“A ROAD TOWARDS THE DUNE “.
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A Moroccan chronicle. Annie Beghin, (Khadija) .
Wednesday January 4. Tangier Port . Morocco.
It’s nearly midnight when I leave with relief the long distance’s bus which links Nice in France to Morocco .
My ticket includes the transport till Casablanca, the next morning, but I have thought that“ enough is enough”.
I was stuck on my seat since during six hours .The only way out was for short breaks in the motorways restaurants’ dreariness for meals, drinks and toilets and a slow transshipment on the ferry to cross the Strait of Gibraltar.
I spoke a little with my travel’s companions. A Franco Moroccan woman wife of a doctor was seated beside me .Behind stays a worker from Casablanca, his wife and children living in Italia. They have gone before him by flight to Morocco to celebrate in the family circle, the great festival of Aid al Adha or Kabir, the “sheep’s feast” like people tell here in the South of Mediterranean Sea.
Aid festival is expected soon. It’s a week of détente and family’s gatherings.
It’s a come back to the motherland for numerous people from Maghreb’s origins living in Europe, which rush in the international road- transports. They are overloaded with luggage, parcels and gifts , happy to spend long annual holidays in their native countries..
For me it’s different. I got the intuition of a travel to the South, towards the desert, while in November in France even in my valley near the French Riviera happen some rainy days and an early coldness.
My nostalgia of Pakistan, the mildness of Islamabad in winter, my Asiatic stays on the previous years; all these feelings woke up suddenly in my mind.
In France I feel disconnected, like an uprooted eastern woman.
But an huge catastrophe has just struck in the mountainous places of Pakistan where I went for explorations since long years. An earthquake of 7.6 intensity in the early hours of Saturday October 8th destroyed an entire mountain area, in Azad Kashmir and in four districts of NWFP,( renamed Khyber Pakhtunwah in 2010) mostly Hazara ,Allai and Kohistan areas .
Even Islamabad the capital, was shaken by the tremors which killed in mountain about 90 000 people, among them a lot of children trapped in the schools and women in their houses. An equal number of victims were wounded, of which many were amputated. A lot of orphans survived in risk to be smuggled illegally. And about 3 millions of people stayed homeless.
The challenge of rescuing everybody as quickly as possible became a logistic nightmare for the Pakistan Government soon helped by its Army and by all bodies concerned in the world. United Nations were assisted by NATO, US army setting an “air bridge” to transport International and Pakistani assistances for the victims. All NGOs available, local and international reached the devastated places, working night and day to help on the field, the threat of a snowy winter becoming a new risk for the survivors mostly blocked in remote hamlets above 5000 feet.
Large refugees’ camps were built in the main towns and also near the houses’ wreckages in the area, like Muzzafarabad or Balakot. It were set for some months in Islamabad and Rawalpindi .Beside most of people stay in their village, in high places ,in small camps, winter tents and tarpaulins in insufficient number, or building shelters with corrugated iron brought by helicopters with the remaining walls of their fallen houses. The poor people must face a terrible winter with negative freezing temperatures, not enough food to face hypothermia, and the daily risk of epidemics such pneumonia, diarrheas, scabies.
They endure starvation .And they fear the relentless after- shocks which happen at any time, during months, marking the end of a violent geo seismic episode. It’s a region that wasn’t in major risk on the scale’s map, but an area bordering directly the Grand Himalaya range, Hindu Kusch at West and Karakorum Northwards. The Indian Sub- continent plate moving forward on the Eurasian plate at North has created Azad Kashmir‘ s devastation. The destruction that we had feared in the escalation of geopolitical tensions between India and Pakistan in 2001, 2002, the armies of the two neighbor countries in a risky confrontation at the borders, during one year, the populations along the LOC already traumatized by the Indian shelling, all that was realized in another way, not human but the way of natural catastrophe, like in some Greek tragedies where the people are condemned by an inescapable destiny .
The misfortune, hideous and blind has struck at the heart of a population which cried already its sorrow since long time, since the partition of Indian empire, Kashmir .
In its dream of unity and identity it has made the actuality in the politic and social life in Pakistan since the beginning, and the subject of several wars between the two neighbors India having attached the other part of Kashmir, with the “Valley” of Srinagar, to its Union since 1947, this unsolved conflict considered by geopolitical analysts as a potential nuclear flash point in South Asia.
I returned to France from Pakistan, end of September 2005, 10 days only before the catastrophe due to health problems, a fragility to infections which took off my self-confidence, necessary in the social and public life of the cosmopolitan capital.
This vulnerability saved me because I used every year in the beginning of October to spend some days in Khagan valley, sleeping in Balakot, nowadays a city of ruins with more than 20 000 people dead.
I want so much to be useful but I haven’t special skills or means to go there in the humanitarian field and mainly I know that I will not be able to face the trauma of the catastrophe and the lack of sanitation in the tough emergency’s conditions.
I will catch quickly any contagious disease and that will make my presence even more embarrassing.
Then I feel totally powerless front of this terrific cataclysm.
I have decided to come back in Pakistan when I will find again my stamina.
I have to test me by a travel in a different country of an easier access, less far than Asia, but a country that I don’ t know, without the help given by friends like the last summer in Swat and Gilgit in Pakistan when I was ill.
I have to check if I can get again my taste for adventure and risks and my self-control in case of difficulties. I have to be responsible of myself abroad.
For that purpose I have chosen to reach the desert in the South of Morocco, by road.
Not any day but for the Aid al Kabir festival, thinking that it will bring me luck,(Baraka).
Map of the trip in Morocco
In green Annie’s trip .
I pull on my small luggage s’ trolley, heavily loaded with 2 bags .The third is hoisted on my back like a common backpacker.
I ask myself where I will spend the night in Tangier.
A long line of street-lights demarcate clear areas, where a number of militaries and policemen control the sensitive facilities of the port . I ask them my way and the taxi station. I pass the check-post at the gates. A short while later I reach the “Avenue d’Espagne”. There I find soon a taxi driver who helps me to change my money in Dirham* ( 1 euro= 10,7 dirham) .He rips off me ,asking me a high fare to go till the Ibn Batuta hotel, only 5 minutes by car.
I am happy to reach the hotel at mid- level of a steep road. It is quoted on the book” guide du Routard”.
I ask for a quiet room. I get it at the last floor opening on the terrace, but the bathroom is in another corner. The hot shower before sleep is a last effort before to collapse on the bed.
I wake up suddenly some hours later feeling frozen. I discover that the room is merely a verandah walled by glass panes without isolation.
It will be my first lone experience in Morocco a country with a reputation of Mediterranean mild weather, where heaters are not present in winter in the medium standard hotels.
I end the night wrapped up in my mountain down- jacket .
Thursday January 5.
At 8 in the morning a blue sky appears through the window .A pale sun invade my bedroom like to encourage me.
I get dressed and go out in the next street. I enter in the first coffee-shop and eat my breakfast among Moroccan customers, kind people on their way to their work. I watch the daily life and forget soon the creepy impression of the night walking alone at the port.
Tangier is the haven of all traffics, the door of Africa, a magic or cursed city with its mythic history at the junction of two civilizations.
I leave the hotel at 12 towing my inseparable companion of trip ,the old trolley bought the previous year to go to Corsica a few days for eve new year.
At Tangier before the bus 's departure for Fez
I reach the CTM*, (Moroccan Transports Company) the bus station near the gates of the port.
I buy a ticket for Fez, my next stage, about 300 kilometers at South East in the “Middle- Atlas” region.
Fez is known as the cultural and spiritual capital of Morocco.
A moment later we leave Tangier and its white buildings rising in tiers above the sea. A traffic jam slows down the bus .Later it reaches the surrounding countryside then passes Tetouan towards the south of the Rif range.
