We took an excursion trip south and east past incredible green terraced fields and old Berber kasbahs (ancient Moroccan self-contained communities made out of the rust colored mud of the countryside)-seemingly idyllic-to the Atlas Mountains.

Our group consisted of Bob and I, a young couple from New Zealand in their thirties-one a computer/internet analyst and his partner a pharmacist, another couple about our age from Boston. He had been the president of a University in Iran before the Shah was deposed and she obviously was also well educated. He was able to escape and she soon after. He now teaches theoretical physics at a University in Boston. The fourth couple was young-he a music major at a California school. The last two were a couple of great guys from Italy that we called �The Italians! who gave us some menu items we could order when we got to Italy.

On the way to the Sahara we passed over the Atlas Mountains (about 12,000 feet) and through the towns of Tinerhir and Boumalne. The first night we slept in a small Berber Hotel that was in the process of being renovated at the head of the Dades Gorge. The room was cold with a concrete floor but offered
several very thick heavy blankets-like the blankets used on the camels. The evening included a walk up an incredibly beautiful gorge and a dinner of Chicken Tangine. Oddly there were only two small pieces of chicken for every four people but otherwise it was very good. In the morning we had a breakfast of rolls, coffee, butter and jam before continuing on to Erfoud and then to Merzouga. We stopped in Kassah for lunch. (The cafes with the best toilettes get the most tourist business!) We all had beef kabobs and moroccan salad (tomatoes, cucumber, olives, onions) and water.

In the afternoon we walked through a Berber kasbah. We took a trail through the fields to learn about tribal farming; then walked through the kasbah and into a building where some women weavers presented their carpets. Bob was a sitting duck by this time and we are now the proud owners of a small Berber carpet.

By evening we reached an area where we were put astride camels that walked single file for a couple hours at sunset through the largest sand dunes in the world (the Al-chabbi sand dunes) to a Berber tent camp. One rides a camel on a big thick blanket just behind the camel�s hump with the pubic bone rocking back and forth against the hump. I told Bob to be careful or I�d trade him in for a camel! The Berber guy leading the trek cautioned the men to be careful of their ‘iggs.”

The encampment consisted of cloth tents joined together with heavy blankets and pads on the ground. Two good looking young Berber men cooked delicious Tagine with beef, carrots, onions and potatoes which we ate sitting in a circle on the ground with bread and our hands in groups of four. They served orange slices sprinkled with cinnamon and mint tea for dessert. Afterward the boys played Berber beats on the drums. Roosters from a nearby encampment woke us up at a breathtaking sunrise over the dunes.

The next day offered an eleven hour brutal van ride back to Marrakech with a short stop to eat lunch on a terrace at a small restaurant in Tirhan. We both ordered a �hamburger� that turned out to be a stew of tiny meatballs in tomato, onion, eggplant mixture. It surprised the heck out of us but was very good.

A few hours out of Marrakech we were pretty nervous about the narrow and curvy mountain road and we begged the driver to stop and take a break-which he did. The roadside stand had fresh Tangine, soup mint tea, coffee and soft drinks. The very friendly older man standing behind the food bench was offering me a small bowl of soup for 1.5 euros when I heard the driver in a scolding voice tell the food seller to charge 5 euros.

In Marakech that night the Ali Hotel was full because there was a holiday that weekend (we never did figure out what it was.) There also was an international meeting of some kind in the city during this time. So we stayed in the Hotel Eddakhla-a pretty basic hotel on a pretty rough street with a lot of beggars, no lift-just stairs-very deep and steep and narrow and on top of that the WC and shower was down on the first floor. The room had a sink and bidet but was very stuffy with no window to the outside. Bob bristled when a young man at the desk demanded his passport �for the police,� Bob of course thinking he wanted to take the passport which would violate rule number one: never give up your passport to anyone for any reason!

Ate dinner at one of the hundreds of eating stalls set up in the square every night that serve harira, kabobs and fish stews. Some of the stalls specialized in goat head meat-complete with whole goat heads set up in a row for viewing-that was patronized almost entirely by the locals. However, we sat at a stall that was probably set up to attract the tourists. We had beef kebobs peppers, spinach, fish, moroccan salad olives and mint tea. It was the worst meal in Morocco and Bob was very offended when the waiter slammed a small tin plate down on the table and demanded a tip. There goes those filters again!

How people experience a country seems almost accidental at times!