Our Many Moons of Honey: Morocco: Last Stop, Ouarzazate

The last stop of our Moroccan tour was the town of Ouarzazate nestled between the Atlas mountains and the Sahara desert, a great launching pad for Saharan adventures. Getting to this town was a bit of a challenge to say the least. As luck would have it we discovered we were trying to get to Ouarzazate a few days before Eid al-Adha or “Festival of Sacrifice”. We kept asking everyone what this “Fete” was all about. All we were told was that you went to pray in the morning and then went home and sacrificed a sheep. Good times. And they weren’t kidding. Every single household hung up a sheep in their ‘yard’ of sorts and sacrificed… you get the picture (for those with no imagination, be not afraid, we will provide a photograph below). In case you are wondering, we looked it up and the reason behind the sacrifice is to commemorate the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son Ishmael as an act of obedience to God, before God intervened to provide him with a ram to sacrifice instead (thank you Wikipedia).

Taddart - Berber village we stayed at

What this meant for us is that everyone was trying to get home to celebrate with their family so all buses to Ouarzazate were full, and had been for weeks. Does that mean no desert adventure for us?? No. We managed to find our way to Marrakech on a bus from hell … and then enter Abdul. Abdul agreed to drive us to Ouarzazate for an agreed upon sum of money, which drive was supposed to take about 4 hours. 24 hours later after a night spent on the floor at a Berber family home in a small village in the Atlas mountains and more money, we finally arrived at Hotel Marmar, Ouarzazate. Before you get carried away thinking we stayed in a lovely Berber town in the mountains breathing fresh air, all relaxed, let us stop you right now. In fact, this “Berber village” happened to be a bus stop for all the local bus companies making their way to and from Ouarzazate. What this means is that it was nothing more than a 500 meter main road lined with restaurants with bright lights and open all night long. What we discovered that night lying on our floor with our window overlooking this lovely strip is that in Morocco as a bus arrives and departs and waits for passengers, the driver honks and honks and honks and honks. Did we mention all the honking? Let’s just say that our restful mountain getaway left us very tired and cranky. However, the family we stayed with was very hospitable and made us a delicious breakfast and some mean ass couscous for lunch.

When we finally arrived at Hotel Marmar (http://www.booking.com/hotel/ma/marmar.en.html) we were delighted to find a great hotel at a great price … and free WiFi!! We can’t say enough about this place - the staff went above and beyond the call of duty (including a tour of Ouarzazate and driving S around town to get a bus ticket to Casablanca!!), the complementary breakfast was the best we’d had at a hotel in Morocco and being three months old it was spotless. We highly recommend this hotel for anyone traveling to or through Ouarzazate - you will not be disappointed! And for us, it was a great place to call home when M came down with a terrible three day long fever. Now that meant no desert adventure for us L . C’est la vie and the Sahara is not going anywhere.

Taourirk Kasbah

So a little bit about this town on the outskirts of the desert. First of all, this is the cleanest town we have been to in all of Morocco, we even saw garbage cans and street cleaners here! We were told that this might have something to do with the fact that the King likes to spend time here. Nonetheless, a clean city is a clean city. The people are very friendly and the town itself is quite pretty to see. Ouarzazate has two functioning film studios as the area around Ouarzazate has been used as a body double for Tibet, Somalia, Rome and Egypt. A definite must see in Ouarzazate is the Taourirt Kasbah, which was the backdrop for Star Wars. A Kasbah is a type of medina, Islamic city or fortress. There are three Kasbah’s in Ouarzazate (or that’s what we saw) and the road heading out of Ouarzazate and heading east is known as the road of 1000 Kasbah’s. The most famous of all the Kasbah’s is found 32km outside of Ouarzazate in Ait Benhaddou, which was the backdrop for Lawrence of Arabia, Jewel of the Nile, Jesus of Nazareth and Gladiator. We’ll sign off with a few pictures of this lovely town and surrounding area.