Monday Sep 9th
We’re been fortunate on this tour to get to know a lot about Morocco and that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? From visiting historic sites to having dinner with an accompaniment from traditional bands from different regions, and dancers to entertain us, to visiting places where they do special handicrafts. Today we visited three separate towns that specialize in three things synonymous with Morocco.
We travelled once again along the Draa Valley to a town we had been through before, where there was a date market. One of our group asked if we could stop and take a look and so Abdul had out driver stop right at the market for a few minutes and we all piled off to have a look. There were boxes and boxes of different kinds of dates for sale by various vendors, all from the nearby palm groves. A few boxes were purchased and off we went.
We headed off into new territory with our destination this time, the centre for carpet making at Tazenakht. I had seen carpets along the way and really none of them had appealed to me so I thought I was safe. We stopped at the showroom at one of the 40 or so cooperatives of women carpet makers in the region. The President of the cooperative showed us the different styles of carpets made by the different tribes of Berbers. Some were made by Bedouin’s and Nomads who live in the desert, others by Nomads who live in caves, some were made by the Tuareg people from the Sahara region. They make them from wool, camel and goat hair. Many of the carpets have similar symbols, one being a diamond shape that is meant to protect the owner from the Evil Eye. I did hear my name being called by one of the carpets, and so I succumbed. It will hopefully be delivered by DHL within 2 weeks. It worked in Turkey so I’m hoping it will work for me this time as well without any issues. I get joy every time I look at my Turkish carpet and I know it will be the same for this one.
We were at the carpet place much longer than our guide anticipated but the cooperative did rather well from out tour group. We were all pretty starving by the time we got to our lunch stop, where we had a lovely Berber Omelette, spiced by saffron from the very village where its claim to fame is as the Saffron capital of Morocco.
Morocco is the third largest supplier of saffron in the world and the crocus flower stamens that it is made from love the climate in the valleys of the hills around the town. It takes something like the stamens from 140,000 flowers to make one kilo of saffron so it’s understandable how much this “yellow gold” costs. This shop also did very well, with sales from our bus of happy shoppers.
While I’m talking about learning about Morocco I’ll mention a subject that Abdul raised at some time over the last couple of days although I’m not exactly sure when. On our way back from the desert, he mentioned that we had been within 20 – 25 miles of the Algerian border. He said he didn’t tell people that until after because of their concern about the Western Sahara situation. To be honest I don’t think any of us had been aware of any situation regarding the Western Sahara, but apparently some country foreign affairs departments put it on the Do Not Go list. I really don’t understand the whole situation, and will have to do some research once I’m back home and able to google at will. It seems some academics wish to separate from Morocco (Abdul likened it to the Catalan in Spain or the Kashmir in Pakistan) and apparently the Algerian government has been supportive of this separation. A quasi country has been set up in the south west of Morocco called “Western Morocco” but it has only the support of Algeria, Cuba and Kenya, so it’s not really a separate country. So there has been tense relations between the Moroccans and Algerians and then in 1994 a hotel was bombed in Marrakesh, and the finger was apparently pointed at the Algerians. The two governments closed the border between the two countries leaving extended families unable to get back and forth to see each other. The King of Morocco has recently made overtures to Algeria to re-opening the board, but the Algerians have not yet officially responded.
Back to our travels, after our stop at the Saffron shop, we went on to our overnight stop called Taroudant for the night and once again have a lovely Riad. And we actually have some time to enjoy it for a change. We arrived mid-afternoon in time for a swim before an excellent dinner at the Riad. I managed to get caught up on some of my blogging and we had an early night with a late start tomorrow morning.
Lois' Adventures 