Fint

As a half-day trip from Ouarzazate, we can recommend Fint. You go there in 4WD, the track cannot be driven with a normal car. You arrive from the top of the mountains, with a splendid view over the village surrounded by high cliffs and partially hidden in the palm grove, along the bed of the Fint river.

End of May is the ideal time. The river is bordered with luxurious blossoming oleanders, and the abundant water created grazing fields of a green that could even look English !
You can spend the whole afternoon walking in the oasis and its shadowed alleys, drink a tea, or visit the small local pottery workshop.

Magnificent Glawi

Most secret Moroccan houses can hide true wonders, like this door found in a small room of an old house in the Medina of Ouarzazate, near the kasbah of Taourirt.

Both sides are richly decorated, but in a different way. Which side was for the inner of the room ? Most certainly the lighter one, which still has its original silver locker. Like many Moroccan doors, they are quite narrow, only 54 cm wide for each side (the lobbies were quite narrow, specially over the patio) and high (1m90). That fitted rooms built to protect people from heat and sun.

Patterns are extraordinary well conserved, which is normal with traditionnal pigment.

Details are clearly showing it :

Green is mint, blue with indigo, yellow with safran, red with cocheinal insect or madder. The normal paint did not resist so wel and shows red wood under, which could be ceddar wood. I find specially attractive the slight irregularity of the pattern. It was traced on the door by the Maalem with a compass, planned down in case of mistake, but there was always so small differences at the end.

Flowers can hint that the room was for women. Maybe the Favorite's room ? Or one occupied by a spouse and her children ? The frame of the rose is based on the six points star, so called Magen or Salomons Sceal, which was used as a powerful protection symbol for a long time in Morocco. (Actually, it was even on the flag of some sultans. The Alawites had a plain red flag, and the current five points star was added under the Protectorate, to differentiate the national flag from some used by other tribes).

Instead of large panels, the other side is divided in small rectangular cases. Here again we see a floral decoration, somehow different from the usual geometrical and abstract decorations. The main colors are warm, red and yellow, cochineal and saffron. The flowers look like in a garden, the lines are traced at first, in black, and then the colors are appllied with a stencil.

Just imagine this ancient door in the kasbah, probably on the first floor, opening onto the inner patio. The beauty of this deep warm colors in harmony with the adobe walls, the inner side matching some white and blue ceramics.
The silver locker closes on these mysteries.

And when you compare to this door, which is still in Telouet, another kasbah of the Glawis, the similarities between the patterns, and even the wood underneath is striking.

My dunes are not yours

A man died in the sand dunes yesterday evening. Dunes we walked through a few days ago, wondering about the vivacity of the small green sprouts surging everywhere after the rain.
The desert was green. A very relative idea of green, of course, nothing to see with the Wales or Yorkshire, more a simple shade, like a muslin veil thrown over the erg, hard to distinguish as soon as you come nearer, but undoubtedly there.

Plants are fixing the desert. Sand progresses, in Morocco like in Mauritania, like everywhere. In a few months it can passes over the wall of our Oasis, and after a sand storm, large roads like the one between Erfoud and Rissani looks like a Saharan track. Lines of reeds are planted, tightly, to fix the dunes and stop their progression.



One day is enough for the Dakar to destroy that.

Of course, the Dakar is also (a little bit) profitable for local people. For two or three days, a large number of tourists land in a city, support teams, journalists, real and false V.I.P., people offered a small trip by their company, people following the Dakar, people making photos, people feeling important, adventurous, etc. Ouarzazate was traffic-jammed yesterday, a very unusual view of Mohammed V avenue, once littered with cars. You even had to walk a few meters away to park your car ! Not a rental car available anymore, not a free hotel room anymore.
For hotel, for car renters, for some restaurants, Dakar is a good opportunity, bringing several hundreds of customers at a high price, and off-season. But for the others ? Dakar brings its own infrastructure, a large part of the support (food, mechanics, even fuel) is brought directly from Europe… Hotel managers in Ouarzazate are not the Aït Haddidou nomads whose grazing areas are partially destroyed by the race, neither the inhabitants of Tazarine who see, some years, a flock of a new kind of locusts fly in for a day, leaving the tracks damaged, if not utterly destroyed.

Dakar is a killer. Was there a year without a death ? Participant, organizer, or worse even, a child looking at the cars passing by and not jumping aside quick enough.
Is the game worth it ? Surely for those who take part in it. Any death is deeply unfair and sad, but to die instantly, in the middle of a race, at a time one realizes his dream, seems not so sad, not so unfair as the fate of a child being killed by a machine appearing out of a sand cloud, the modern humming mowing-machine, as hard to understand for these kids of the remote doyars as could be the first trains for the peasant of the last century (actually the next to last century, I have a tendency to forget we are now in the 21st century!).

Dakar has been a real adventure, it has been the opportunity for a beautiful race, opened to amateurs like professionals, it has been the immersion in splendid, difficult and awesome landscapes. It has also lost all of that, becoming a huge organisation, a machine to make money. But it has never ever been the discovery of the desert.

Desert is loneliness, endless repetition of the same empty landscape, to and over the horizon, time passing by without anything moving, anything else than the feet of the nomad walking along his camel. Desert is abrasion by time and nothing, sun burning, salt burning, cold at night, dried lips and eyes tired by reflections over the black stones. It is silence, when one starts to perceive the small moves of insects, the far away echo, feeble as the dream of music in the oasis, the sudden fall of some sand under a bird.

How can you discover the desert when you cover in one day the distance nomads made in more than a week ? How can you actually see the landscapes, amidst the sand clouds of cars and trucks ? How can you feel desert's heat when you're sweating in you protective clothes and helmet ? How can you hear the furtive gliding snake going to meet the Little Prince among the roaring motors ?