The landscape of mountains is covered by green oaks .It shall (from the tale), hide secret paths by which drug traffickers of cannabis, (named Kif in Morocco where plantations should be possible for family use but not for sale ) transport their products until the main road from which it is dispatched everywhere in the country and abroad.
My neighbor a young man very stout sticks a little out of his seat on mine’s. He tells me about his life .
He doesn’t want to leave Tetouan where he has a house, a young wife, and an uncertain job in a band hired for family events, such as weddings. He invites me kindly in his house when I will wish to learn Arabic .
Then appears Chefchaouen built on the steps of a horny mountain. Everywhere the markets in open air are invaded by crowds buying goods for Aid, fruits like dates, bananas, oranges.
Sheep are gathered in the dust of large compounds.
The faithful are ready to follow the Islamic ritual come from the Holy Prophet Abraham when Allah ordered him to offer a sacrifice like a sheep or another animal and spare his son Ismael from his wrath.
Tetouan market. Aid Bazaar.
In this valley olive plantations are the main culture and the villages along the road are famous for their production of the tasty green oil. In January people collect already the small fruits, a symbol of the Mediterranean civilization.
At sunset we stop a while at the small town of Ouazzane.
I drink hot tea with mint leaves in a restaurant where larges pieces of meat are cut in open air front of the customers. People in the room behind eat kebabs with pancakes.
Then the bus starts again .We pass small towns lightened in gold and pink in the glowing l sunset.
The mosques’ minarets appear in white or green and the muezzins ’call for prayer spread around like a harmonious connection between Allah and the Muslims.
I feel here the deep serenity of Orient .
The bus goes on in the starring night. More and more often, check posts of the Moroccan Gendarmerie across the road stop the vehicles .Men in gray uniforms climb in the bus .They watch us then leave the place to discuss outside with the driver and check the luggage in the side’s compartments.
Then they let us go after sharing great “Salamalecs” with the driver.
We reach Fez late at 9 PM. My back is ached by the long journey since France.
I collect my luggage in the coldness. Fez is located in altitude at about 1000 meters. Its winters are freezing.
I have to search for the Hotel Amor . I have noted it on the map of my useful guide-book.
Before that I need to buy a bus ticket for the South Moroccan, in the desert. The next stage for me should be Ar-Rachidia or Rissani, about 500 km Southwards in the Tafilalet Province.
But it’s bad news for me: there is no any place the next days in this reliable autobus company, (owned by the Moroccan Government).
Aid festival is coming soon and many people return to their family far away.
The ticket officer advices me kindly to start again towards Marrakech and try to pass by the Tichka pass, to reach Ouarzazate in the South of Atlas range : it represents about 15 hours of bus travel.
On his computer a place is free.
I don’t accept it because my route’s planning is opposite. I wish to turn same than the time clock, and not to go at random, perhaps because I am superstitious.
I decide to pass the week- end at Fez and around, at the thermal station of Moulay Yakoub, where I intend to find again my fitness.
And with a good calculation I shall reach the desert for Aid festival, after a travel by night -coach the next Monday.
The hotel Amor is well placed at the center of the new city of Fez.
I find fascinating to consult a town’s map before to find the place I want to go.
The sketch doesn’t speak by itself, it just locates. The imagination is blind front of the simple lines and names of the places.
But then, when a town is discovered little by little it becomes tame to the visitor, its reality sometimes becoming attaching. Unknown cities are ready to wear our life-experiences, animated by our walks, at the mercy of the daily needs, the wanderings or the studious visits in the tourist spots.
I book a cool and clean room at first floor, with high windows opening on a back courtyard.
I don’t want to spend too much for my lodging .It will depend of my shape.
When feeling too tired I will give in to the sweetness of comfortable places with several stars, provided with A C heater, bath ,TV.
Meanwhile my room here is quiet. I pile up on my bed some wool’s blankets happily found in the cup- board.
Friday January 6.
I wake up suddenly, a grey and heavy sky lighting faintly the bedroom: it’s 8 in the morning and as soon as I can move I dress up and jump down to the bakery close to the hotel where I spoil myself with rolls full of almond’s cream and a large cup of black coffee. In the same time, I try to make a plan for my day of visit at Fez .First I want to go to the Medina,( old city ) figuring in the World Patrimony of UNESCO, with a population of about 50 000 people, mostly living with craft industry and touristic shops.
At ten when I am ready I take a taxi for the Medina with an official guide the doorkeeper of the hotel has sent for me, but with which unluckily I don’t feel any affinity.
Front of the blue gate at Fez Medina.
His learned tone and his determined pace in the complex labyrinth of the Medina, the way he has to lead me towards shopkeepers with which he may be connected, to push me to buy such things as carpets and my own will to wander around following my curiosity, slowly because my left knee is painful and a kind of electric current strikes it wickedly at unexpected moments .This problem makes me more and more irritated.
I end telling him that his presence is not very useful for me .
Later I follow him to the Zaouia*, (shrine and mosque) of Moulay Idriss,( the son of the founder of Fez) , entering alone by one of the seven doors. I do a Dua,( prayer) for my next journey to the desert.
Then in a tiny shop we find a small Moroccan costume for my granddaughter, 3 years’ old . I haggle a while over the price like it’s the use in the bazaars.
I end the tour laming alone in the Najjerin Museum, a beautiful building showing in its 3 floors all the works done with wood. The guide is waiting outside..
After the 3 hours fixed by the regulation we leave the place in a small taxi.
Friday prayers will happen soon. I plan to return later in the Medina alone.
The showers intensify making my day miserable. I have decided to warm myself by a passage to the Hamm am ( steam bath) close by to the hotel.
The place is not clean, there is not even a cloakroom but the women around are kind.
They give me a bucket and a cup to splash myself with hot water.
In my inner side I hope to don’t catch a dirty microbe when the massage I have asked for my back is prepared on a dubious mat on the flooded ground of a foggy room.
One hour later I rush out of the Hamm am with a paranoia of infection and as soon as I am in my hotel I soap me with frenzy.
At evening I face the harsh wind and a torrential rain to reach a good pizzeria at the ” Place of Florence” near my residence.
Invaded by a feeling of “blues” I take a resolution for the next day to improve my situation.
I book a good hotel at the thermal station of Moulay Yakoub, about 15 km ‘distance from Fez.
Saturday January 7
I hire a large taxi,( in Morocco taxis are controlled , the small at the center of the towns and the large ones outside). A cold wind has cleared the sky revealing at South the mountains of Atlas covered with snow, towards Ifrene, (where is built a ski -station).
Along the road I look at the landscape. Brown barren hills crowned by white villages contrast with the busy great city of Fez.
I see very few people in the countryside. I have read that in Morocco the rural density is 41 h/km2.
My short stay at the hotel Moulay Yakoub, a 4 stars’ resort at the top of the village is lucky because I get a special price for half pension while a vehicle from the hotel will drive me at the modern thermal resort, 2 km faraway.
I like my bedroom, a suitable place with all facilities and a large balcony opening on the landscape of Middle Atlas. I fix at 30 c° the AC set , switch on the TV and watch the news on BBC which announce the major brain stroke of the Prime Minister of Israel Ariel Sharon.
I prepare then for the dive in the sulfurous water of the pools at 45°c.
The hotel driver stops front of the new thermal center. I enter a beautiful place where thalassotherapy is offered to clients at a cheaper rate than in Europe. A compartment and a white thick bathrobe are provided to me .I chose the large swimming pool covered with a glass dome.
Around the steaming water plastic armchairs welcome the people, foreigners and some wealthy Moroccans .
I immerse with delight in the hot water.
A massage woman comes to me at the end of the bath to complete the treatment.
