Dromedaries & Fes… Fez
After our night in the caves and a beautiful morning in Toudrah gorge we drove up to Efround, where we supposed to meet our driver to take us out to our desert adventure. We waited. We called. We contacted every contact email/app/Whatsapp we had. And we gave up.
We aren’t the kind of people that need a lot of handholding, but we do expect a certain amount of communication, and we got none. After an hour or so we decided to drive out to our meet up point on the edge of the desert and at least find a place to stay, even if it wasn’t a tent out in the middle of the desert that we rode our camel…umm, dromedary out to.
It was only a 45 minute drive out to Auberge du Sud, which was supposed to be our meet up point for the ride out to our tents. We were pleased to find out they had our reservation and arranged for our cam…dromedary ride. Getting up on the dromedary was interesting, but the ride was easy and pleasant, it was just us and our driver. We went way out on the dunes and enjoyed the peace, quiet & solitude…and the occasional 4 wheeler off in the distance.
We were surprised by two things though. First, the Sahara desert starts quite abruptly. Like there is flat rocky soil everywhere and the all of a sudden it is just sand- a proverbial line of, not in, the sand. Our other surprise was that our tents out in the desert were really on this line of sand, not out in the desert at all. Which I guess explains why they had running water and AC!
The tents weren’t really even tents- they had solid walls and a canvas roof, and they looked kind of like tents from the outside. The buffet dinner and breakfast were…ok. Maybe we’d been spoiled by so much great Moroccan food but this was nothing special.
Was it touristy? Yep. Was it a little tacky? Yep. Was it just kind of mediocre? Yep again. Would I do it over again? Absolutely! I mean how often can you say you rode a cam.. dromedary through the Sahara desert?
And to make it even a little better- the driver who had forgot to pick us up the day before came the next morning and took us on a 4×4 ride out to see the sunrise over the sand dunes- just stunning! (50Dh to the driver and 50DH to the campsite). So despite the downsides, I think this was a win, and a “must do” if you are here.
After this adventure (and a brief stop for some fossil souvenirs ) we are heading up the Mid Atlas mountains to Fes. Or Fez. One of the problems here is the multiple ways everything is spelled- even something as simple as Fes.
The drive is our longest one of the trip- 8.5 hours. We tried to to take the road to the Ziz Valley, Midelt and Ifrane (the “Switzerland of Morocco” but the road to Ifrane was blocked by rock slide; luckily other route to Fes was not far to back track to and was open, so we turned around and went back. However the Africa Eco Tour race was happening at the same time and the oncoming traffic was full of off road racers, huge overland campers and trucks of every size- and the as we went over the pass we saw a bad wreck, a dumptruck plowed into the side of the mountain and a vehicle down the steep mountainside. After that it was many emergency vehicles passing us, but how they would get through the traffic I have no idea. We luckily escaped being stuck for hours I think as it was all sorted out, and we hope all involved were ok.
We finally got to Fes, a bit tired but ok. We stayed at the Riad Myra which had really good tangines and our first alcohol – a bottle of Morracan red wine. Different but quite tasty!
We have a few days here, to not drive so much and do some sightseeing. So today we met our tour guide (Omar) for a half day tour (70DH plus 20DH for the driver). It is sightseeing, but it is more like sight shopping instead. I mean it is the the things you come to Morocco to see- the tannery, weavers, pottery, spices and oils. But all of the places come with a shop where there is an expectation of buying things- and let’s just say we bought more than we planned! Some pottery, a leather jacket and pouf (ottoman). We don’t buy much but occasionally we get a few things! The afternoon was more walking, some cafe noir and then some rest at the riad. Dinner was a cute small cafe just inside the medina walls called Encanto where we had our first *hot ginger lemon drink*- delicious!!! (220 DH)
The next day we have joined a small van tour of Volubilus, a Roman ruin from 300BC- my first Roman ruin! The Italians that were with us were probably not as impressed as I was, but that’s ok. The we stopped by Moulay Idriss, but other than an outside look at it we couldn’t go inside…we could have skipped it. The it was off to Mekanes, one of the early capitals of Morocco. Another medina and mausoleum, then lunch with a young Canadian (and Tesla employee) named Luke. A nice young man and we enjoyed meeting and hanging out with him.
Tomorrow we head to Chefchaouen.
