Morocco - desert (2)

When you enter the desert part of Morocco it might surprise you the quantity of villages and people leaving there. The truth is that the palmers that are below the villages are completely different that anything that surrounds them.

They are just so full of life, so green, so filled with the water that you can hardly imagine that you are actually in the middle of the desert. The land is separated into small field separated by very small path and canals of water. Each field belongs to one family and is very well taken care of mainly by women that think that camera takes their soul so it is very difficult to take a picture of their face.

Otherwise people live in every at least closely fertile land and more into the desert you go more traditional life they have. After entering Sahara desert…

People are working, searching for grass far, using mules or carrying it back on their backs…

But inner into the desert you go, closer to the camels…

The traditional way of life is getting more and more present. If I mentioned earlier that in the touristic cities girls don’t wear scarf any more or at least not all of them, here the way of life is totally different. Women are not only wearing scarf, they are completely covered with black clothes, normally in the men’s company but not necessarily since they are also seen working in the palmers. Although Moroccan culture is quite modern it still contains, especially in more remote places, the traditional and strict Muslim way of life in which, unfortunately, women are not allowed to do what they want and are still mainly dependent on men.

Morocco resulted once again as a complete contradictory country. On one way you can see girls from the cities not wearing scarf at all and the complete differences between men and women in more rural areas. It’s like the difference between day and night…

Morocco - desert (1)

Leaving Marrakech we were soon in a rather deserted area but still rather fertile. Surrounded with fields we entered the mountains. The road soon began to raise and narrow.

The first villages emerged and I was left speechless again. They were small, dark browned colored – just like the mountains that protected them.

Women were wearing more colorful and less modern dresses, there were more man wearing traditional dress with the hood and the children were running around.

After reaching the highest point at 2260 meters of altitude we descended into the desert. The first oasis opened up and with it the first oases villages that were much alike those form the mountains just brighter (like the sand behind them) and they had a paradise full of water and vegetation in the bottom of the valley below them.

I began to see the people working on the fields, carrying big bags on their backs, riding mules…

Anyway, I was surprised. I already visited one desert (in Australia) but that one was far more abandoned. I remember driving for the whole day without seeing one single house (besides gas stations). Here every single oasis was inhabited and people were working very hard to have a nice life there. And the differences you can see on a really small space amaze you to – from the nicest flowers to the dry earth…

Morocco - Marrakech (2)

There is also other way of Marrakech as of almost every other Moroccan city - the one totally different, the new one. And it’s full of new building, industry, parks and flowers…

Morocco - Marrakech (1)

From the Atlantic I headed to the east – slowly into the dessert, to Marrakech. The nature was changeable, small villages that looked abandoned from the distance and even ruined, but full of people working inside and on the fields.

My favorite part of any town of Morocco is the old part – Medina.

More precisely, the Zoco – open market on the streets of the Medina.

You just see so much and smell and hear… It is so full of everything… And the one in Marrakech is huge! You can walk and walk and go to another side street and walk and go back (‘cause it was a death end) and walk…

And you can pat as many cats as you like ‘cause there is no place I’ve seen that has more of them. (I know I’m a cat lover but that is true anyway… They are adorable! And no, there are no dogs, honestly…)

It’s also the perfect chance to negotiate! I bought myself a beautiful necklace made of sky blue stones for a price 5 times smaller than the first offer and as a bonus a nice chat and tea with the seals man who said that is coming from the town in the dessert and that there is a costume to treat the buyers and all the people you meet as your friends. I don’t know about that but the tea was very good.

The thing I didn’t like in Marrakech is that it is full of tourists… Ok, I know I am a tourist to but that doesn’t mean I want to be around the others all the time… Besides I don’t like the ignorant attitude some have towards the culture of the country they are in (read: if you are in a big group that doesn’t give you the right to try to go into the mosque with almost no clothes on).

But thanks to all the tourism there, the nights in Medina of Marrakech are very alive and smell really good!