Later I leave the place in better shape.
Luxury is so enjoyable but it’s better to don’t taste it always because one gets used to.
When I come back to the hotel I have already organized the following days of my trip in a more Spartan way to watch the daily life of ordinary Moroccan people.
At evening in the dining room I appreciate the dietetic food. At the next table a team of Moroccan young sportsmen belonging to Fez saucer club are present. They do here a fitness s’ training.
Sunday January 8
To day begins for me the transition towards a modest way of life.
I return to thermal baths but this time in the old traditional building in the lower part of the village.
There people can during day and night get a quick dip in the burning water full of curative qualities.
I walk down the long stairs which pass through the village.
Local life is animated by the baths .All around shopkeepers sell all the necessary paraphernalia, plastic shoes, buckets, horsehair belts, soap and shampooing, at cheap prices. A steam of sulfur marks the place of the old resort. There the rates are ten times lower than the previous day at the hot spring new resort.
In the lounge it’s no cloakroom, just a desk behind which old and stout employees, the head covered by a scarf are busy in endless discussion .They collect the cloths in large plastic bags.
Old baths’ entrance at Moulay Yakoub.
I go down the slippery stairs towards the women bath and enter the misty hot place where a round swimming pool of deep green water gives off the sulfurous steams.
I put my foot in the water. I am watched by the smiling women but I take it off quickly such it’s burning, perhaps 55°c. I learn that the water of the pool has just been renewed.
Women are relaxing seated or lying at the edge of the bath; they use the buckets and the mugs to spray and soap themselves. They chat and relax in family, from old shapeless mammies to young girls playing and running. Some push joyful “you-you”, perhaps coming at Moulay Yakoub for a wedding.
Some young women have hairs covered with a helmet of henna mixture, spreading on their faces.
They try to speak with me in Arabic. But few young women use French. This language is in Morocco a mark of education.
I stay a while in this women’s assembly in a warm ambiance which makes me think to the matrix, the maternal world of our origins, a come back to the spring of life in the beneficial waters come from the depth of the earth.
Then I leave the place happy, my arms and legs red and burning.
I climb slowly the stairs which link the two parts of the village. All my energy has gone off. My weak knee has woken the sciatic nerve which threatens to block me in the middle of the way.
I leave in afternoon Moulay Yakoub Hotel, its bungalows and its sweetness while the taxi driver of the previous day, a trustworthy man, come from Fez to accompany me for a turn around of the walls of the old city.
The long ramparts wrap up the Medina while the Bordj, (forts) were used by army in the past to control the countryside and the possible intruders. From the place destined to be transformed in official museum and panoramic restaurants I admire a splendid view of the 3 towns of Fez, a large agglomeration of 1 million people.
The clear sky brings me a good mood .
I need good climatic conditions to do the long trip by bus until the desert, two nights later.
The roads to the South have been closed these last days through the pass of Haut Atlas, by Azrou and mostly the Tichka Pass southwards of Marrakech. There some people died of coldness stranded in their car during the snow storm.
I have had a good intuition to begin my trip by Fez instead Marrakech.
The guide- book” of the Routard” has given me a clever idea for my stay at Fez before the departure of my bus on Monday night. I have reserved a very cheap hotel (70 dirham= 7 Euros) near the bus station of CTM. This will allow me to keep my luggage in the room until the last moment and then go by foot at the station at only 200 meters’ distance. I will pay for 2 nights to relax before the long trip of 500 kilometers.
The stays in hotels are always inadequately ending at 12 AM, whatever the departure’s time.
This journey is like a “yoyo” game,( up and down) so different are my standings .
The room at first floor above several coffee-restaurants offers only a washbasin .It’s no heater and the large window opens on a nice plaza, lined with planes. The place is very lively.
A relentless racket of horns points out the daily end of job for the workers on their way back to their suburbs’ homes.
A tide of passers-by pours out of the numerous urban bus which stop at the center of the Atlas Plaza.
Many Moroccan men wear local Djellaba, (full cloak) .Other are in western dress.
Some of them stand on the pavements perhaps waiting something or someone. Many seem idle.
Women head covered with Hijab*,( full scarf hiding face and hairs),students or mothers with their children do shopping to purchase food in the shops along the avenues.
It’s a popular sector.
The family which owns the hotel lives in a flat at the end of the corridor beyond my room.
A large terrace is used by the women who dry the house’s cloths in the pale sunshine of January.
The hotel is very tidy. The old tiled floor glows to be always scrubbed down by crouching servant women, efficient and silent.
At evening I eat at a small restaurant in open air at the ground floor of the hotel.
For a small amount of dirhams I get a plateau of yellow rice and roast chicken, with potatoes and Chinese noddle. I have adopted the national drink: large glass full of hot tea packed with mint’s leaves.
Thinking that the night will be very noisy in my room above the coffee-shops I decide to watch a movie at the near cinema.
I will not be deceived by the ambiance of the evening.
Alone I stir up the curiosity of local people. The mere fact to ask the program me at the desk of the cinema attracts the good will of the employee who wishes that I seat beside him in waiting.
The two movies of the evening are not very intellectual. First it’s “Jackie Chan, Mister Cool “,in French, where from the beginning to the end its only fighting at a speedy rhythm. I cannot help to laugh a lot in my box, at the first floor, the large cinema almost desert.
The second movie in Hindi language called “Splash” is about a wedding with slushy songs and Indian dances but the story is so insipid that I decide to come back to my hotel before the end.
It’s 10 pm .The streets are quiet. I cross the plaza but then I am followed in a cavalier manner by a lone ageing man. I become angry and speak toughly to the guy who leaves quickly the place in grumbling while the waiters in the near coffee-shops laugh soundly front of my fast reaction.
I get a night of light sleep a bit disturbed by the metal shutters of the shops lowered towards 2 am.
Somebody walks in the corridor next to my room.
Monday January 9.
The new day begins with a clear sky. Sparrows sing in the foliage of the high plane front of my window.
I take it like a good omen for the following of my journey.
In the morning I do again a visit to the Medina, going alone by urban bus.
My plan is to cross from Bab Boujouloud*, (door of the tanners) near the place Batha, to Bab al Rassid, one kilometer down .There I will take another bus, beyond the ramparts. I want to enjoy once again the magical world of the souks, madrassas, shrines and mosques, (there are 320 mosques in this small space ) built here since centuries.
A young student met on the way asks to be my guide to cross the medina.
His family lives here. They are tanners, the work of leather being the most renowned in Fez.
The guy leads me in the labyrinth made by tiny alleys where a crowd of passersby move uneasily, blocked at times by carriages, lines of stubborn donkeys, carts full of living sheep aimed to the Aid ‘s sacrifice. Thousands of passages by foot may lead to secret houses, hotels, shops full of treasures, like in the story of “Ali Baba” .
Some groups of Western tourists wander escorted by their guide.
Many policemen in uniforms pace up and down the old town’s narrow passages,( a terrorist attack the previous year).
My guide makes distance between us because it’s officially forbidden for locals to work with foreigners for security reasons,( thieves). In the narrow alleys’ maze it’s very easy to lose someone and disappear behind doors.
But my guide is honest. After one hour as agreed he leaves me front of the Bab al Rassid gate.
Beyond a parking and a bus stop mark the come back to modernity.
In the evening before to set off to the CTM station for my night trip to the desert I go to the large mosque
at the top of the street to do Maghreb prayers.
Before Aid festival I am happy to live my faith openly and enter the mosques to make the “dua” for my journey. This must bring me good luck (Baraka).
In Morocco the only problem is that the mosques are only opened at prayers’ hours, perhaps to avoid gatherings for security’s reasons. The moderate Muslim image of the Cherifian Kingdom has been damaged since the terrorist attacks in Casablanca in May 2003.