The most accurate about the Dakar is its name. Dakar is a raid, a quick incursion into one's territory to rob him and leave him poorer than before. The small news clip showing Elmer Symons laying dead along his bike, with pieces of it scattered around was shown and shown again. Dakar does not even respect those who are part of it.

Good places in Ouarzazate

A wonderful adress for a good meal, traditional tajine, pizza or even kefta sandwich (with grilled meat) "La Halte" has a large sunny terrace where you can seat quietly in the newly renovated pedestrian area of Ouarzazate near avenue Mohammed V.



A few meters away from avenue Mohammed V and the shops of "The Prince" you can have a pleasant lunch after (or before) your last shopping and the endless negotiations with carpet sellers.

As starters, morrocan salads, tuna plates, "salades variées", for 15 dirhams, then omelettes, sandwiches (25 dirhams, a moroccan sandwich is a real meal), tajines, couscous, and a large choice of delicious pizzas, between 25 and 35 dirhams.
And of course, all of that with the kindness and smile of Saïd and his team !

For a dessert, you can have oranges with cinnamon, a wonderful feast for 12 dirhams. These oranges are really juicy and tasty, coming directly from the fruit gardens of the Souss and the area of Agadir, where they are harvested ripe, and directly sent to the market. Those for the european market are taken between 3 and 6 weeks before term, and finish to "ripe" in refrigerated rooms !
Or my preferred dessert, a home-made yoghourt with a few drops of roses water just before serving... that's really wonderful !

Saïd also offers menus, salad + tajine + moroccan pastry for 60 dirhams, and a breakfast in the sun, hot drink, fresh oranges juice, bread, jam and the small honey pancake which is called msamem, for 25 dirhams.

Restaurant Pizzeria La Halte
Chez Essamlali

Moroccan and international Cooking

Place Al Mouahidine
45000 Ouarzazate

Phone : 024.89.03.28
Mobile : 062.13.41.17

Morocco is a warm country

... but not everywhere and not all the time !

By now, the pass of Tichka, between Ouarzazate and Marrakech is quite difficult :



It also happens that snow fences are closed at night, there can be icy patches, but nevertheless, it "goes".



Borders along the road remains visible, and become more and more obvious when going higher.
Houses' flat roofs are heavily loaded.





And for once, it's easy to spot the houses in the landscape !



Fields are covered by a thick layer of snow.





But it gets better while going down, and when you arrive in Marrakech, the weather will be nice !



Thanks to Brigitte for the photos !

It's raining in Morocco

For several days, it rained over Morocco, and specially South-East. Roads were blocked between Ouarzazate and Zagora, Oarzazate and the Roses Valley, Erfoud and Er-Rachidia, with rising rivers and roads under water.

Moroccan people were happy. Rain was coming at ploughing time, it's a good thing. Palm trees are going to grow, and oasis will be greener.

Tours were disturbed, sometimes tourists were stucked somewhere for a night or two.

Sun came bck, mud dried. There were no dangerous high waters, like in Merzouga this Spring, or in Ourika valley. Just some water, good the the harvests and the reserves.

Tinjedad palm grove under water
(source photo : www.yafelman.com)

In Mezgarne, the small dried river one scarcely noticed when arriving the Oasis was full of water, mint, beans and acras growing in our garden flourished....

In Morocco, who arrives with water brings luck !

The first canon of Ramadan

Yesterday evening, around 20h30 a canon - probably in Taourirt - shot. The imam saw the first very thin part of the new moon, and the Holy Month, the Month of the Fast, just started, for 28 or 29 days. It depends on the instant when the next new moon will be seen… And if it is impossible, for any reason, like heavy clouds and storms, to see it, in any case, Ramadan won’t last more than 30 days.
Every morning, one hour before sunrise, the canon will shoot again, to warn the believers, for some of them it’s the last meal before breakfast after sunset. The time to eat arrives when the iman cannot distinguish anymore a thin white thread from a thin black one. When the call to the evening prayer is heard arrives the breakfast, with whey, dates, eggs, msamen (a thin pancake eaten with melted butter, honey or jam), many little cakes, bread cooked with meat fat, or with onions, some soup (harira), tea or coffee. Later on, around midnight, the second meal, nourishing and abundant, you always cook too much to be able to share with your neighbours, and give to the poor.

Ramadan is indeed the month of Charity, the time of the year where nobody should be hungry. When you invite someone to eat with you, it is in the spirit of Allah, and your house becomes a little be holy, like a small mosque. That is so understandable, Ramadan’s discipline is hard enough, if on top of that one must be hungry in the evening, it becomes impossible !

During the whole day it is forbidden to eat and drink. To smoke also, and one must avoid perfume and all the pleasures, including love and fondling. As well as thinking about it, like always in Islam, intention is as important as the observance. The man who would fast the whole day but would think also about his evening meal would not be true to the spirit of Ramadan. Neither someone who would get nervous or angry. He would have to replace his missed fasting day by another one, after the end of Ramadan.. It is so hard to be hungry and thirsty all day long, in the heat (yesterday was around 30°), and to remain patient and quiet !

Several penances are possible when one does not follow Ramadan. When this is purely by mistake, for example a drop of water drunk without intention when one refreshes himself (at least you can water yourself to get a little bit cooler), one has just to replace the day by an extra one at the end of the month. If someone can’t resist and eat or drink one day, the penance is harder… either to fast another 30 days, or nourish one meal for 60 poor people.
Sick ones, women pregnant, breast-feeding or bleeding, and people travelling far away (more than 80 kilometres) are allowed not to follow Ramadan (but they can fast if the wish so). They will have to “pay back” later the missed days, whether a few of the whole month.

And many Muslims also decide to extend the month with 6 extra days.