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2010 Morocco Tour Group Journal |
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Click
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Day 07 Merzouga |
  Awoke to a
beautiful sunny day in our hotel in the middle of a date orchard. The crowds were
gone by the time we were ready to leave the hotel. Before we left ,we
went through the check list: the picnic lunch was packed, the soap
and shampoo that we were collecting through out the tour was on the
van to be delivered to the nomad family in the Sahara, the water for
the day was purchased and loaded and the bank cards were there for
us to be used for the last time until the coming holiday was over.
The 09:30 departure was delayed until we down loaded the web site
for our group journal.None of us recognized Rachid in his Cowboy outfit. The first stop was the ATM in Erfoud. We all got what we wanted. Jim was out of luck again. We will make another phone call to his bank. This is becoming a routine for our days. Drove in to the town and the streets were full of early morning activity. Lots of people, donkey carts and traffic. may be they are getting ready for the upcoming holiday. Many ladies in colorful attire mixed in with ladies in black kaftans. We went shopping in the busy market for the dried food items. We will give to the Berber family when we have lunch in their tent. |
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The faces of Erfoud !
Our first search was a house with Berber drawings on the door. We saw every door in the village but not the one we were looking for. Well that is life! We did see , though, how the houses in the desert village were all equipped with solar panels. They now had satellite dishes, refrigerators and light for school children. the women were shy. The children were adorable. Not finding the house worked out well because we got to see lots more!! Our next stop was the marvel of three million years. Once upon a time, 3 million years ago, Sahara was an ocean. When the water started to evaporate, the creatures of the sea started congregating in the shallow waters of the disappearing ocean. Finally when the water was completely depleted, they were stacked on each other and were fossilized. Unfortunately, environmentally quite irresponsible Moroccan government allows the fossils to be quarried to replace marble blocks. The few natural examples of the fossils survived were still laying on the ground of Sahara. |
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Then
we drove to a tent of a Berber nomad family, where we ate the
lunch that we brought. Which was chicken, tomatoes, cucumbers, eggs
bread and potatoes and bananas. The Berber lady served us tea as we
sat in her tent and ate our lunch. We were sitting on colorful
hand made carpets. The woman showed us how she was spinning camel
and goat hair in to yarn. The woman was so gracious and
loving. Her 17 year old daughter is getting ready to be married. The tiny goat wandered in to the
tent but was restrained by the daughter. Their yellow cat was
begging for food asking us in cat voices to feed it.
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Click
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Day 07 Merzouga |