This evening at the first floor above the men’ hall, besides full cladded women, (from head to toes) standing in a tidy row, I share with them during a short moment the same faith. But I know lucidly that I am too independent to live it in community in my daily life.
Eventually at 9 pm I leave the hotel by foot with my small carriage. I reach soon the bus station.
At the desk I register my luggage until Rissani .Then I phone to the tourism officer there to confirm my arrival in the desert’s town .I have booked the trip from the Amor Hotel at Fez.
He will come to pick me there early in the morning and will send me to Merzouga at about 40 km in jeep, to spend Aid in a Kasbah,(traditional country house), a touristic resort of camel drivers near the Chebbi Erg, towards the border with Algeria.
A while later I am squeezed on my seat in the bus. My neighbor is a student woman from Al- Rachidia who comes back in her family for the festival.
I prepare myself for the long night’s drive.
We cross first the Atlas ranges.
Plateaus and mountains covered with snow surround our route where long cues of vehicles move cautiously. At the breaks it’s freezing. I run to the tea-shop for a hot tea.
We pass through small towns numbed in the coldness .The bus goes on under the transparent starring sky.
I see on a signboard: Azrou .There may be there a cedars’ forest occupied by monkeys ,
Midelt traditional buildings settle under the Djebel Ayachi .
For me it will be just names on a map.
Tuesday January 10.
Dawn takes me out of a hard sleep .I am huddled up on my seat and I eat painkiller piles for my back become stiff.
The landscape has changed. Palm groves gather in large oasis. Low houses protected by red crenellated walls look like small fortress.
We have reached the South, a Reg* (barren plain), black and stony.
Above in the distance rocky grey hills stand like silent sentinels. They are perhaps reminding the ancient presence there dozen of millions of years ago of the huge Jurassic’s dinosaurs. They were our predecessors on earth and some tracks exist in this region till Ouarzazate at West .
I feel like reaching another country.
We pass Er-Rachidia, then Erfoud, where pools of rainwater are scattered along the road, after the last spell of bad weather.
In the early morning the bus stops at Rissani, the ancient capital of the Cherifian dynasty of Alaouites, following its founder, Moulay Ali Cherif .His shrine is erected near the town.
In the past Rissani was the economic capital of Morocco and a transit center for caravans between Morocco, Mali and Niger.
The place to day seems numbed with its long desert street lined with Kasbahs .
Some are restored in cozy hotels .
The town built in low pink buildings is left to the winter and the sands of the desert.
It’s no more crowds at the bus station but a young man named Mohammad is waiting for me at the vehicle’s door. He brings my luggage to the back of a land-rover and leads me to the Berber driver who will leads me to Merzouga, at about one hour of drive.
My efforts to speak with the man seeming a Touareg of Sahara with his blue turban and his eyes lined with khôl, meet only a reply:” Chouia”* ( a little). And my limited Arabic vocabulary learnt in the Assimil book, such as “ma smouk” :what is your name?” lets him mute.
Then I watch the barren landscape, flat and stony. The land cruiser has left the metaled road.
It follow a track in the sands marked by tires’ prints.
We go towards the East of Chebbi Erg, outside the villages and the palm grove of Merzouga.
An high dune of gold colored sand overlooks the Kasbahs used as lodges for trips in the desert on camels ’back.
A line of high cliffs marks the border with Algeria at about 40 kilometers eastwards.
This limit is very controlled by Moroccan army, mainly after a large and media tic flow of illegal immigrants come from Mali and Sub Saharan Africa.
They tried in their survival‘s journey towards Europe to reach Tangier and Gibraltar Strait or the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla Northwards.
Arrival at Merzouga.
My arrival to the Al-Amra Kasbah is welcomed by the camel drivers and the tenant who offers me a hot coffee mug in the courtyard under the mild sunshine. It’s 8.30 am.
The inn is a squared group of low buildings in pise (dried crude mud), cut on each side by large gates leading to the dunes or to large nomadic tents used for tourists’ groups.
The hotel offers some nice bedrooms in the Berber style.
I get one with a romantic view on the dune, a bathroom and a large bed .
Unluckily it is so unstable that it will need to be fixed with girths if I don’t want to crash on the floor during my sleep.
Front of my room, in the long lounge furnished with nice Berber chests and carpets, a group of young Spanish” baba cools”, makes his nest “in scratching guitars.
They come from a Moroccan music festival. They are the age of my younger son.
I have imagined spending the Aid festival among faithful Muslims and I find myself in a “Pink Floyd” ambiance, (folk music, long hairs, peace and love, “leave things that you cannot control” fashionable in the “Eighties “ ).
But I need a rest to find again my inner peace front of the desert, where dunes advance in large waves and where time failing to stop, slows down marked by the successive passages of the sun on the four walls of the Kasbah.
Later I cannot resist to ascent the near front dune 100 meters above the Kasbah.
In the morning I watch in the distance the points of the young tourists who climb there carrying old skis belonging to the inn. Then they slide down the slope drawing larges arabesques in the gilded sands.
At midday I walk also towards the dune, a small bag on my shoulders with my walkman and a mystic music of Ustad Fateh Ali Khan and Jan Garbarek, “ragas and sagas”
.I bring too my “janamaz”*(prayer’s carpet,) not still a flying “Aladin carpet “which should please me a lot in relieving my back ‘s pains..
I climb heavily along the deep sand’s slope, reaching later the top of the dune by the narrow aesthetic edge, a pure harmony of lines.
At the summit I do my prayer. The weather is calm and warm. Then I seat a while on my carpet, my legs hanging on the other side of the dune .I gaze at the landscape below, the small groups of Kasbahs with their tents ’camps and the camels sleeping around.
It’s not necessary to climb on the higher summits of the earth like I did during ten years to enjoy this feeling of fullness above the materialist world of needs and compromises.
From the top of a dune.
A great while later I go down hopping along the large sand’s scales until the last steps leading to the Kasbah.
Suddenly a nerve in my leg blocks it and I end my walk slowly and painfully, promising myself to don’t move more until my departure for Tineghir 2 days later.
The afternoon goes on .I spent in” farniente”, under the sun, leaning on a bench against the wall of the Inn.
Other tourists have adopted the same position. All people wear odd costumes, long skirts, djellabas, turbans and shapeless hats, sunglass on the nose, large earrings for men, orange or crest hairs for women, in the freedom of this Berber camp..
Camel drivers chat with foreigners, bang their tambourines and sing their nomad melodies marked by the wind and the sand .
The cook-housekeeper of the Inn, named Fatima is a local Berber woman in her late forties.
She runs tirelessly from the kitchen to the courtyard, opening the rooms to the tourists, bringing tea and omelets, preparing the tadjine*(traditional Moroccan meal of meat and vegetables for dinner.
The tenant of the Inn, wearing a beautiful blue- sky djellaba, explains me that the men in this country call indifferently women “Fatima”( the name of one of the daughters of the Holy Prophet Mohammad PBHU) when they recognize their protective and useful influence inside a community.
This Fatima reigns on the place after years working at Rissani.
At 9 pm I go early to bed to recover from the tough bus journey.
In the back courtyard near the tents everybody is seated around a big fire for a musical evening, in the sound of the tams-tams and guitars.
Camels on the Chebbi erg.
I am shared between the wish to go there and the need to rest with my back stiff and aching.
I listen till late the muffled rhythms of nomadic songs, sleeping towards 2 am.
Wednesday January 11. In Morocco it’s the Aid festival.
Behind the Inn Fatima and the camel drivers kill a sheep of which us the tourists will not “see the color”, because the pieces will be distributed around in the other Kasbahs, for the relatives of the Berbers.
