Morocco Photos, page 5

The tour then involved steady climb into the Middle Atlas mountains, stopping in the rather sterile town of Ifrane (a popular winter resort and home to a large university), over the Col du Zad (renowned cedar forests, rapidly being cut down) and Tizi N'Tairhemt ("Pass of the She-Camel" at 1907 meters), continuing through the Ziz River Gorge to get to Erfoud, a settlement in the desert for one night. Then we headed to Rissani, the last real settlement before the great 'sand sea" begins. Rissani is where the Alaouite dynasty began; its reign has lasted 300 years. Then it was along the Ziz River to reach Merzouga. The Ziz River valley was once a routing for caravans linking sub-Saharan Africa to the Mediterranean with ksars (fortified settlements) built on the hillsides to monitor traffic, often with ruthless collection of tolls from the caravans.

Merzouga is where our 4-wheel drive adventure into the Sahara Desert took place; we reached within 20 or so miles of the Algerian border. Some of the group opted to do camel rides to the dune tops. Some spent a night in Berber tents at the dunes' edge. Much of the desert comprises rocky gravel plains, rocks originating from volcanic activity centuries ago in the Middle Atlas. Only about a third of Sahara consists of sand --but some of that is breathtakingly beautiful red-gold sand dunes. However, the desert sands encroachment into what used to be fertile crop lands has become a severe and very unbeautiful problem; we saw many a half or fully covered building in settlements largely abandoned. A rather futile attempt to hold back the sands has been made with woven palm leaf 'fences.'

An Italian imprisoned for drug dealing gets credit for sculpting this lion in the Ifrane square.

On the broad plateau of the Meski Oasis, we pass the so-called "Blue Spring" which borders the desert, and so into Erfoud.

Decorative art is an eye feast everywhere, from humble bamboo ceilings and hotel fountain courtyards to massive public buildings.

Our Rissani guide Ali and our daily tour leader Aziz--finally dressed fit for his Berber heritage!

An unusual chair, very comfortable and desirable -- but too big for the luggage!

Wells within the fortified village (ksour or ksar) of Rissani are still in use -- and show some ingenuity in their trappings!

Desert sparrows.

At a Berber settlement outside Merzouga on the edge of the 'sand sea' Aziz tries his hand at drumming. Then we were treated to a genuine Berber band!

Despite the drought and cracked earth, some flowers do manage. In fact, the vegetation was more plentiful (slightly) than for many months previous, as there had been a soaking rain a couple weeks before we visited the area.

Mohammed, a 4-wheel tour driver in the Sahara, has always lived here and owns his vehicle and some camels, so he says he does well. Others are not so fortunate, and piece together a subsistence living, moving from the mountains in summer down to the desert in winter.

The Sahara encampment had very civilized toilet arrangement.

Trying to stop the inexorable drift of sands that has obliterated many a settlement are these palm frond woven 'fences' -- which of course do not do the trick.

From our overnight in Merzouga, we returned to Rissani's bustling market place... And visited a parking lot for donkeys!

A surprising (to me anyway) fact was that in all the markets throughout Morocco that we visited, there were rarely any flies to be seen...really!

Fifteen kinds of dates are grown in Rissani area, 45 varieties throughout Maroc. Shown are collected pollen plumes of male palms; the pollination is then done manually for female trees.This saves planting and irrigating so many male trees, which (except for pollen contribution) are useless as far as marketable produce goes.