Blogs from Erfoud, Meknès-Tafilalet, Morocco, Africa

After a last early morning breakfast at the enchanting Riad Salam Fes, it was already time to take our leave of the Imperial City of Fes. The air was cool at this early hour as the sun was still low in the sky, but the pale pinkish light was slowly creeping into the shadow-filled corners of the medina as the residents of Fes were waking up and beginning their busy day. Yesterday’s tour of Fes, while enjoyable, had taken on a frenetic pace as there were so many important sites to see in just one day. The day ahead (Day 6) would mean a lot of time on the bus, but I was looking forward to having “down” time just watching the scenery go by, though I later regretted not taking this opportunity to jot down ... read more

Today we started the long drive south with a visit to a ski resort. Yup, a ski resort in Morocco - I feel a little stupid for not knowing that such things exist but the Sahara does not usually share countries with ski resorts. Fortunately the sun was shining and the shops selling postcards of snow-covered mountains seemed a little incongruous. The whole town seemed to have been modelled after a European ski resort with Swiss-style chalets and gardens everywhere. Odd but quite nice to stop for tea (they sold actual tea, not just the usual coffee or hot mint-water with enough sugar to put anyone in a coma that is usually the only thing on offer), before heading on. Next stop was unscheduled and brought about by someone screeching that there were monkeys next to ... read more

Morocco 31 Aug to 8 Sept 2013 (Section 2) DAY 4 THROUGH THE ZIZ GORGES TO ERFOUD AND WESTERN SAHARA. We left the bustle of the city behind and headed for the spectacular High Atlas Mountains which are snow capped in the winter. We then passed through Ifrane before reaching the great cedar forests of Azrou. We also travel up through the magnificent Ziz Gorges, past palm fringed towns to Er Rachidia, built by the French at an important crossroads. When we arrived in Erfoud, we saw the red sand buildings contrast against the surrounding desert. We then were divided into groups of 4 and 5 and jumped into jeeps from our hotel and travelled 50 km to the sand dunes of the Sahara, which took us to a point where we witnessed the glorious sunset ... read more

The road you should take...... A journey to Morocco takes most people to the bigger cities of Casablanca, Rabat, Fes, and Marrakesh among others. This is all well and good, but there is so much more to this country than just the large cities. This statement is true of most countries of course, but the emphasis here is on the magical countryside of Morocco, where there is so much to take in with limited time. In our case, it really helps to have a wonderful guide who is very familiar with the entire country and it’s history. It is even more helpful as he also does the driving, freeing us up to take in all the beauty. The perfect plan….. Casablanca and Rabat are both on the Atlantic coast and rather close to one another. We ... read more

Saharan Adventure Most of the next day was spent on the bus, in various stages of sleeping or reading. We had a rest stop at a very nice hotel where they offered us tea and pastries, and we found out we would have lunch there on the way back from the desert! img=http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-sjc1/hs504.snc3/26469_1319006178622_1334790173_30957525_7174626_n.jpg img=http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc3/hs484.snc3/26469_1319006258624_1334790173_30957526_560232_n.jpg img=http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash1/hs484.ash1/26469_1319006338626_1334790173_30957527_5310723_n.jpg img=http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash1/hs484.ash1/26469_1319006378627_1334790173_30957528_7503192_n.jpgMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM Lunch wasn’t until four PM, but we didn’t exactly exert a lot of ene... read more