Here, no festival, no meal, no mosque.
Tourists are “the kings” and the Berbers are at their disposal, to guide them during some days in the Chebbi Erg to trek and make camping in the sea of dunes, (small) about 50 km of circumference.
I stay here reading “The god of small things “from the Indian Arandathur Roy .It’s a very good best-seller. That got the Booker prize in Canada ).
I do my prayers in the wind, on the terrace roof of the Inn. I am also busy with my clothes ’washing and the consultation of the guide book the “Routard” for my following trip.
I worry a little of the vehicle which may bring me back to Rissani the next morning.
Here no car are available, only camels and its should take a long day to ride one until Rissani..
But the owner reassures me and promises the Land Rover Inch Allah will come the next day ,as soon as the next tourists will be picked up at the bus station to reach the Kasbah.
I am nearly sure that not any bus will start from Rissani on these 3 days of festival.
People stay in their family to celebrate it.
I think that my following stage is Tineghir 150 km westwards.
I ask the hotel to provide the car early.
Suddenly having granted my wish to be in the desert for Aid day I feel that “the charm is broken” and that I must go on my way.
In this last evening at the camels’ Kasbah I listen to my short wave radio, isolated by the headphones.
I feel concerned by the nuclear issue between Iran and the International Community.
The dinning room is decorated with Berber carpets hung on the walls and multicolored cushions on the benches. I am seated near a young French couple just arrived from Zagora with their own vehicle and driver. They have paid for one week’s travel from Paris, their flight included and stay in best hotels but have met bad conditions at the Tichka pass .To-day their package allows only to them an accommodation in the nomad tent .
The woman gives me some antalgics piles. I begin to lack it because as soon as the weather changes I am crippled with aches.
After such harsh stays in the extreme coldness of high altitude during 10 years I feel sometimes old and damaged.
The night is quiet .The Spanish have gone on a 2 days’ ride in the desert .
The newly arrived tourists are tired and everybody is in its bed after dinner.
Thursday January 12.
I wake up at seven. The sky is stripped with stringy grey clouds, a sign of rain.
I watch a last time the dune, enigmatic shape in the wet morning. I know already that I will keep a strong memory of it.
I eat quickly my breakfast, richer every day passing because I don’t get lunch in my journey.
Here it’s white butter, pancakes, black olives, fruits and coffee.
Later outside I pay farewell to the welcoming team of Berbers; tolerant and independent people.
My farewell to Fatima at the Aram Kasbah.
The expected four- wheels vehicle reaches Merzouga soon with its load of tourists, this time two French women coming to visit the dunes by camel’s ride.
We leave the Kasbah in the cruiser.
I find myself with a companion, a young Australian who intends also to go to Ouarzazate and Marrakech.
At Rissani as foreseen no public transport works beside the “great taxis” able to transport up to 6 people, squeezed inside . To-day we are only two and share the fares,(20 euros by people for 150 km, not expensive).
The road enters the valley of Dades. It passes Erfoud and Tinejad small towns surrounded by palm groves in a landscape of arid plateau and distant mountains.
I am a little deceived because I have imagined South of Morocco more imposing.
A laden grey sky and the lack of light flatten the perspectives.
The road stretches its straight ribbon along the large valley, punctuated at the entrances and exits of the towns by fort-shaped gates.
The driver explains us that a lot of people of Dades are nowadays working and living in France. They come back for summer holidays and build modern houses.
At the opposite, French people buy old Kasbahs, restore it and make here a living .They welcome in their guest houses the tourists fond of the desert.
At midday we reach Tineghir set in altitude at about 1340 meters.
The snow is falling in a light curtain on the near mountains of High Atlas, towards Togdha Gorges.
In this journey I have no other choice than to cover the main roads. I am limited by climatic hazards and my weak back. I have cancelled remote treks in some fantastic places of this region, according to the book-guide.
At Tineghir I leave the taxi and the other traveller who wants to go to the Gorges, at 15 km only.
I get a cozy room at the Lamrani Kasbah, a comfortable hotel .
Arrival at Tineghir.
I can eventually enjoy heater by AC and a hot bath. The place is charming in its traditional architecture.
It’s a good place for a one night’s stay.
In afternoon I shake myself of my laziness, rent a bicycle at the hotel and bike to the city center distant from 2 km. I pedal easily on the large Mohammad V Avenue under a light rain.
Popular buildings at the west entrance of the town seem rather decayed.
I find again the traditional ambiance of Morocco when I enter in the sector Aït El Haj Ali.
It’s the ancient jewelers’ settlement named ”the Mellah”.
Narrow alleys radiate from the place, down to the gardens and the palm grove.
In the shadow the old mud’s bricks’ houses sink slowly in the ochre earth with which they were built.
Abandon and passing time work insidiously here.
Few Jew families of craftsmen stay still in this sector.
I have found a guide, a young school teacher living also in this old area.
He helps me to push my bicycle in the steep lanes where a stream of rain colored in red by the blood of late sacrificed sheep flows in the slippery mud.
Tanners in a dead-end are busy to skin bodies of animals .They look at us in smiling.
Some shops open discreetly in the streets, a favor done to the customers at the time of festival .
Then we drink tea at a bar opening on the town’s main plaza .The young man speaks to me about his commitment in the education of children.
I leave him my bike a short while to go to the local mosque called Hassan II for my travel’s prayer.
I am welcomed even if in sport clothes by young men at the entrance, (“come sister, come”).
Front of the Mosque.
While it’s Asr’s time,( afternoon prayer), I do it behind the rows of men the Imam leading the prayer.
Later with the bike and the guide I go up to the hill above the town to see the Kasbah of the late Glaoui, (the ruler) now in ruins. I admire the large panorama formed by the oasis around Tineghir under the black clouds of a coming storm.
I end the visit there .I say good bye to the teacher and jump on the bicycle to reach hurriedly my hotel.
I am well protected by my waterproof clothes.
I am happy of this unexpected excursion which has given me a good idea of Dades valley.
At evening I enjoy a tasty dinner, a “couscous” in the Kasbah-hotel.
I am charmed by the ambiance of oriental palace with its patios and fountains, exotic plants standing everywhere. It’s also a large chimney in the living where a group of old American ladies discuss about the planning of the next day’s visits.
For me it’s a relaxing break before to embark again in my journey in the fancy of the bus, and with the help of Allah, towards the next stage, Ouarzazate about 150 km westwards.
Friday January 13.
I wake up at 6 am to catch a bus as soon as I will reach the city center by taxi.
No breakfast is available so early at my hotel. I eat biscuits and cold instant coffee in my room and rush to the bus station where luckily a vehicle parks for a short break after its night trip from Fez.
It’s full of sleepy passengers. After putting my bags in the lateral compartment I find a seat inside.
Soon the bus moves off.
As a “ backpacker “I get often a faster way to travel than in tour operator but its needs a reserve of imagination, flexibility and the energy to do all things oneself.
Every day I consult the maps in my book, having the choice to stop where I want, to change address or direction.
I built my trip depending the time and the budget I have allowed to it.
This freedom needs too a consistency in the itinerary I choice to make it aesthetic. Even if it’s no complete it must get a meaning like a painting created on a white canvas. I begin by watching the maps then I fill the places with the reality of my experience until the decisive moment when I feel a decrease of my interest and my possibilities. I like to create a loop in the time and in the space.
It’s the contrary of a wandering tour. And I haven’t the will to insert me in the Moroccan society and the daily life like I have tried in Pakistan.
In the Dades valley the road pass to day through the small towns of Boulmane, El Kela N’Mgouna.
The region is famous for its Damascus roses used for perfumes.
But a grey mist let by the late rains hides the landscape and the high mountains of Mgoun, (4068m) northwards and the Djebel Saghro at south.
