As per normal, we arrived at a station that had touts hanging around trying to lure to overpriced hotels. The one that was hassling us quickly got picked up by the “Tourist Police”. The Tourist Police were set up to crack down on faux guides (false guides - lead you to hotels/shops for commissions) and touts just like him. Nice of them to bust it up.
After checking into an average hotel with gross squat toilets, we headed out to a great restaurant – Chez Dimitri. It's known to be the movie stars' local of choice when they are in town. It has nice food, but I'm guessing it is also because they also feature a wine list. (A real rarity here.) The food was great, we got to taste a little of the local vintage while we browsed their “wall of fame,” and they even had a tasty chocolate mousse for dessert. We rated it highly!
The next day was probably the most frustrating day we've had yet. We spent about 7 hours booking a desert trek and trying to rent a car. It just seemed impossible! The price variation for the tours was huge. We were wondering how different they were from agency to agency or if they would all just give it a shot to see exactly how much they could get out of you.
Trying to rent a car was no better. Long and painful story short – we ended up with a dodgy little car with no air con or radio for 400 dirhams ($60). Considering that Hertz, Alamo and Budget's prices were all much lower (but completely booked out) didn't make us feel much better. Shaisters!
Our dodgy little hot box
(How can air con not come standard in the middle of the desert?)
(How can air con not come standard in the middle of the desert?)
In between the attempts to scam us, we managed to take in a few sights of the town...
And the main reason that we felt pressured to the rent the dodgy car?
A taxi strike. 100 cabs going nowhere in a hurry.
A taxi strike. 100 cabs going nowhere in a hurry.
Our back up plan... if we could wake them from their naps.
We quickly hopped into our rent a heap (which I incidentally took lots of pictures of before we agreed to rent it), then took off to do some local touring.
First stop – Atlas Studios! Ourzazate and the surrounding area is home to several movie studios where they have made films such as Lawrence of Arabia, Gladiator, Alexander, Jewel of the Nile, Kundun and lots of others. There are officially only one studio that you can visit, and that is Atlas.
Atlas studios houses the Buddhist monastery from Kundun, a fighter plane from Jewel of the Nile, the city of Jerusalem from Kingdom of Heaven, the court from Alexander, Egyptian temples from Asterix and Obelix, the palace and town from The Last Temptation of Christ and the main temple from The Mummy. It was the first time that we had been to a movie studio so it was actually pretty cool to see.
The plane from The Jewel of the Nile
The Tibetan monastery from Kundun
Inside the monastery
Set from the Last Temptation of Christ
The city of Jerusalem from Kingdom of God
The temple from The Mummy
A few shots from Cleopatra's Palace as seen in Asterix and Obelix:
After seeing all of these, it's almost like we'd already gone to Egypt.
Cleopatra's bed from Asterix and Obelix
After our Hollywood experience, we drove out to Ait Benhaddou - a magnificent kasbah from the 11th century that has been magically restored with lots of movie $$$. Lawrence of Arabia was filmed here, but most recently, Gladiator and Jesus of Nazareth which pumped tons of money into the restoration.
As a result, it looks fantastic! The really interesting part for us is that locals still live in it. Most of the entrances (except for the one unmarked main entrance) are actually through peoples' houses. You have to pay a fee to see their house, thereby giving you access to the kasbah. It was a really fascinating place to explore.
This is NOT the entrance to the kasbah, just the sign pointing to the kasbah.
Our first glimpse of Ait Benhaddou.
Trying to work out how to get in wasn't as easy as you would've thought. Definitely no "Entrance" sign. Ended up getting lured by a tout to pay 10 dirhams each ($.1.50) to enter through a person's house. He said that the $$ goes toward restoration. Haha. Good one. I'm thinking not. And besides, what will my $1.50 do compared to the $30+ million that was pumped in by Hollywood?
While we had a very rocky start to the day, we're very happy to have arrived late as it was finally cooling down and the crowds of tourists had already left.
Having a look from a spot near the top
A cafe built into the side of a mountain
A cafe built into the side of a mountain
A closer view of the town
The picturesque view looking down
And the real view... someone's washing hanging out to dry
Some lovely details from the restored areas
A view of the rocky top
Every once in a while we got a glimpse of the kasbah in its original state.
Looking out over the colourful desert
The sunrise over the river after climbing down therough the kasbah.
The spectacular sunset in the desert
And in case I didn't mention it before, I met a crazy snake guy at the lookout and I fought my fear and actually held onto the two intertwined snakes (a little bit). That's a big step. How brave am I?!
The next day we set off on a driving adventure to the Draa Valley - it is known to be very pretty however, as our tour wasn't going there, we would have missed it if we didn't drive there ourselves.
Our piece of shit rental kept stalling every time we slowed down (from 7am until 1pm), so many of the pictures were taken from a moving car. We assumed that it was just going to keep stalling until it was heated up, but it was already 95 degrees at noon, and it would still stall. What a piece of crap!!
While driving through the Draa, we saw quite a few kasbahs, lots of palmeries and even more kids on the side of the road selling dates. We eventually arrived at Zagora – the last real town before the Sahara. It was blazing hot outside, but we managed to brave the heat for just a couple minutes to pose with the famous sign “52 Days (by camel) to Timbuktu”. There is not a hell of a lot to do there except for going on camel treks, so we started making our way back and crossing our fingers that our rent-a-bomb would make it.
A couple views of the mountains and the palmeries
It surprised us to see so much green in a place as hot and dry as this.
One of the kasbahs closest to Ouarzazate
We saw so many kasbahs that I couldn't name half of them if I tried!
The very modern and weirdly palatial police headquarters
A very famous sign
An interesting sight - hundreds of school kids walking the many kilometers home from school, in the middle of the highway
When we returned to Ouarzazate, we were pleased to find that we had a little more time before returning the car, so we snuck in a visit to Taouirirt Kasbah. It has been beautifully restored in parts. We then had a look around the medina next door for a bit of exploring down the winding streets - no souks so no hassle, unlike the Marrakesh medina.
Looking up at the Taourirt Kasbah
The entrances to the kasbah and the medina
A lovely doorway
A fountain in one of the open area that we thought was really lovely until we discovered the truth... They hadn't bothered to restore it properly -- the zellij (tile mosaics) was just a sticker!!! Considering my love of mosaics, I was absolutely appalled!! Aren't we in Morocco, land of mosaics?
Exploring the kasbah and trying to get my barings after the mosaic sticker debacle.
Having a theatrical moment
A room with a view... The biggest stork's nest we've ever seen!
Another view of the kasbah
A market just outside the kasbah
The minaret in the medina
Exploring the mud-brick structures in the medina.
When we returned the piece of crap car, the dodgy rental guy asked how it was. We gave him an earful about how for the first 5 hours the car stalled whenever we got anywhere close to an idle. Then he actually had the nerve to try to sell us something else. Typical, really typical.
We had a few nice meals at one of the local cafes in town that did nice kofta sandwiches and special couscous. Very tasty.
It gave us a chance to take in a bit of the cafe atmosphere here. At any given time, large groups of men are sitting around in the cafes drinking tea. The weird thing is that it's really all day long, but you rarely see women and never in a cafe. So are the women at home slaving away while the men piss the day away over some mint tea?? Hmm, still pondering that one. But I can say one thing for sure.... I'm glad, really glad that I'm not muslim and don't have an arab husband... I get the impression that the women get a pretty raw deal.
After an interesting few days in and around Ouarzazate, we were looking forward to our tour of the Moroccan landscape (and were hoping that it was money well spent!)
