Tazougart, TafraoutE & Tiznit

Somewhere between Sidi Ifni and Tazougart

One day, we borrowed Maria and Eberhardt's UN approved outfitted for the desert Landcruiser, which had at one time been Joyce's, to take a trip inland to an abandoned fort. We drove south along the Atlantic for a little less than an hour and then took a left, leaving the greener hills along with literally any sign of human life aside from the paved road. It's happened enough times now that I know to expect some kind of mystical experience when on land that is so devoid of humans and buildings, with only sky and a very very long horizon. It didn't hurt that the sun was out and that the windiness of the road, going up and down canyons, had a certain beauty of its own.

Road to Tazougart

What awaited us was an adobe fort, built in 1935 by the French Foreign Legion, then abandoned whenever ti was that their business took them elsewhere. It was hard to imagine what natural resources, in this usually arid land with little sign of life, needed military protection, and while there was talk that it was put there to quell local unrest, it seems a bit bazooka for a mosquito in its scale.

Nevertheless, there it was. As we got out of the car, Joyce said in passing "oh, mind for the snakes, I've heard they like it here" which sent me into a twister, but I let the two of them, who seem unperturbed, go first and kept eyes open in the front, back and side of my head. Like much of the building in Morocco, it's adobe, which needs to be kept up every year, or it starts to fall apart, resulting in this case in a haunted old place in the middle of nowhere, with nary another creature in sight. 

French Foreign Legion abandoned fort,  from afar

Who could have possibly attacked??

Joyce had made a reservation for lunch, which one has to do in order for the purveyors to have enough advance warning to drive the 40 minutes to Guelmim for ingredients,  It seemed an absurd place for a reserved lunch, but it turns out that the road leads onto the Sahara and Mauritania and is a big stop for motor cyclers. As it was only a couple of kilometers from the fort, I decided to walk, and was rewarded with a feeling of being alone in this peaceful, untouched and unfamiliar land, shared only with a few sheep up on a hillside in the distance, baaing away. Sure enough, there was a lodge, our table was set with a beautiful vegetable tagine, followed by another composed of fruit. 

*****

Vegetable tagine with homemade bread

Fruit tagine

A shack where some of us took a postprandial nap. I couldn't stop humming to myself "Midnight at the Oasis" as sung in Waiting for Guffman auditions

Our next adventure took us northeast, about a 4 hour drive to the high desert (appx 1500 metres). For much of the drive it was cloudy or misty, but we were able to see green valleys and up in the mountains, graduated ledges that evoked tea plantations (I have no idea why I even have an image of these as I've never seen one), but as it turns out, were built to grow almond trees, which are no longer a local crop because they're too expensive to maintain. At the market in Tafraoute, we actually saw a bulk bag of almonds that said "California, USA" on it. We stayed at a cool place called El Malara, conceived, built and run by a couple who are French and Belgian, just outside of town. 

It was sort of a box canyon, like Telluride is a box canyon, only pretty different from Telluride. Mountains surround the area on all but one side, but there we were in the middle of a desert, argan trees and whatever the plant is that makes tumbleweeds were the only things that flourished . There were also huge rocks, and not much else. Again, the best part for me was walking out onto this sandy road at different times of the day with no other creature in evidence, feeling the silent majesty of the earth. There's something so reassuring about understanding how incredibly puny we all are. 

Town of Tafraoute

The "road" from our "hotel" where I walked at all times of the day

Ruins along the road. ASo many of these rocks that looked like a giant had been playing a dice game, throwing them hither and yon.

We're talking dry

One day I walked to one of two attractions, the painted rocks. A Belgian artist had painted them in the 60s, which to me seemed a bit presumptuous as I believe the Christos only ever put up temporary signs of human intervention. In any case, locals thought "well if a little is good, more is better", which turned out to absolutely not be true. 

Painted Rocks to the left, end of the world to the right

Too many photos, but ugh, it was such a good place

Painted rocks. As my mother would have said "Not my best"

The next day, we went to town for a browse and a long sit at an outdoor lunch spot while we watched the proprietors first take our order, then scamper, well actually there was nothing rushed about it at all, across the street to the grocery store, buy the ingredients for our tagines, come back and make them.  It was a good hour before they appeared but it was spent watching locals come and go, a seriously brisk business at the olive stall.

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From when our lunch originated

We decided to try and find the traditional Berber house, where Joyce had been before, and after driving through some beautifully manicured oases, found our way to this house up on a rocky hill.  The Berbers would keep the animals on the ground floor, creating heat that would rise up. There would be a hole somewhere for humans to send down all food refuse to the animals, the way this family lived until fairly recently. When the father passed away a few years ago, the son inherited the house (he must be in his late fifties) and decided to build a lodging nearby where he now lives. He continues to keep his old house open for people to visit, and gave us a warm welcome, making us tea with absinthe, showing us around and towards the end, playing his banjo, both a western and then Berber song about losing a mother.  We felt so honored to be his guests. 

This guy's Berber house, as you can tell, on a small creek

Implements used until very recently

Grinding

I want this to be my living room

Our Berber host

The Moroccan and Berber flag. Blue represents the sea, green the mountains, yellow the desert and the red letter, freedom

Bench for waiting parents, outside the elementary school

Just one offering on this visual smorgasbord

And then it was home again, home again, jiggedy jig, with a stop in Tiznit as it was Friday, and as anyone knows, Friday is mosque day so it's couscous day. It's set to cook early before services, and then when they're over, it's ready and everyone sits down to eat together. We stopped in a funky place in the Tiznit Medina and had a fish couscous, which was delicious

On the way to the couscous restaurant, Tiznit

Me in the bathroom at our restaurant in Tiznit

​And then, we were back in Sidi Ifni for a bit. The day prior to our departure, we drove to Taroudant because Jacques Chirac used to spend his Christmases there, so the King built a good road from the town to the Agadir airport, making it a convenient stop before our morning flight. And so it was over and out for Morocco, with a much much better flavor in my mouth than last time. Thank you, Joyce, you were right. What a pleasure it was to be in places that weren't overrun by the likes of me!