Everything sounds so simple when you read the "Getting there and Away" section of the Lonely Planet guidebook. Leaving the small village of Ait Bennhaddou we read that we could take a taxi to Ouarzazate, then a bus to Boulmane and finally another taxi to our destination the Dades Gorge. Here's how it really goes down; first the taxi turned out to be a ride we hitched in the back of a pickup where an old woman begged us for money the whole ride. Once in Ouarazate we discovered our bus for Boulmane would not leave for 3 hours. Then finally in Boulmane we had to wait for the share taxi to fill up with 16 people before they departed, this took all of 2 hours. All this to travel the great distance of 200km over a full day.
It was well worth the long travel when we arrived in the Dades Gorge. The area is similar to the U.S. southwest, minus Vegas of course. We quickly settled into our room with an amazing view and I finally found beer for the first time in Morocco. Could things get any better?
Well yes, the following day we arranged a trek in and around the gorge with a guide named Mohammed. I wasn't feeling so great so some Imodium was in order. We started out walking through a very narrow gorge on a dry river bed, and the deeper in the canyon we went the more narrow the walls became, reaching heights of 180 metres high. Mohammed took us up the steep hillsides climbing the nomadic Berber trails they used to traverse the region. He called Jordana a gazelle for her climbing skills and myself Ali Baba, apparently because I was unshaven and something about having 14 wives. I'm pretty sure I still only have one wife and I am now clean shaven. The Moroccan's have a great sarcastic humour at times.
"Now we go down to see nomad Berbers, live in cave with animals." Huh? Was this guy drunk? Sure we thought, nomads who live with their animals in caves, whatever buddy. I was expecting some made for tourist money scam or the Moroccan Flintstones. I was hoping for the Moroccan Flintstones, because tell me how cool would that be. Sure enough at the bottom of a dry river bed were a series of 6 caves where the nomads lived. They spent the summer here in the valley taking their sheep up the mountain to graze. Soon they would make the long trek to the desert for winter. We were both impressed how they weren't affected by tourism, not that any tourist were around but sadly you just assume they might be. They said hello in Berber and kept to themselves. A young girl of 15 made us tea. I discreetly asked Mohammed where their water source was? He said it was a spring in the area. At this point we couldn't turn down the sugary tea as it would be very rude. We drank our tea and observed their incredibly simple yet difficult nomadic lifestyle and departed by leaving our packed lunch of apples, oranges and dates with the young woman. She would not let us take her picture which was better than asking for money I thought. Leaving I felt good that some people were still able to live this traditional lifestyle in a country where it is becoming increasingly rare.
The rest of the walk was spectacular but with about 45 minutes to go I started feeling ill and it was more like the amazing race for the toilet! So I'll spare you the details and end it with it was our best and most rewarding day on the trip to date.
