Look below. Does it look familiar? This is Keanu Reeves doing a movie, shot at this hotel. Below is the fireplace I kept putting my hands in to warm them up.
This is our hotel in Erfoud and the dining room where we had dinner and breakfast.
On the way to the fossil store.
This area of Morocco has a mountain that contains many, many fossils from many different time periods. It goes back to the Cambrian Era, 500,000 years ago and the Jurassic era during the time of dinosaurs. They bring huge rocks and slabs cut from the mountain and slice them, never knowing what they are slicing through. Sometimes they hit it right on the money and saw a shell or or nautilus or trilobites exactly in half. A lot of time they only see a few fossils from one slab and don’t cut them at the correct angle. The ones below hit the jackpot, with many many shells, that they drilled out slowly. Amazing!
Then to polish them, they take old blue jeans and cut them into circles and put them together and buff the items.
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I foolishly bought this for $49. Yes, it’s pretty. Yes it’s old, old, old. But …. duh. The hundreds of years older shell has the wavy sections, unlike a younger one with straight sections. Like a tree, each section is equivalent to one year of life.
This is henna. It’s used for decorations on women’s hands, dying hair and make hair healthy.
This tour guide was showing us their toothpaste. It cleans their teeth, makes them healthy and whitens them! They just chew it.
Chow-kee was buying mejool dates (the best in the world) for offering a snack to us on the bus every day.
They made camel saddles.
Part of the city, Rissani, has horses, goats and sheep.
This is a Ksar. A ksar is different from a Kasbah because it does not include commence. A ksar is a group of homes and families, but with only residences.
The walls are made of mud, dumped ito a wooden mold like this and then straw is added to the outside. Once the workers leave for the day, they put a level on the wall with water held against the wall. If the water has sunk into the wall, it means it is not water-proof and they must remake the wall. Otherwise if the water is still there, the wall is water-proof.
Everyone bought a $2 scarf so that the guy would place it on them properly for the camel ride. They wore them through the tour, all during lunch and then to the nomad’s tents and to the camels. I was glad I didn’t buy one. I just had our 4×4 drive put mine on when we arrived at the camels.
We had lunch here. Turns out it was catered by our hotel. They brought the cooked food and tables and chairs. But it was very nice. In this place full of desert sand, they just lay carpets and it makes a perfectly good floor.
We were in the 4×4 drinking like a bat outta hell in the desert. Click.
This rock mountain in the desert is FULL of fossils! Everywhere you look you can see them.
Apparently this was a lake millions of years ago.
This is a well in another part of Morocco. But there was a well that looked like this, but in the desert near the tent we came upon. It’s where all residents come to get fresh water.
We drove our 4×4 in the desert to nowhere and found this animal shelter and a tent. Eleven people live here. The matriarch was a 67 year old woman.
To own any amount of land out here, you just choose where you want to live, the number of hectors (acres) and get 12 people to attest they know you, and it’s yours. Of course you can only own land if you are a native of this area. The property gets handed to your heirs when you are gone.
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Note part of the ‘barn’ used old wooden pallets.
This was the family’s ‘herd’. Don’t know if they got milk, or wool, ate these animals or sold them to earn a living.
Note their legs are tied together so they are not able to escape very far.
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We were invited inside to sit and talk to the woman. We had to take off our shoes. It was quite a make-shift tent, but it was water resistant during rains.
When this little boy saw our 4×4’s arriving, he took off running across the desert toward us. He was there to sell little hand-made camels to tourists. He sold several for $5 and a couple for $4.
At one stop a woman brought 4 children to sell. When we didn’t buy, she slapped her little girl who started crying. That was pretty sad.
It had just rained and water was left on the desert. It would disappear in a few days.
We stopped at this hotel for a free drink while we waited for late afternoon camels.
They were filming a movie and the little black dots toward the top are 4×4’s with cameras and a couple actors were at the very top. Below, they had guards to keep people out of the shot. They are not allowed to mention what movie, but it was Odyssey with Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Zendaya, Tom Holland, Lupita Nyong’o, and Charlize Theron all jumping on board. Directed by Chris Nolan.
I love this award winner shot!! Sand dunes, rustic hotel, a modern van, a caravan of camels, a yurt, palm trees and water.
On to our camel caravan!
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My camel was the front and center.
This is how you get up on a camel. And it’s a far ways down to the ground.
These are the sand dunes I was looking forward to. The camel behind me was tied so close to me, his nose was often right near my leg. I kept petting him to make a friend so he wouldn’t decide to take a chunk out of my leg.
It was Jane, me and Renay in our triad — so fun!!
Jane and I trekked almost to the top of this dune by foot. It wasn’t death defying since we’d just roll down the side and get real sandy.
We had fun waiting for the sun to set.
Jane’s sister-in-law wanted her to kiss a camel — so she did!!