Americans in Morocco — Day 8: About 6 km east of Skoura Morocco. December 28, 2007

Today was the day of days.

We began early – at about 7 am – driving back to Erg Chebbi to see the dunes in sunrise light. We initially planned to leave around 6 a.m., but… oh well. Anyway, the dunes at sunrise look very different from what they were the evening before. As I explained, the drive to the dunes is like driving on the moon… no roads, no signs.. just vast openness.. on black volcanic gravel and dead flat ground…

The sand dunes rise up out of this lunarscape.. about 800 feet. Pretty spectacular.. all of this quite close to the Algerian border.. We ran into a camel rider who spoke a bit of English.. He was guiding two Spanish tourists on camels. His first words were in English “Do you want to buy a fossil?” After we declined he said “See you in Algeria!”

We climbed the dunes and then drove back on the unmarked non-roads to the little hotel we stayed at and had breakfast, packed up and left at about 10 a.m. headed west on a small unmarked road to drive to Skoura via Tinejed and Tinnehir. We ran into our little friends who sold us the stuffed camels.. They hoped we’d give them caramels (one of the few English words they know)… We stopped in Erfoud to use the ATM which was a provincial town but had a working ATM.. unbelievable. We also stocked up on our daily supply of tangerines, bananas, water, and bread – our mainstay in the car on the drive.

From Erfoud we took a small road that got us to Tinejed.. Just past Erfoud we encountered a manmade moonscape (unlike the natural moonscape of the sand dunes).  Here we saw thousands of mounds about 6 feet tall (just outside of Jord).. Each mound represented a 20 meter excavation shaft, big enough for one person to get into… Apparently the locals dig these holes to find the fossils that they try to sell to people like us… and every so often there was a makeshift structure hovering over the hole with a crankshaft (wooden) that loaded and dropped the bucket to the man in the hole .. to retrieve the fossils. After completing the task, they go onto another hole (Andy – if you are really following all of this on Google Earth, I’m dying to see what this looks like)…

The rest of the drive to Tinejed included lots of ruins, and the Todra Gorge.. We approached Tinnehir which required driving along extremely narrow roads with precipitous drops on both sides..  but which brought us to an amazing stretch of cliffs that rise 1000 feet – almost sheer on each side… Surprisingly (maybe not completely) they let you drive into the gorge over washes and roads that seem to disappear…  Guess what – a  carpet salesman at the narrow crevice of the gorge.. I kid you not.

After the gorge we walked around Tinneir for a while.. dusty, but lively.. Then we began the rest of drive to Skoura – passing and photographing about a zillion small villages that combined current day dwellings with medieval dwellings in ruins – all made of mud, practically disappearing into the landscape. Naturally we lost track of time, making the rest of the journey a bit difficult… This rural area is obviously more conservative and the number of women in bourkas has increased considerably from what we’ve seen to date. People are also more reluctant to be photographed.. I was constantly tempted, especially since it seems as if Fridays are special and the women are out more and dressed in lots of sparkly scarves and coverings..

The final part of the drive – to Skoura from Boumlina got a bit dicey.. We knew our hotel (about 8 rooms) was on the outskirt of Skoura and we needed to locate a sign about 2 miles west of town.. and then markers would guide us.. Well we got to Skoura after dark.. and never saw the sign.. We drove in and out of town several times.. but no sign.. Thank God for cell phones.. We called les Jardins de Skoura.. and they explained that the sign had to be taken down last week because the King is coming to town one of these days.. Thus no signs are allowed on the road.. The king will only be here for two days (he has a palace here.. but he seems to have palaces everywhere… No one knows the exact day of his arrival or departure (for security reasons)… so over the three week period during which he might appear, all signs needed to be cleared from the road… The proprietors of the little hotel explained that we needed to look for a rock painted orange (in the dark).. and then we needed to turn right and follow other orange painted rocks for 4 kilometers and then we’d be at the hotel.. Thank goodness for the SUV… The non-road… took us over dried-out riverbeds, over muddy rocky ruts.. very narrow very winding.. through a peasant village in the dark.. Needless to say the “large” orange rock marker.. was more like a pebble…  But we eventually found our way to the most unbelievable enclave of stucco buildings.. Our room is a small “suite”.. with fireplace.. a set of stairs to the roof.. and decorated with beautifully appointed Moroccan details…  We had a great dinner here.. and are finally about ready to sleep… Take care.. More adventures await us. Hope we are not boring you.. Feel free to delete.

Fern

P.S. We have a new ploy. When approached to buy something. We say we don’t speak English or French or German or Italian. We speak Finnish only. And say we are from Finlandia. This works. Especially when we say a few words in Finnish.  One vendor said Finland was very cold. Another said Finns spoke other languages. But all in all, this has helped us out of several aggressive sales pitches.