Hollywood Kasbah
26 September 2014 | Morocco
Linda
Our van driver, Abdullah, drove us many miles on day two. The road from Marrakesh went into the High Atlas mountains where the road twisted and turned continually. Double-decked trucks loaded with cattle on two decks (yuck if you are the cattle on the lower deck!) and cargo trucks mixed slowly with small local motorcycle "carts" to slow traffic nearly to a halt as we climbed higher.
We reached a high desert plateau and turned off to a smaller asphalt-over-sand road to visit the 12th century Kasbah (walled fortress town) along a river. Here we took a walking tour with a Berber guide, crossing the shallow river on stones and sandbags. It had rained only 4 days earlier so there was water in the river, after the long dry summer.
This walled city town (Kasbah) has been used by Hollywood in numerous movies since the 1950's, including most recently the "Gladiator" with Russell Crowe. And despite this usage the village has retained UNESCO World Heritage status. It was fascinating to tour the hilltop village and see how little old ladies still lived as people did in the 12th century with sheep in the same house !
Our tour of inland Morocco continued into the evening to stay overnight in a hotel in a gorge. It wasn't until the next day when we woke up that we saw the high cliffs on either side of the road. That morning we took an hour walking tour along the river gorge to see how crops were grown and how hand-made carpets and clothes are washed by hand in the river. Lots of hard manual labor here!
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