The Mid Atlas Mountains to Midelt

 Barbary apes.

 Nomadic shelter.

 Rachid and I inside the tent.

 The family who hosted us.

 Another nomadic woman begging for money.

 The Hotel Kasbah Asmoa where we are staying.

 Me, Theresa and Andrew in the pool.

 The little village of mud huts...

...and villagers

The view behind the hotel.

Sunday, September 17^th.

Happy Birthday Mom!

This morning we left Fes and began our trek south towards the desert. The first stop was at a huge supermarket in the new part of Fes. This is much like Walmart and sells everything. We each bought supplies for a picnic lunch. Then we drove for an hour before stopping at a new town. This town has been built for tourists because of the snow they get here. There is a ski resort here and they are building more hotels and infrastructure to accommodate the influx of Moroccan and European tourists who come here to escape the heat of the summer. When we crossed the Mid Atlas Mountains we came across a couple of Barbary apes by the side of the road. We stopped for a few photos before continuing on.

The scenery was beautiful and varied. We travelled through the fertile valley with orchards of peaches, olives and apples and as we climbed we drove through a cedar tree forest. As we drove we saw tents of nomadic Bedouins and their sheep. As we descended the mountain pass we stopped at one of these nomadic communities.

This is one of Intrepid's ways of giving travellers an authentic experience that it would be very hard to have otherwise, visiting real local people; and it is a way for them to support some of the local people. I have been involved with a few visits like this before with Intrepid and GAdventures and was very happy and comfortable with them. However today, I found it awkward. When we arrived there was a woman and her child waiting for us. I assumed it was her tent we were to visit; not so. It turned out that she lived too far off the road for us to get to. So Rachid and our driver Samir went to one that was closer. I felt bad for the other woman who hung around us. We were brought into the other family's tent and asked to take off our shoes because they had laid out their best rug for their visitors. (The comment was made: so that we don't get the dirt dirty.) In the tent we ate our picnic lunches, took photos of them and their dwelling, talked about them and they watched us eat and served us a cup of tea. The family welcomed us because they knew they wwould get a sum of money from Intrepid and most of the visitors leave money too. It didn't feel right to me to be eating our food there while they sat and watched. Rachid interpreted questions for us to the man of the family while his wife, son and daughter sat outside (was this tradition or was there not enough room inside, not sure). When we left many of us left leftover food or fruit and treats that we had bought specifically for this visit. When we exited the children, the original woman and a few other people were milling around with their hands out. Having typed all of that, I was one of the ones taking photos and and exploiting them with mixed feelings.

We then left and continued on our way through the Mid Atlas Mountains to Midelt and our hotel for the night, the Hotel Kasbah Asmoa. This could be an amazing place. It is a beautiful looking kasbah, a large fort like structure. Inside it is built in the Moorish tradition with several beautiful rooms and a courtyard with a pool! We all had very large rooms with two double beds and a sitting room. But, it looked kind of tired and their were things that weren't quite up to snuff. The pool was murky and the tiles around the edge were broken in a number of places and other tiles were just laid on top to cover the hole. The courtyard was overgrown and needed tending. Fixings were either cheap or or broken. However, it was still a great place and just reminded me of the saying from my last African trip: TIA – this is Africa, it is what it is.

A few of us took the plunge and had a dip in the pool, without submerging our heads. The water was cool but felt great in the sun. We hung around for a couple of hours before we met up again in the lobby at 5:30.

Samir drove us to a remote dirt road area where we got out of the van and went for an long walk through a little old family village. This is apple country and we walked through the orchard and past a number of mud and clay houses. Rachid explained to us the about the old methods of making houses and the newer brick models, which are becoming popular even though they are not as insulated as the mud ones. This area experiences both the extreme heat of the summer and the snow and cold of winter.

We saw a number of families in the street and all were friendly when we greeted them. One young girl who was excitedly following our group ran out into the street and was hit by a car. The whole community rushed out and there was some yelling and shouting but luckily she was not hurt.

When we got back it was time for dinner in one of the lovely rooms. I had oven baked, tinfoil wrapped trout; go figure, in the near desert. After dinner most people were tired and wanted to get ready for our excursion into the Sahara tomorrow. I sat in the front lobby blogging and Rachid joined me and we had a couple of beers and shared our thoughts about how to solve the problems of the world, before retiring.