The Atlas Mountains

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Here we go again, trying to type English on a French keyboard!

This morning we woke up early drove through busy Marrakech and were treated by the beautiful Atlas mountains. There is really no way to describe what an incredible experience it was, but I will try and do it some justice (thank goodness for the camera!). The mountain ranges leave you breathless and the view is ever changing. The crayon-box blue sky was the back-drop for the rusty colored homes that blended in seamlessly into the rock of the mountain side. The most spectacular views were dipping into the valley and how the lush green folliage contrasts with the brown tones of the Kasbas and offset by the bluest of skies.

We shared the car with a man by the name of Pascal from France who turned out to be a wealth of interesting information, and he arranges decar? rallys for woman who drive and navigate Morocco using only maps and a compass. He has been coming to Morocco for the last 20 years and was greatful to share a ride with us because it meant that he didn't have to share a taxi with six other passengers for six hours. Just to put things in perspective, the taxis here are slightly smaller than my little Honda Civic... and I thought that Sharing my car with two boys was starting to feel cramped!

We got to drive by parts of where Hidalgo was filmed and we got to see one of the three biggest movie production areas. There is Hollywood in the USA, Bollywood in India (so Pascal tells us), and CLA in Ouarzazate. On our way back to Marrakech we are going to take a tour of the grounds which looks rather large from the outside. It looks very simimar to scenes in the Kingdom, Gladiators, small parts of Robin Hood and the Mummy. Aziz tells us that he was not only the driver for the director, but he has small roles in Hidalgo and the Mummy (we'll have to re-watch them just to look for him).

We continue to work on learning little bits of Moroccan Arabic, but it really is all of the french that I thought that I forgot I knew that is coming in helpful (plus Aziz is very good at filling us in on what we miss). I am glad to have the opportunity to actually try to speak what little French I know, and Aziz and Pascal where teaching us how to say things in both french and Arabic. Aziz can speach Arabic, French, Italian, Spanish, and English. We think that his english is pretty good, but he says that he is even better at speaking Italian and Spanish. It is easy to see the value of being multi-lingual here, and all of the little tid-bits of other languages that we know is being put to the test.

We slowly making our way to Erfoud (only 500kms from where we arrived) where we will be working. The drive is long and sometimes difficult. Tomorrow we might get to go and see the Kasbas where we will be working and today we picked up more supplies at the market marijan (our equivallent of a Costco crossbread with a walmart). But I enjoyed the music so much the other night that I have asked Aziz if we can go and hear some more.

We will try to blog again tomorrow if we can find the internet...

We miss you Karen!

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