Road trip in Morocco #4 – from Ouarzazate to Essaouira

This is the last post of a series that documented our second road trip across Morocco that took us from the desert camp at Merzouga to Essaouira on the Atlantic coast. It was a jaunt of about 1000 km made in 3 days.  You can follow our trip to Ouarzazate on this blog here and here.

This was how the last leg began. We left Dar Chamaa in Ouarzazate at about 10 am.

To reach the Atlantic coast from Ouarzazate, we had to traverse the High Atlas and go through the center of Marrakech. We took a detour on P1506 to visit the kasbah at Telouet.

On this desert road, we passed a restaurant called China Red (Zhong Quo Hong) offering at least cafe, tea, juice, and wifi. This road must be popular with mainland tourists.

The road P1506 connects the settlements along the stream (Asif Ounila) with the main highway N9. Palm trees and arable land lined the banks.

We were traveling upstream for many kilometers, and then the road turned westward and headed into the mountain.

Here is a photo of our SUV for the road trip, a black Toyota Land Cruiser Prado, comfortable and energetic.

There was hardly any traffic on this stretch of P1506.

Telouet was our destination and the kasbah was very much worth the detour.  It will be the subject of a future post.

After Telouet, we rejoined the highway N9 to get to Marrakech which is on the other side of the snowy High Atlas mountain range.

N9 crosses the High Atlas at Tizi n’Tichka (Col du Tichka).  At 2260 m (7400 feet) above sea level, it is the highest major mountain pass in North Africa. We did not stop at this rest area, instead we went on to a restaurant which provided lunch accompanied by a panoramic view.

N9 was constructed along the old caravan trail by the French military in 1936.

Facing northwest, the plain on the other side of the High Atlas stretches towards Marrakech as far as the eye can see.

From here, it was all downhill on a highway … and soon we saw the street lights of Marrakech … the city does not have a ring road so we cannot bypass the city center.

While stuck in city center traffic, we inched along with this truck ahead that was advertising a go-kart circuit. Using a mirror, the driver of the car behind could see himself. Interesting marketing idea.  But would that image motivate a driver to want to race a smaller vehicle in circles?

We passed the main train station of Marrakech. To return to Marrakech a few days later, we used a coach service (which also terminated here), but we never had the chance/need to use the railway service.

Leaving Marrakech westbound on Highway N8, we passed this massive telecommunication installation situated on a mesa. Must be pushing out 5-bar strong signals ?!  Speaking about cellphone service, we had no problem at all even in smaller towns. The government has made some real investments here.

This area which lies between Marrakech and the Atlantic coast is flat and the prime area for cultivating argan tree (Argania spinosa). We stopped by the highway briefly at an agriculture commune where women were demonstrating the extraction of argan oil from the nut. We had seen it already in Fes at another women’s commune, and bought our share. The oil is trendy at least in Europe and a valuable export for Morocco (the tree is native and found only in Morocco).

These are young trees in a plantation. If you search online (try here, it is a bit surreal), you will find photos of several goats climbing or standing on branches of an argan tree. We did not witness this but apparently the goats climb up to reach and eat the fruits. It has been said that the goats cannot digest the nut and poop it out, and people can harvest the nuts from the poop to make argan oil. Voila.

While descending to Essaouira on highway R207, we caught our first sight of the Atlantic. It was nice to see an ocean after days of endless expanse of sand and rocks.

Essaouira is a fishing port and a beach resort, well known for wind surfing. As it was the winter season, there was hardly any tourist.

Our lodging was at the edge of the medina near the Avenue du Caire entrance. We never found out why there were so many taxis going around with the Moroccan flag flying.

Finally, we arrived at the west coast of Morocco having started the journey near its eastern border with Algeria.

What a truly memorable, bucket-list, cross-country excursion.

Part 1, 2, and 3 are here, here and here.

Atlas Studios, Ouarzazate

Atlas Studios is a film studio located about 5 km (3 miles) west of the city of Ouarzazate, the second town where we spent a night on our Merzouga-to-Essaouira road trip across Morocco. You can follow our trip to Ouarzazate on this blog here and here.

According to Wikipedia, measured by acreage, it is the world’s largest film studio. Most of the property lies in the nearby desert and mountains. Next to the studios is the Oscar Hotel which provides hospitality services to the film crew.

Scattered about are props for various movies, such as troop carrier, fighter jet … etc.

Many sets from various movies remain in place and, because of this, the studio also operates guided tours and it has become a tourist destination.

I(Chris) was rather curious about it, especially up to this point in time, we had been exposed mostly to ancient history and indigenous culture on this trip.

These are some of the movies that were made in Atlas  Studio: The Jewel of the Nile, Aladdin (2019 film), The Mummy, Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra.

With rocky mountains and an arid desert nearby, this location was perfect for those movies.

They recreated the historical interiors too, so that, I suspect, they can film the dramatic open desert vista when the main character emerges from the palace.

Cleopatra’s?

Very colorful faux Egyptian decorations in a giant set.