Outside the bus it’s cold and wet at this altitude a not very known image of the South in winter.
At Skoura a pale sun pierces the fog and the great blue sky appears.
When the vehicle reaches Ouarzazate towards 11 am the weather is clear.
We are at 1160 meters’ height and the High Atlas range glows with fresh snow above the valley.
For me to day it’s an “economic stay .
I search for a cheap hotel and find it by chance. I go out of the bus station and cross the street pulling slowly my trolley until the next buildings. My physical endurance lowers day after day.
“ Baba hotel”, is not present in the guide book but it provides me for a modest price a large sunny room with bathroom ,hot water and a limitless number of blankets .
In the close lounge it’s a TV set with BBC channel available.
From the terrace at the top floor the view is beautiful upon the town, at the confluence between Dades and Draa’s valleys.
View from the hotel’s terrace on the Middle Atlas range.
Here there are no tourists, excepted for the young Australian found by chance in the hall.
He may have the same roadmap than me because we follow each other since Tangier.
I saw him the first time with his father in the bus CTM to Fez then at Merzouga, the father then come back in Europe.
For my side I take a short nap before to go with a small taxi to the distant Kasbah of Taourit, the ancient residence of the Berber Pacha of Marrakech.
It’s a high palace built in dried mud,(pise), actually registered in the World Patrimony of UNESCO and whose a whole sector is restored with the help of His Majesty, the King of Belgium.
It’s the third day of Aid .The town is so quiet, the bazars are empty, deprived of animation.
Mostly tourists travelling with large and cozy camping cars are present in winter in the Southern city.
They stay often several months spending their retirement in a sunny and welcoming country
I hire a guide at the Kasbah’s entrance and benefit of lively details about the Pacha life with his four wives. The third one stayed in a large living room opening on the courtyard by windows made in moucharabieh*, (wood or plaster’s nettings to protect people to be seen from outside), watching the caravans ’drivers’ passage.
The last wife was the favorite because she was the mother of the elder son. She lived in her own quarter and gazed outside by other windows.
The “Arab telephone” was a large column of air created by a large hole pierced at the center of the different floors.
It allowed the Pacha to give its orders from up to the servants or the officers who were working below in the administrative part of the palace, mostly for taxes ’collection.
The Pacha El-Hadj Thami El-Mezouari el Glaoui,( 1878-1956) was called the last “master of Atlas”, a king in its region, with about an half-million of subjects under his authority.
He was the governor of all the Kasbahs,( castles) between Marrakech and the South of Atlas and controlled all the passages of goods inside the caravans and the lucrative salt mines
The Pacha was hostile towards the Sultan Muhammad V coming from the Alaouites dynasty, (descendants of the Holy Prophet Mohammad PBHU).He worked to his destitution in 1953 by the French authorities which made Morocco a Protectorate.
But at the come back of the Sultan from exile he implored his forgiveness.
He got it and died soon after, his treasures and properties confiscated and his sons sent abroad.
The feudal and glamorous world, now disappeared, offers nowadays the magic structures of the palace for the shootings of international movies such like“ A tea in Sahara “…
Indeed, the grand-son of the Glaoui may have played the boy Sebastian in the sixties in the famous French TV serial “ Belle and Sebastian “.( Belle: a dog)
Ouarzazate shelters a lot of TV and cinema’s studios. Italians, Americans and others use the advantages of an exceptional landscape, made of large desert spaces and fantastic old forts.
One can add the cheaper life and the facilities to find extras while a lot of young people are jobless in Morocco and the Cherifian Kingdom so welcoming for westerners, tourists or business people.
The Glaoui’s palace.
After the palace’s visit we walk around the Medina which was populated in the past by the numerous people attached to the Pacha: servants, soldiers and their families, crafters and shopkeepers.
Some Riads¨( ancient urban houses) are here transformed in handicrafts ‘associations held by Moroccan and European people . They show the local products made by Berber women, carpets, jewels.
But it’s a bit expensive for my purse.
Ouarzazate Medina and the palm grove.
My afternoon ends to the ham mam near my hotel. The place is quite clean and I relax in the welcoming hot steam. These confined places are for me the main occasions to mix with Moroccan women in their daily life. The “Turkish baths” are an important part of the social activities.
Evening comes soon. I go to bed at 9 pm, after a couscous quickly gobbled at the ground floor restaurant where the cold wind of Atlas mountains rushes in through the open front door .
The owner has promised me hot rolls for breakfast.
Saturday January 14.
Carefully I have booked a seat for Marrakech at 200 km, in a morning bus from Djamal Chamal Company. It’s an uncertain link in winter while this week, the Tizi N Tichka Pass, 2260 meters, has been closed several times due to snow storms.
But to-day the weather is fine and I hope to pass through the high barrier of Atlas Range.
I have thought of another way in case of problems. It’s the long turn by Taroudant and Agadir at West .
It represents a detour of 500 km with more probabilities of accident while the itinerary is very dangerous.
It’s well known that many vehicles crash by lack of caution in Morocco.
Towards 11 am the bus starts for the 5 hours’ mountain drive .
I make some snaps of the white snowy crests which overlook barren slopes and Berber villages built on terraces steps and surrounded by green gardens.
The Atlas range towards the pass.
My neighbor is a man of imposing size. He keeps his hands covered with leather gloves. He presents himself as an Army doctor at the Ouarzazate battalion and speaks a good French .
My language is mostly used in the educated population. He tells me that he has been working 3 years in the NATO peace-keepers’ Corps in Kosovo.
Three hours later we reach Tizi-Tichka pass. At the top few squat buildings mark the limits between the Provinces of Marrakech and Ouarzazate.
At the pass.
The landscape changes abruptly on the North side of the mountain. It is more snow on the rocky slopes. Below a dark green forest of conifers like in our Alps, cover the steep ground.
Destructive floods happened in the valleys at the North of Marrakech in the summer 1995 with about 5000 people dead, mostly doing camping and trapped in the Oueds of the valley.
After the catastrophe the Moroccan environment‘s protection is stressed on the fight against the huge deforestation in these areas afflicted by the torrential erosion of Mediterranean climates.
From spin to spin the bus goes down on the cleared road .
We reach Taddert at the bottom of the pass and make a short break for lunch.
Then the vehicle proceeds in a valley occupied by oaks, shrubs and olives trees.
Later the palm grove of Marrakech appears in the soft pastels of the winter’s afternoon.
A short while after the bus enters in the ancient imperial town.
Founded in 1070 AD, Marrakech was with Fez, its rival built in 800 AD, the historic heart of Morocco.
Since XI ° cent to XIII° cent, it was the Berber capital of an empire which included the Muslim Europe under the Almoravides, then the Almohades, and the Saadiens
The Alaouites the reigning dynasty left it for Meknes, in the XVII°century.
Since the XX°century Marrakech has found again a prominent place with the tourism’s development.
Added to the magnificence of its monuments it’s too the door of the South Moroccan and the desert.
Northwards part of Tickha valley .
My problem when I leave the bus is to find in the old city, the Medina, a pleasant lodge for 2 or 3 days, before my return to France by Casablanca.
I decide to let the chance decide for me . I take a taxi with a local guide .
We leave it in the pedestrian part of the city to look at possible lodges. But today I don’t enjoy the narrowness of the alleys and the blind walls of the Riads,( some are very cozy and expensive) .
I want a large panorama from my room because I am used to the large horizons of the South..
Eventually I find my affair after a tiring walk while my back and my small trolley give signs of exhaustion.
It’s a room at the top of the Foucault Hotel, at the terrace’s level, with a fantastic view on the near Koutoubia Mosque. I obtain it for a very reasonable price.
