Our hosts for the night arranged an early tour for us of the UNESCO World Heritage Site at Ait ben Haddou, the Ksar. We learned that a Ksar is a cluster of kasbahs, or small castles.
The Ksar of Ait ben Haddou is famous because it has been used as a set in a number of motion pictures, including Lawrence of Arabia and Gladiator.
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| Did I mention we had to ford the river to get there? Adventure travel. |
They even built an entire Roman arena here for Gladiator, but it had to be removed because of UNESCO regulations about Heritage Sites. It took over a month to build, Russell Crowe and the crew shot here for nearly two weeks, and it took another month to completely remove what had been built. For all of that, the scene was only eight minutes in the final film.
However, we also learned that Russell Crowe is a local hero, and that many residents of the ksar (many of whom appeared as "extras" in the film) have autographed photos of him in their homes. They say he was a really nice guy who talked to everybody. Other actors were more aloof.
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| Living room of the mud-brick Berber house looks surprisingly cozy. |
Speaking of homes, we were invited into the guide's home, and we were met by his mother. We actually got to see how these Berber people have lived in this place for more than a thousand years.
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| View from the front porch. |
We learned of the history of the ksar as one of the key stops on the caravan routes from Marrakesh, all the way to China. It was an hour very well spent.
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| Looking toward the High Atlas Mountains from the top of the ksar. |
Our tour director,
Noureddine, kept pushing us to hurry up, because of possible delays on our route over the mountains. Oddly, it was our group who often waited for him on several occasions. This included a lunch stop in a place that offered very little, except the realization that everything had two prices: A low price for the Moroccans, and an exorbitant price for tourists.
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| Note the line of bumper-to-bumper vehicles way down below! |
The brief snowball fight during a toilet stop in the mountain passes was a welcome diversion from the endless van ride.
Late in the afternoon, we finally arrived in Marrakesh, a modern and prosperous-looking, rather European city. The medina here is not nearly as old, nor nearly as difficult to navigate, as that in Fez. Once in our riad, we were supplied with maps that made it easy for us to get to the center of night life on our own.
We walked among throngs of local folks, plus hordes of tourists, to Djemaa el-Fnaa Square. The Arabic name means "the assembly of death" (because the French colonials used to execute rebels in public here) but at night this vast open space is full of life.
Snake charmers, musicians and dancers, people selling goods, juice stands, restauranteurs, street preachers, pick-pockets, families with infants and children, beggars, elderly couples, jugglers, and more, are all milling about in the open square. We had a good, inexpensive meal, and enjoyed the people-watching.
Most of us are near exhaustion, so it was an early night. But it looks as though we are going to enjoy our time in Marrakesh.
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