March 19-20
Michael and I had a 7am departure from our ryad to head out to the Sahara. We walked to the travel agency and grabbed a van to another location where we boarded a 16 passenger van. Off to the desert! Here’s a taste of the scenery heading out of town as we crossed the Atlas Mountains:
Our first stop was to see a kasbah. We went to Ksar Ait Ben Haddou which is a Berber settlement about two hours out of Marrakech. It is also where a ton of movies have been shot. Before we get into that, a few things to note.
Ksar means castle. Berber towns that were walled in for protection were always called ksars. I’m not sure what I thought kasbah meant going into this trip, but we found out it is a large home or complex for just one or two families. So there were several kasbahs in this one ksar. Also something to note is that there were heavy Jewish and Muslim influences in this town. You could tell as there were star of Davids everywhere you looked. Also, the name of the town is a mix of Jewish and Berber words. Ksar and Ait are both Berber. Ben is Hebrew – meaning “son of” and Haddou is Berber for something that I cannot remember.
This location is a UNESCO World Heritage Site which means that any movie that films here cannot leave any new structures. So when they filmed Gladiator here, the arena that they built had to be torn down after filming.
The town became protected in the 60s so there is one newish item that was built for a move before it became protected that stands… the front gate:
Yes – that entrance is not original. It didn’t have to be torn down, but the World Heritage Site starts directly beyond it. Here’s a list of things filmed here:
And here is a picture of my girl Khaleesi during filming. We’re not positive, but we think the scenes filmed here might have been when she freed the unsullied.
They had pictures of Russel Crowe and Jake Gyllenhall and Angelina Jolie, but let’s be honest – Daenerys is the only one that matters. It seems like the town generally appreciates the filming. A long time ago, this town was used as a stopping off point between a town to the north that had salt mines and Timbuktu. So apparently Timbuktu is a real place. It is in the current country of Mali. Historically, Timbuktu was an incredibly wealthy center of commerce for Northern Africa. However, they didn’t have any local access to salt which was essential to preserve food. That made towns along the route from salt mines to Timbuktu important. Once that need disappeared, people left this ksar to move to the city for work. The economic effects of a movie like Gladiator are significant. Our guide told us that it took something like 8 months to build the arena and then 3 months to film with over 3000 people on location. With a mix of using local workers and the costs associated with housing/feeding that many people, these films and tourists like us keep this town alive.
More pictures from the town:
After this stop, we grabbed lunch and then continued on. The total drive from Marrakech to our desert stop was about 7 hours. When we arrived, we got to meet our camels who we rode about an hour to our camp site for the night.
Riding a camel… not that comfortable. It was a really neat experience, but this falls into the category of something we don’t need to do again. Also, I definitely felt bad for the camel. I’m sure there is some animal rights issue with this, so I’m sorry, but it was awesome.
That’s right… we learned how to turn scarves into turbans. A skill that will be useful for the rest of our lives.
We got dropped off in camp and after tea and a delicious dinner of mystery meat tangine, we had a little time to see some crazy incredible stars. The moon was just a sliver, so our location so far out in the desert had near perfect star viewing.
There was also a campfire and the men at the campsite played some traditional drum music and sang. Then off to bed. We woke up the next morning for a beautiful desert sunrise and took our sore rears back to our camels for our return trip.
On our way back we made a stop at another kasbah – but this one was less cool. Well, it did have the tallest man made palm tree and we went into a shop to see how rugs are made. (Editor’s note: we saw a handful of man made palm trees in Marrakech after returning from the Sahara. They looked pretty big, so we are not sure that this kasbah legitimately had the largest). Anyway, we know this part of the tour – it’s a bit of a time filler to make you feel like you got good value for your tour. They usually do a short demonstration showing how much time and effort is put into their product and then you feel compelled to buy from them instead of buying from the hundreds of other vendors selling the same thing. The women making cloth outside Cusco on our Rainbow Mountain tour were a perfect example of how to do this really well. The skill was difficult, the demo was interesting and the woman doing the talking was really funny. This didn’t go as well. For one thing, the man who showed us around told us it was a home for divorced women. That is something I could get behind – buying from women who are on the skirts of society… ok. Here’s the problem: it didn’t seem like an organization designed to help them get back on their feet. It seemed more like indentured servitude with this man profiting off their labor. I don’t know all the details, but afterwards when I asked Michael his thoughts on the place, he had walked away thinking the same thing.
While there we also had another round of tea. Great – I definitely enjoy Moroccan tea and I like the ceremony of it all. That said, he jokingly called it “Berber whiskey”. We’ve heard this a few times. Man with deepish laugh: Hahaha Berber whiskey hahaha. I like the tea, but relating it to whiskey is like using the phrase vegan bacon. There is no soy product that should ever be called bacon… ever. Just call it what it is and don’t make me sad that I’m not eating real bacon (or whiskey in this case).
Also we passed two film studios that movie productions use when in the area. Part of the movie Alexander was filmed here.
After another lunch of tangine, we’re heading back to Marrakech now! We loved our short amount of time in the desert but we were ready to be back in Marrakech!