Koutoubia at Marrackech.
I am relieved . I will be able to visit the town easily from this fabulous center.
In the same evening I go out to praise Allah of my luck at the Koutoubia Mosque, for Maghreb prayers.
The minaret of the Mosque of 77 meters’ height overlooks the place.
The mosque’s name comes from the numerous book- shops settled around in the past, (from Kitab: book).
I have no problems to enter in the women wing of the mosque,
I keep always with me my conversion’s certificate, in case of checking by security people in plain clothes at the gate.
A man says to me “your scarf doesn’t cover enough your hairs”. I ignore him and make my way towards the large room covered with carpets between marbles’ pillars. There are few women inside.
I ask myself if I am watched as a foreigner.
Later I savor my dinner at the restaurant of the hotel .It’s a couscous with 7 vegetables,( and chicken)
I wander then to the famous place Jemaa-el-Fna. It was upon the tale, the “dead’s sector”, where criminals were executed in the past.
Nowadays it’s the liveliest place of Marrakech after sunset.
I can see stalls selling fruits, juices or handicrafts, men showing their dancing snakes, travelling acrobats, local singers, story-tellers, tattoo artists. The entrance of the covered bazar is packed by a slow flow of local and foreign tourists .It’s a joyful crowd, during Aid end of festival, under the vigilant glances of the security services posted beside their vehicles.
I come back to my hotel at 11pm walking alone through the Foucault Gardens .
Sunday January 15.
8 am. I wake up enjoying the good weather .A mild breeze pass above the high trees of the Gardens, where hundreds of birds flutter in a deafening cacophony.
I take the time at breakfast to read the book guide in the large dinning room decorated in oriental style.
I prepare a program me of visits for to-day. It’s impossible to see in one go, all the palaces, shrines, gardens and palm groves of the imperial city.
I choice the “gardens of Menara” for the picnic . I will go there by taxi.
The entrance by the long alley under olive-trees is frequented by a lot of Moroccan families in this end of festival. People are busy to take snaps even the lovers walking hands into hands.
Among them there are students wearing hijab-jeans-jacket .Some western families are recognizable by their blond hairs and pale complexions.
Little farther in the garden a gracious building front of a large pool reflecting the high snowy mountains of Atlas, was upon the tale, in the past, the romantic dates of the sultans with their “belles”.
At Menara near the pool.
I turn around the large ornamental pond which reminds me with nostalgia of Wah ‘s Moghol gardens near Islamabad.
By moments I miss Pakistan in an acute way.
Then I think only to take a flight and come back there to find again my previous life.
But it’s an illusion.
I am ageing and my stamina is lower to transplant myself again in South Asia like I have done after the death of Pierre when I was forty five years old.
Actually only dreams are possible for me.
After my daily lunch ‘ s sandwich taken at the coffee shop below the gardens I leave this green heaven, distant of only 2 km from the Medina .I exit by the first gate. But I mistake the entrances and find myself in the opposite direction. The luck is not with me and my knee blocks with unpleasant electric shocks
I end my tour in laming, searching for a taxi.
I have to overcome my health problems to enjoy this journey.
Returned to my hotel I take a rest at the terrace in the sunshine.
I am already thinking about my newt stage, Casablanca.
I have two possibilities: to go directly there the day of my departure to France at 10 pm, or to stay one night at a good hotel in Casablanca before the long journey of 3000 km in bus, a real endurance’s trial for me.
I haven’t liked the outward journey ,uncomfortable very long and expensive if one considers that it’s possible to get at the same price a low cost stay of 5 days in a four star hotel at Marrakech with the flight go and return.
But it’s too late to cancel my ticket and to get a single way in a flight.
Actually with the rush of Aid all planes are full.
I didn’t undertake this bus journey to get such aches. I was only curious to cross Spain watch Andalusia and pass the mythic Strait of Gibraltar.
I decide suddenly to leave Marrakech on Monday by train and to sleep at Casablanca.
The afternoon passes with a charming visit to the Palace of the Bahia in the Medina.
Having taken anti-inflammation piles to secure my walk I go through the old streets.
I stop a while at a cyber cafe to see my mail, then I pray in a small mosque with local women.
My wandering leads me to the Riad ez Zeitoun al Jedid .
The Bahia palace opens next in the Bab el Rehmat alley. Past the ticket -office, I enter in the walled gardens, a luxury of orange, lemon and exotic trees which surrounds the rich residence built in 1880 by the Vizir -Regent Ba Ahmed, the real ruler of Morocco between 1894 and 1900. This palace was also the place where lived the Marechal Liautey, then the French envoy .
Inside ”riads” ,(in Arabic means paradise ?) sumptuously built with marbles and carved woods panels give way to flowered patios where murmur statues in fountains.
Bahia Palace’s gardens.
This palace was named by the name of Bahia “ the beauty”. The Vizir was the” owner” of an important number of wives and concubines.
He was so stout that he was unmovable. Then all his rooms were set at ground floor.
To-day, Sunday of festival, a lot of tourists’ groups chatting in English, French, Japanese, Italian, visit the place, following wisely their guides.
In a large courtyard we meet the shooting of an Arabic movie,” Abdul with the Almohades”.
The actors in period’s costumes, sword at the belt, wait for their turn seated on chairs.
Cameras and shooting-trolleys enter in action blocking the tourists a while along the walls.
Young actresses are hidden in an antechamber. They go out at regular intervals to play their role.
They are richly dressed with satin skirts. The veiled heroin wears a beautiful green costume.
In the middle of this business I am curious of the story. But I will probably never watch it on a European screen.
During the movie’s shooting.
After this funny episode I leave the palace for the Hammam Ziani in the next street, Riad ez Zeitoun.
It’s a” four star’s bath”, nearly as magical as the Bahia Palace with its steamy rooms smelling of eucalyptus. Marble is everywhere from the massage’s tables, the benches, to the small chairs and the round basins available for each customer. In a blue mist the masseuses cover the clients with a mixture of apricot oil and henna. All is in a good tone, clean and relaxing. The Spa is expensive and the place frequented mostly by foreigners.
At evening I return to my hotel by foot, guided by the high enlightened Koutoubia minaret.
After the ritual meal of couscous I don’t resist to the entertainment of a movie at the near cinema behind the place JMn’a.
All streets in the night are very lively, the restaurants full and people shopping along the mail.
The “Mabrouk” cinema is more modern than Fez’s and it’s packed with spectators.
Behind me at first floor, people cannot help to comment the movie in the noise of crunched grilled corn.
“Mr and Mrs Smith” fight and love along a not very credible story.
The stars Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are gathered the time of the movie but too in their private life.
The pretty actress is for me associated to her commitment for humanitarian issues with UN.
I remember her last visit to Pakistan, in Azad Kashmir where she went with her companion to bring goods, shelters and money for the victim of the earthquake.
Monday January 16.
A naughty sound of stream wakes up me at 8 morning .
I see by the window that it’s heavily raining on the terrace and also in the bathroom of which the ceiling seems porous. No regret because to day I leave the town for Casablanca, at 250 km Northwards at the Atlantic Ocean’s side.
Outside the wet wind increases my articular aches .After the breakfast I pack my luggage like a nomadic people used to don’t attach to the crossed places.
At 11 am I go to the railway station thinking to take a train at 1 pm and then have some time for tea.
But the destiny has chosen otherwise and at 11.30 I find myself hoisted up in a train for Casablanca.
I shouldn’t have taken it because it was scheduled at 11.
But all transports are delayed because Aid festival end.
I get a seat among a group of army soldiers come from their posting place in the great South beyond Tan-Tan near the Mauritanian border.
They go to their families for leave. They are very kind and they help me to put my luggage on the upper shelf. 4 hours later at the arrival to Casablanca one of them carries down my bags to the platform.
