

Morocco is absolutely amazing! From the crazy square and souks of Marrakesh, the magical retreats of the Riads, the spectacular Atlas Mountains, the Berber towns dotted all over the land, the nomads roaming the desert, the everlasting dunes of the Sahara, the green Oasis’s flowing through the valleys, the ceder forests, the 1000’s of Kasbahs and the mind boggling Medina in Fez. Wow!
This was a trip that will always be remembered. Locals with always a smile on their face, little kids running over just to say hello, the tastiest tajines and couscous… everything!!!
We were totally blown away.
We started off our trip with 2 days in Marrakesh wandering the souks, doing a few tourist sights and just taking everything in. The square at dusk is one of the most amazing sights we have every seen, out come all the food stalls cooking the yummiest fresh food with wafts of Bbq smoke blowing over the square, snake charmers blowing away, story tellers pulling in the crowds, street boxing, woman doing henna, people trying to throw monkeys and snakes around you for a few dirham’s and hundreds of people just wandering around taking it all in.
I had organised a private guide, driver and 4 x 4 to pick us up, including my sister Camilla and husband Ed, in Marrakesh and take us out into the Atlas Mountains and desert for 4 days. What a magical experience.
Our guide Ali was full of knowledge; he speaks Arabic, Berber, French, English, Spanish and a little Japanese. Unbelievable!! Our driver Yousef was a Berber and was such a character and a highlight of the trip in himself!! We called him crazy couscous. We all had funny names, Aisha tajine (Sally), Sa’id (Lachie), Fatima (Camilla –all first born woman are called Fatima), Mohammad (Ed –all first born men are called Mohammad), Yousef Couscous, Ali Baba and the 40 thievesJemma el Fna square just starting to get going in the afternoonAt night this place is truly a sight to see!Yummy Tajine. The food was sooo good the whole trip.The Oasis in the middle of craziness. Our Riad in Marrakesh. A Riad is a traditional house with a central courtyard. Pure heaven...We took a horse and cart for a few hours which was really fun stopping off at some points of interest.L & S. This was at the gardens of Majorelle in Marrakesh.The first day of the trip we wound our way up the Atlas mountains and headed west towards Ouarzazat where we visited the exotic Kasbah of Ait Ben Hadou, the rose valley and spent the night at Kelat Magouna.There is only one road over the Atlas Mountains. This was built by the French Legion.The gang, Youseff is in the middle and Ali on the rightThe Kasbah of Ait Ben Hadou. A Kasbah is a fortified building where the locals would live to be protected. They were also used as forts to protect the camel trains back in the day.A cute shy little Berber girl Spectacular scenery, there is a little Kasbah in the middle The local bus. They were all off to a wedding in the next town, they were very amused that we were taking pictures of them and they started taking pictures of us!
The next day we headed to the spectacular Dades Gorges were a spring feeds the whole valley, we saw an amazing oasis called Boulman Dades and then off to Erg Chebbi and the Sahara desert to spend the night under the stars with the Berbers. It was so amazing, we took a 2 hour camel trek into the dunes and we were caught in a small sand storm on the way, indescribable and unforgettable!!Dades Gorges. A spring flows out under a large rock and supplies the whole valley. It was quite the local hangout for a Sunday afternoon.Cool looking rocks that looked like monkey fingers.Waving goodbye and about to head into the Sahara on our camel trekAbsolutely amazing, words cannot describe. The smallish sand storm that whipped up during our trek, it wasn't really dark its just the way the picture came out. We could see lightning out over the dunes to. What an experience! We didn’t get much sleep that night and early in the morning we climbed the highest dune around and watched the sun rise over the glowing dunes. Spectacular!That's our camp site.
We then took the camels back to meet our car and off we went again to visit the Black Gnawa village which is known by their Spiritual Music. This is a small town on the edge of the Sahara, they're dark Africans and their village has survived since the slave trade days. After that we drove to Midelt via Erfoud, Ziz Valley, and Errachidia and spent the night there. Having so much fun!!!!Just amazing, this is the second longest palm tree valley spanning over 150kms.On our last day of the tour we visited a rare cedar forest where there were lots of monkeys, this is the area where you can ski in Morocco, we then drove through the middle Atlas then down to the plains where we arrived at Fez. Nomads staking their territory, they are all over Morocco. Not much has changed in a few thousand yearsThis beautiful girl and her brothers came running up to the car from their Nomad tent just to say hi and see what was going on. Some of them have amazing blue eyes. We were so sad to say goodbye to Ali and Yousef at the end of our 4 day tour. We had such a unforgettable time.
The last two days of the trip was spent in Fez. A massive Medina with over 5000 streets to loose yourself in. Which we managed to do quite a bit of!! We took a private guide for a day as it was much easier to just follow him and know exactly where you were going. It was impossible to know whether to turn left, right, or go down a little alley and then arrive at the smelly tanneries. The view looking over the Fez Medina, the smoke in the back ground is from the pottery kilns
Ed and I taking it all inThe tanneries were really a sight, same for everything else. You can see the chalk and the dye and the workers doing their thing.
The one thing that’s amazing with these counties is that everything is made by handThe Riad was out of this world. It was like a palace. The attention to detail in the tile work and wood roof carvings was unreal. Both the Riads we stayed in were owned by French ladies.Having our afternoon nap on the terrace of the Riad. Pure bliss.On the last night in Fez we had a slipper party on the terrace of the Riad. These are all our new slippers that we had bought during the trip. Crazy couscous!!!!!!!!!!

A truly amazing experience that we will never forget