Day 2 of Moroccan Vacation: Sahara Desert Tour Day 1 on February 6th, 2017
First day of our three-day Sahara desert tour from Marrakech.
The plan of the day's tour was to visit Aït Benhaddou Village, a desert village and UNESCO World Heritage Site where several movies were shot.
Only desert-goers would wake up this early.
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We were told by the travel agent guy to arrive at Jemaa el-Fna at 0720 for departure, which meant we had to wake up early. However, even though it's outside the usual breakfast hours, our wonderful hotel manager even prepared breakfast for us.
At Jemaa el-Fna and with Moroccan punctuality, our minivan didn't leave until 0800, which meant we got to enjoy the other tranquil side of the usually-bustling Jemaa el-Fna, on the bright side.
After sitting in that Ford Transit Minivan for three days I found it had the most gruesome seats I had ever been in. Well, I always felt disgusted at AirAsia's idea of 9-abrest A330's but I thought that Ford Transit might be as terrible. However, for the first leg of the journey, we got to enjoy farmlands and ranges of mountains along the way, which made the discomfort of the seats barely noticeable.
But not long after the journey, I recalled that I left my camera-charger in my suitcase at the Marrakech hotel (as we would be returning to Marrakech after the desert tour). That meant I only have two batteries of camera power with me. So to conserve that camera power, I took most of the photos on the road with my cell phone. Although tomorrow night I would find out that this wasn't the saddest thing that would befall my camera.
Also, all the original photos seemed to have this strange white balance due to the car window in front of me. I tried to post-process them as much as possible.
Plants like these were easy to spot before crossing Atlas Mountains.
Our minivan made several stops at viewing points along the way. The first one was overlooking a valley in the Atlas mountain ranges.
Then it's a roadside Cafe as the driver took his rest.
Then it's Atlas Mountain Pass. At an altitude of 2000 meters, it's the highest point of the desert tour. We could see the Northern slopes of the mountains were covered by patches of snow.
After crossing Atlas Mountains, the lands became bleak and barren, resembling more and more like a proper desert.
At half past 12 we reached Aït Benhaddou Village. Before visiting the village we first had lunch in a nearby restaurant with views of Aït Benhaddou Village Hill.
After yesterday's quite disappointing dinner, we decided that we would avoid Moroccan food of Couscous and Tangia, and picked Omelet.
Well, as a way to rack up revenues through desert tours, the lunch restaurants along desert tours usually charge double or triple of the market price for their in my opinion terrible dishes.
The interesting thing about such roadside cafes and restaurants on the desert tour was that, they were the pioneers of the equality movement by providing only gender-neutral multi-stall bathrooms. I guess people from North Carolina would be really impressed how the uncivilized hijab-wearing Muslims thought so much ahead of them.
After lunch, it was the walking tour of Aït Benhaddou Village, an important stop on the caravan route between Sahara and Marrakech, whose buildings were pretty much in good shape till this day.
That's how we crossed the river.
According to our guide, this is the site of the small arena in the movie Gladiator.
Some religious ritual.
Towards the end of our tour we were given demonstration and sales pitch of local fire paintings. What interested me was that, along the fire paintings there were displays of photos of film crews in the Aït Benhaddou Village (obviously not for sale). Well, if not for those photos (and Wikipedia) I don't think I would recognize the Aït Benhaddou Village from the post-processing of the movie crews.
Before being heated up, those paintings were colorless.
Finally we got this decent bridge to walk on on our way out.
Not many residents here.
At the end of the tour we were led to scarf-shopping (at triple the market price), which concluded an otherwise very pleasant tour of this ancient village.
No, we didn't have time to visit the Ouarzazate Cinema Museum. I thought this was only for government-mandated rest of the driver, and while he took his rest, we listened to street music performers nearby.
Our last stop of the day, no nearby village.
At half past 6 in the evening we reached our overnight hotel inn near Gorges Dadés. Oh Gosh, that's the most basic inn I had ever been in as far as I remembered.
Oh, that's a two-star hotel? I guess one star minimum to start with and one star for their free but very slow WiFi near the reception, though that's the only thing my friend ever cared about.
Look at those carpets inundated with sand.
No, I hate Couscous.
It was a clear cloudless night, and the stars were clearly visible. (Not so for the next night.)
Since this was a fairly budget tour (so was every other tour promoted on the streets of Marrakech), expectedly there were no quilts provided in the hotel rooms. Furthermore, there was only a thin layer of linen separating my body and their never-washed sand-filled blankets.
No, I won't post pictures of its terrible bathroom.
END