Morocco

From the straits of Gibralter you can gaze over at Africa and Morocco. The Saharan desert is huge and hostile. You can be tested to the limits of your endurance. On the sands of Tangiers beach you can try out a ride on a camel. The beach at Tangiers is only twelve miles from Gibraltar. Have a game of soccer with the local kids. The oriental steam bath or hamam is a social event as a cleaning ritual. You can meet new people, get your back cracked and massaged within an inch of your life. Tangiers in Morocco was free port with elegant villas and blue skies. Film stars used to flock here and it was known as a den of iniquity. Have a coffee at the cafe. The Anglican christian church was built a hundred years ago and the congregation is mixed. There are lots of nigerians who are trying to get into europe.

From Tangiers you can travel to Fez, the most perfect medieval islamic city in Africa and Morocco. You will revel in the sense of smell and sight. The markets have brass cooking wares. The tanning factory use pigeon droppings to cure the hides and then they are died. Either yellow or red. The tanning vats are as old as Fez. Fez started over a thousand years ago. Marrakech is an exotic town with wild markets with magicians, tumblers. At night the entertainment goes on as well as the food. Going into the berber country, the original inhabitants before the arabs came in. Berbers are warm and ambitious, hard-working people.

Get on the back of a utility van cum truck. The roads are dirt dusty over the side of precipices. The valleys are green and the hills are barren. Arend in the Atlas mountains, is a barber village. Have a feast with the tajim - meat , bean, olives. The berbers are a minority in Arab Morocco and they celebrate their culture for their own survival. A coach bus travels between the towns of the atlas mountains to the edge of the Sahara Desert. Tadept is a village deeper into the atlas mountains, a kebab may have sheep grilled over a coke fire. The highest pass on the Atlas mountains take you over the mountain to Ait Benhaddou the Moroccan hollywood.

From here you can travel to Timbuktu the most exotic and faraway town in the world. Camels replace cars and you need a four wheel drive if you want to drive anywhere. The Western Sahara is a disputed area south of Morocco. At Smara people have been living in refugee camps for more than twenty years. Water is trucked in by tankers from a well 16 miles away. Forty thousand people live in the refugee camp. The only meat in this region is camel.

Morocco Resources

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