The other movies film made here that have a medieval theme include: Gladiator, Kingdom of Heaven, and Game of Thrones.

Then, these two movies: Vikings and Atlantis were also listed as being made here (at least parts thereof) but the environment seems a bit incongruous for those stories.

Another large scale set that were kept intact after filming is the Tibetan temple built for Kundun. The film soundtrack was done by Philip Glass, one of my favs, so here is a sample.

Kundun was made in 1997 by Martin Scorcece. The movie dramatizes Tibet’s fourteenth Dalai Lama, from childhood to adulthood, and deals with Chinese oppression and other political problems.

The Chinese Communist Party objected to the release of this film which was distributed by Disney. It took many years before the relationship has improved to the extent Disney was allowed to film in Xinjiang recently the live-action adaption of the story of Mulan.

We have never been to Tibet and would not know how authentic was the interiors (this is true for most moviegoers).

Until one goes right up to the statues and artifacts, they all looked quite authentic except a layer of dust and sand which will not be tolerated in a real life temple.

The Atlas Studios was founded in 1983 by entrepreneur Mohamed Belghmi. Since then it has been able to expand, thanks to the natural environment which can mimic the outdoor locations of many movies. The lower cost is a factor as well as the predictable and reliable weather conditions, meaning that there are few rescheduling or delays.

What we did not expect was a stable with attractive looking horses and camels, all clean and handsome, camera-ready to step onto a set.

The studio also filmed some other modern pieces here: The Amazing Race 10, The Living Daylights, The Grand Tour, The Hills have Eyes, Prison Break, and Patton.

Babel (which we saw and liked) was made here too. One of the stories in Babel (played by Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchet) took place in the desert of modern day Morocco.

The visit was a fun way to spend a few hours after a long drive, before we headed to our hotel in Ouarzazate.

If you are interested, you can follow our trip from Merzouga up to Ouarzazate on this blog here and here.

Walking in Gorges du Toudra in the High Atlas mountains

Todra Gorge is one of the detour from our 3-day road trip from Mezouga to Essaouira. See earlier post here.

The Todra Gorge (or Todgha Gorge, Gorges du Toudra; in Tamazight: ⵜⵉⵣⵉ ⵏ ⵜⵓⴷⵖⴰ; Arabic: مضيق تودغا‌‎) are a series of limestone river canyons, in the eastern part of the High Atlas Mountains, near the town of Tinghir.

A local guide took us for a walk along the canyon floor, through palmeraies and one of the villages, and we crossed the Oued Todra several times.

We did not go further upstream, but we read that the canyon narrows to a flat stony track, in places as little as 10 metres (33 ft) wide.

Lonely Planet said that the best time to visit is in the morning when the sunshine briefly illuminates the gorge in a golden moment of welcome. Well, we were there late in the afternoon and saw the warm rays of sunset lighting up the upper halves of the cliff face.

We walked along and on the banks of irrigation channels by which river water is diverted into the fields of vegetables, and almond trees and walnut trees. The almond trees which flower in early spring were blooming.

Our local guide spoke English well and told us a lot about stem grafting to propagate the almond trees.

We walked through a Berber village with abandoned mud brick houses. Berbers are an ethnicity of several nations mostly indigenous to North Africa and some northern parts of West Africa.

The Moroccan Constitution, amended in 2011, lists Tamazight the language spoken by Berbers as an official language together with Arabic. In June 2019, Moroccan lawmakers approved a bill requiring Tamazight to be taught to all Moroccan students.

One of the main characteristic of Tamazight that has confused Tamazight speakers is that there are many dialects. Tamazight has three major varieties. Tashlhit, Tamazight and Tarifit. And each of these dialects consists of many sub-dialects.

The teaching of Tamazight is now accompanied with the Tifinagh alphabet (neo-tifinagh), which many Tamazight speakers still aren’t familiar with, having been accustomed to write the language in the Arabic or Latin alphabet. A modernized form of the Tifinagh alphabet was made official in Morocco in 2003. Before this point Tamazight did not have a literacy tradition, even though it has had a written tradition going back 2500 years.

This is Tifinagh written in Tifinagh ⵜⵉⴼⵉⵏⴰⵖ . Tifinagh has been added to Unicode Standard in 2015 and its block range is U+2D30–U+2D7F. We hope your computer can support the display of these codes, otherwise you would have been seeing boxes.

For many years, giving children Amazigh names was forbidden in Morocco, and administrators would often refuse to enter these names into the civil registries. The effect of such a ban was the exclusion of those who speak the language – usually people from poor, rural areas of the country – from participation in various aspects of public life.

Apparently during the high tourist season, souvenir stands and tour buses clog the road.  We did not see anything close to regular vehicular traffic or even a piece of souvenir, lucky us.

Can you see Sue and the guide ahead of me in the photo above ? The vertical rock faces offer excellent rock-climbing routes. Something that we were not going to be able to enjoy.