The corridor is so crowded that it’s a fight to go out of the wagon.
This journey in train breaks the rhythm of my adventure and means for me already its end.
I watched the damp landscapes between the gusts of rain .
At 4.30 in afternoon the industrious and populous suburbs of Casablanca appear under a grey sky.
The economic capital of Morocco, with its 4.5 million people doesn’t attract me too much but it’s my obliged passage towards France while I must start my travel at the CTM bus office in the center on Tuesday night.
Front of the railway station I take the first taxi. I ask the driver for a precise hotel but as usually here he doesn’t listen me and drive me to another with which he may have links and receive bakshich* ( gift in money) in exchange for the hotel’s promotion.
Instead to reach Casablanca Hotel I debark at the Rio, a newly restored establishment, comfortable but lacking welcome.
Tired from the long transport since Marrakech I enjoy soon my room.
Its large glass panes open on a side street near the lively Boulevard Mohammad V.
A flock of pigeons is kindly lined on the next roof.
A piece of blue sky chases the last showers and a low sunshine sets aglow a short moment the windows in the buildings front of me.
I feel myself lost in the large city.
A little while later I react to my lack of interest. I go out to wander along the avenues.
I make a turn along the shopping mail which offers the last fashion’s models.
The city vibrates like a hive but the passers- by walk in the anonymity.
Tuesday January 17.
It’s my last day in Morocco.
Before my planned visit to the great Mosque Hassan II in afternoon I want to check my bus ticket and the timing of departure at CTM. I have also to manage from midday to night a small cheap room in another hotel front of the bus station. I don’t want to pay for 2 nights at the expensive Rio.
The hotel Miramar is clean but cold .The room at 3th floor is accessible only by narrow and steep stairs.
No lift .It’s just suitable for some waiting’s hours.
Later I am free of my day.
I go to the Medina front of the Place of United Nations.
The old city beyond its walls is sleepy.
I seat at a tea shop, lone woman among men reading Arabic newspapers.
In the shadow of morning the alleys are still empty,
I buy some gifts for my friends in France.
The fame of this sector at night is not good as written on the guide book, which explains that drug traffics and others’ make the area dangerous for foreigners.
But nothing of this dubious ambiance appears at the bazar’s opening in the crisp morning air.
I come back at 11am at Rio hotel .Before to leave I plunge in a hot salt bath to enjoy a last time my comfort and calm my sciatic nerve which persecutes me relentless.
Then I shift to the new place, put down my bags and immediately take a taxi for the Great Mosque Hassan II at the Ocean side.
Completed in 1989 for the sixty years of the King the huge religious building is the larger in the world after the Al Aram Mosque in Mecca .
The 200 meters’ minaret is in the same architecture than the Koutoubia of Marrakech, Its overlooks all the town’s buildings like the” Islam ‘s headlight “,while about 200 000 people can pray in the total surface of the Mosque. Built by a French architect, Michel Pinseau and realized by the French Bouygues Society, the imposing Mosque of which the founding are directly built on the sea has coasted a lot ,financed by private and governmental donations.
It opens to not Muslims for paying visits (12 euros) .For me it is also the chance to do my zhour ‘s ( midday) prayer to get” Baraka” for my next journey in admiring it’s splendors.
The Mosque is between the harbor and the coast road, quite distant from the center of the town.
When I reach it I put on my head a small scarf. The sky is bright blue and a fresh wind blows from the Ocean.
I cross the esplanade not very frequented at this hour, enters in the women wing. Then I go to the first floor where 2 women officers in grey uniform welcome me happy to know that I am a converted Muslim.
They lend me a “janamaz”,( carpet) for prayer.
Inside a profusion of riches and architectural refinements : chandeliers in Murano ‘s crystal, immense carpets, carved columns, stucco, marble, mosaics, arabesques, zelliges, precious woods, create a decor worth of the King and dedicated to Allah Almighty, a monument to the glory of Islam.
Having performed my Salat,( means prayer in Arabic) I go out and walk a while along the pier front of the Atlantic Ocean.
The gusts of wind full of salt sprays give me a new energy.
I watch a while the endless course of the waves’ rolls.
They are crowned of white steam .They strike the huge stones of the pier in a primitive and hopeless fight against the coast line.
A couple of lovers are seated on the high wall looking too at the nature in fury, well protected in their closed nest of tenderness.
I imagine these waves come straight from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, perhaps from America, a different world.
Later I come back to the city center.
Afternoon is nearly ending. I take the way of the shabby hotel, near the five stars Sheraton, the sector very controlled by armed police’s squads.
I must take some rest before the night trip until Tangier towards the ferry leading to Algesiras in Spain, beyond Gibraltar Strait.
In my room I lay a while under all available blankets. I relax a bit my aching back
Later I try to read some pages of the guide book Assimil to learn Arabic from French.
I understand very well all things but I am very lazy to try to speak in Arabic while here most people speak French.
The night falls upon the town.
I go out of the hotel at 7pm, half frozen by the stay in my room.
To warm myself by a supply of calories I eat a barbecue of chicken and chips at the near restaurant held by a French expatriate here since 30 years and happy because there is more sun and less taxes.
All that I live gets a taste of farewell.
Towards 9 pm I leave the hotel with my trolley and the luggage.
I cross the street to wait at the station the departure of my bus, in theory one hour later.
Once in my French residence I prefer to forget the trial of the return in bus.
It began with 2 hours ‘delay at Casablanca, a rush in the vehicle by the male passengers, ready for anything to enter the first in the place.
The Moroccan drivers were angry and seemed to consider the travellers mainly the women like cattle.
The first night in the bus was a hell. It stopped at the will of the drivers’ hungers .
The blokes obliged the people, (excepted me because I threaten official retaliation) to go down with them in the coldness of the motorway‘s parking. It was a shameful view. The poor old women left uneasily their seats not daring to enter the coffee shops to mix with men. Small babies bad woken up screamed in the arms of their veiled young mothers.
Later the crossing of Gibraltar Strait by the ferry at five of morning was fully chaotic.
A crowd of half sleepy people rushed out of the bus at the same time.
I had to endure the long waiting squeezed in the crowd in the lounge of the ferry’s harbor.
Each people pulled luggage .Many pushed wildly their neighbors at the long cue before the opening of the borders’ check- points.
Once on the boat I got a short sleep coiled up on a circular bench with 2 other women, exhausted.
Then it was an endless stay on the Algesiras harbor waiting on the dock for the long distance’s bus which might insure the transport back to France. It arrived so late from an undetermined place in Spain.
I spent a second squalid night in the bus trying to don’t be contaminated by the coughing fits of numerous passengers.
But I caught me too the “Moroccan cold”.
Eventually a mechanic problem occurred at Nîmes in the south of France when a wheel from the luggage’s trailer broke.
The drivers turned without success around the industrial area of the town to search for the missing part.
They didn’t speak even a word in French.
Suddenly I became fed up with this transport and leaved it in the middle of nowhere.
I called for a taxi from a truck’s mechanic garage. I plunged in a situation close to inconsistency.
I breathed later with relief when I got a train for Marseille and Nice then later for my village in the back country.
I arrived at my home at night. It was not heated since long but I was so happy to be alive.
Because we could have met a major accident with the broken wheel on the motorway, in Spain or elsewhere
What lesson to remember from this adventure?
“Travel in plane, it’s faster”..
Annie Beghin,( Khadija). End . Copyrights
Following chronicle .
“In the heart of the volcano”.
In French , “ Aventures pakistanaises” 2006-2007,( my come back to Pakistan ).
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Aquarelle Annie Beghin sur livre de Pierre Beghin ( 1985).
