May 2010

After the great overnight stay at Ait Benhaddou we left Action Couscous and headed up windy roads to the mountains, stopping at Imlil from where we walked (or if not up to it, donkeyed) up to the small village of Aroumd.

After the nice restful day but crappy night in the Todra Gorge we were up fairly early and hit the road heading southwest towards Morocco's movie-making towns.

After the hot Sahara camel safari we had a long driving day to the cooler climes of the Todra Gorge, basically a chance to cool off, relax, and go for a wander. There was even a pool! And tepid showers!

One of the best days of our trip took us from Midelt into the Erg Chebbi dunes of the Sahara Desert, near Morocco's border, by van and camel.

After Fes we had a travel day, heading south towards Midelt in the the Middle Atlas mountains, and it was a real mixed bag – some really nice bits, but also en route the place I liked least in all of Morocco.

Luther linked us up to an awesome set of pancake photos – not just an entire burger made out of pikelets, but a three-dimensional tower crane!

I can't say that Fes and I got on too well, by the time we got off our minibus from Volubis/that lake I was feeling a bit shit so I just stayed in that night reading my book.

Catching up on old things to blog: we love Pixels by Patrick Jean (HD version below). And it reminds us of that Royksopp video.

Water management is obviously pretty important to desert countries like Morocco, but the rivers didn't tend to be in great shape once they'd left the mountains. There is a slow build-up of infrastructure though; on our way from Volubilis to Fez we stopped for a break on a pass above this man-made (1996) dam, which is about 5km long – the dam itself and half the lake is out of sight around the corner at the far end of the shot.

I'm glad that I wasn't so badly sick I couldn't go out and see Volubis, as it was one of the highlights of the Morocco tour for me. The relatively well-preserved Roman city dates from the first millenia and remained largely intact for hundreds of years.