Our driver was waiting for us further upstream at a scenic spot. We had a nice, gentle 90-minute walk while the sun was slowly setting behind the mountain.

Morabit Marbre Fossils, Erfoud

Our first detour after we left our Merzouga desert camp on our cross-country drive was a fossil factory or rock shop – Morabit Marbre Fossils, at Erfoud – the fossil capital of Morocco.

During the Devonian period, the Paleozoic Era, from about 450 million years ago, this area of the Sahara was the floor of a large prehistoric ocean. It is now prime digging grounds for fossil hunters. We stopped by a fossil field the day before when were exploring the area. See earlier post here.

The most common fossils here are trilobites. Trilobite fossils are found worldwide, with many thousands of known species.

Shown above are ammonites which were molluscs (like squid, octopus) but they had a hard coiled tubular shell as well as a soft body. In its shell, there was a series of progressively larger chambers that are divided by thin walls. Apparently, only the last and largest chamber, the body chamber, was occupied by the living animal at any given moment. As it grew, it added newer and larger chambers to the open end of the coil. The ammonites first appeared in the Devonian period (circa 409 million years ago) and became virtually extinct at the close of the Cretaceous period (circa 66 million years ago) along with the dinosaurs.

We bought one which had been sliced open into two halves and were polished.

I found a rock with numerous ammonites on a digging site from a day earlier. See earlier post here.

This workshop/shop has a courtyard full of large sheets of rocks in which are embedded the fossilized organisms.

Photographs show workers breaking up huge pieces of marble/rocks by pneumatic drilling, and hauling the big pieces back to the workshop where sheets of rocks were carefully sliced off like white bread.  Some of the sheets are about about 10 cm thick.

They are made into ornamental displays, or practical things like tabletops, fountain and bathroom pieces.

In addition to the regular patterns of marble, the slabs of marble on offer here contain fragments of fossils scattered in it.

Apparently, it is rare to find fossils in perfect condition so the miners take their finds to fossil “factory” to have them restored. The composition and placement of the fossils on these slabs (see photo below) looked a bit too perfect to me. Perhaps the fossil themselves are genuine but they were assembled and fixed in a new background.

It must be worrisome for shoppers to hear that fossil replicas can be made from plaster, plastic or even auto-body putty. Not knowing what the real deal looks like, it can be hard to distinguish them.

The shop also offers a huge selection of rocks and minerals. Some are in their natural form.

We were the only customers in this showroom. But during peak season, there must be busload of tourists descending on this emporium.

 

 

 

Life, Life – Ryuichi Sakamoto & David Sylvian

Ryuichi Sakamoto and David Sylvian, both my very favorite artists, collaborated again on this video – the music, poem and time-lapse photographed images of New York City. Meditative and beautiful.

How did I miss this by almost three years? It was released in 2017 when Sakamoto’s “async” came out. And I just discovered this video. See bottom of page for more music.

Don’t forget you can enter full screen. More immersive on headphone. Hope you enjoy it as much as I (Chris) do.

 

music by Ryuichi Sakamoto
voice by David Sylvian
poem from Andrei Tarkovsky’s father,
the famous Russian poet Arseny Tarkovsky.
video by Cameron Michael

The text of the poem:

And this I dreamt, and this I dream

And this I dreamt, and this I dream,
And some time this I will dream again,
And all will be repeated, all be re-embodied,
You will dream everything I have seen in dream.

.

To one side from ourselves, to one side from the world
Wave follows wave to break on the shore,
On each wave is a star, a person, a bird,
Dreams, reality, death – on wave after wave.

.

No need for a date: I was, I am, and I will be,
Life is a wonder of wonders, and to wonder
I dedicate myself, on my knees, like an orphan,
Alone – among mirrors – fenced in by reflections:
Cities and seas, iridescent, intensified.
A mother in tears takes a child on her lap.

. . .

Apparently, the press release for the album states that async was a soundtrack for an imaginary Andrei Tarkovsky film (who made Solaris), and there is a track named Solari.

“async” was released in 2017, his 16th solo album but the first after 8 years and a battle with throat cancer. Mindful of his mortality, in the track “fullmoon”, Sakamoto included the author Paul Bowles reciting “Because we don’t know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well, …” which came from Bowles’s book – “The Sheltering Sky” that was also made into a movie. Sakamoto wrote the soundtrack and won a Golden Globe award for Best Original Score. See our earlier post (here) about this book which Chris read during the Morocco trip.

 

Some of you may remember their collaboration from 37(!) years ago – “Forbidden Colours” for the 1983 movie Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence also known as Furyo. It won a BAFTA award for Best Film Music.

 

As a bonus, here is another collaboration by the two – “World Citizen” from 2003.

A slightly different version of “World Citizen – I won’t be disappointed” was included in the soundtrack for the 2006 movie “Babel” by Alejandro González Iñárritu.

A version of “World Citizen” remixed by Taylor Deupree appeared in Sakamoto’s 2006 album “Bricolages”.

 

They have more collaborations – I will let you discover them.