Touring central Morocco

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Our blog entries are a little out of sequence, this is mainly due to internet connections and general frustration. In between Marrakesh and the Sahara, we toured to the coast, Essaouaria and then inland to Ait Benhaddou and the Todre and Dades Gorges before reaching the desert.

We rented a car and as it turned out, it was a good idea, A/C or not, mainly because we got to see a little of everything and in a shorter time than if by bus.

After leaving the sweltering Marakesh, we arrived in Essaouaria. It was a beautiful little town on the coast with a walled UNESCO city center. The cool breezes and 'cold' nights were welcome and I had the best Lamb tajine cooked with apricots and prunes, a strange but scrumptious combo.

We left Essaouaria and headed inland to the Gorges. Our first night was spent in Ait Benhaddou at the friendliest little Kasbah fully equiped with a pool. The hotel offered beds on the roof for $3 US and, minus the insects, we had a relatively comfortable cool sleep. We got up at the crack of dawn and watched the sun come up over Ait Benhaddou. If you've ever seen The Gladiator, Lawrence of Arabia, The Mummy or Jesus of Nazareth you might recognize Benhaddou. All of these movies were filmed here. During the filming of Jesus of Nazareth, the crew rebuilt a large portion of the Kasbah. But it is currently under UNESCO protection and is said to be one of the best preserved in the country.

We then drove through the Atlas mountains which were stunning and arrived at the Dades Gorge. After winding our way through the strangest rock formations, we arrived at our guest house, watched the football game with the locals and headed for the Todre Gorge. The canyons that make up these gorges are enormous, dry, hot little pockets. Our guest house in Todre was fantastic. Le Festival, the guesthouse, is owned by Adi who can speak perfect English, French and Spanish not including at least 2 local dialects. We spent the night chatting with Adi and ate one of the best tagines of the trip. His guesthouse is a work in progress. He was in the process of building a retaining structure for water and cave rooms for guests..impressive. It was a fantastic spot and we would have stayed longer if we weren't on a schedule.

Hopefully the pictures can share some of what we saw.

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Photos

The next morning
We got up at sunrise and hiked to see the sun come up on Ait Benhaddou

Ait Benhaddou
Look familiar??

Check out the temp!
This was in the middle of a 'breezy' city street, we guessed inland it had to have been 55+...the hottest ever!

Adi and Karim
This is the fantastic guesthouse in Todre Gorge, these guys were super helpful and kind