Trip to the Desert

After getting the antifreeze filled up in our car (it took Marc 5 days to figure out what that light in the car meant (it looked like an oil can)), Marc and Stephanie drove to Marrakesh. We picked up Priscilla and Dick and drove over the High Atlas mountains. As we raced to arrive at our hotel before the sun went down, we enjoyed the scenery. Lots of beautiful peaks, hairpin turns and people selling Geodes on the side of the road. Dick got suckered by some guy who rode his bike up hill a kilometer to sell us some Geodes. We HAD to buy some Geodes. A little bit later everyone was selling fossils by the side of the road. We didn't buy any fossils.

We arrived at Ait Ben Hassou. The hotel looked nice but was very cold with no heating (of course) and external toilets/showers. The Kasbah in Ait Ben Hassou is gorgeous and we quickly wanted to stay much longer to explore. Unfortunately the next day we had to get to Erfoud.

The next day we first stopped by Ouarzazate which is where several Hollywood studios are set up for desert films. After buying some more Antibiotics for Dicks tooth we drove towards Erfoud. The drive took much longer than it looked on the map. There were lots of interesting towns. Dades Gorge was beautiful but we could only spend about 30 minutes because we needed to get to Erfoud before dark.

We barely made it! With 5 minutes left of sunlight we arrived at Erfoud and our directions told us to cross a river. We wouldn't have been able to do that in the dark in a VW Polo (smaller than a Jetta). When we arrived at the river crossing there were tons of kids offering help. Some said don't cross while other said to go ahead. We weren't sure who's advice to follow so we just held our breath and crossed the river. No problem... as the Moroccan's say. We arrived at Auberge Merzane which was run by a French couple. It was really isolated and away from all the tourism. There was a large Spanish family staying at the Bed and Breakfast too. It was one of the better places we have stayed mainly because the couple was friendly and they served us really good food.