Sunday, April 08, 2007

Ouarzazate

Today is Sunday and we have arrived in the town of Ouarzazate. This town is called "the door of the desert" because from here we will venture out to the Draa River Valley and then into the Sahara Desert.

We arose well before dawn in Fes to catch a 6AM flight to Casablanca where we connected with a regional flight to Ouarzazate. Our driver Mohammed was waiting at the door to Dar Seffarine at 4:30AM. He brought his son along to help shlep our luggage and to keep him company. It was so early that we were up before the first blaring call to prayer at the mosque down the street.

Ouarzazate is about 120km south and east of Marrakech. We will be headed further southeast to the town of Zagora in the next few days, then into the Sahara Desert.

While in Ouarzazate, we are staying at Le Berbere Palace Hotel. This is where we will meet up with our B&R tour group and begin our biking and hiking expedition.

The hotel seems to be overrun with vacationers from France. This is the high season and I suppose people from France want a few days in the desert just like people from LA flock to Palm Springs or Las Vegas. Morocco has not yet implemented non-smoking ordinances. Every French tourist seems to be a chain smoker.

We sampled more Moroccan wine at lunch. Not bad, but it tastes very young. Considering that Muslims don't drink alcohol, they seem to have several wineries in this country. Probably to serve the hoards of tourists from Europe and avoid having to accept imports from France and Spain.

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