Day 2,288 of Traveling the World | Agafay Desert, Kingdom of Morocco | May 6, 2024
Jan and Mike
It’s not an ancient quote, as it comes from Tom Hanks, but it aptly describes our desert adventure: “The desert…I couldn’t tell where heaven stopped and the earth began.” It is all one. It is heat and sand and camels and dirt and quiet and – did we say camels? What a neat day!
We went into the wild with a company called “Insiders,” which provides motorcycles with sidecars to roam around the city or the desert. Nabil was our fabulous guide and driver – both on the highway and off-roading over rocks, stones, and cliffs! And – can that man talk! He is young, but full of stories and history and opinions and questions and musings. He is very complex and interesting. So, our day stretched a bit due to our lengthy conversation(s).
The pictures can tell the story far better than we can. We stopped at a pottery facility (won’t say factory, as there really was no machinery – it is all handmade), and Mike was able to wear a coverall, slip into a dirt pit with a potter’s wheel, and make a bowl from a lump of clay. He needed assistance from the expert, but it looked like a bowl when he was done. These jobs are passed down through the generations, and they often work many days with no time off, as it is all they know to do.
Off-roading on a motorcycle and sidecar was very bumpy and occasionally terrifying, but since we are still alive, now we call it FUN. Nabil was telling us how he had never really crashed, when the wheel caught on the side of a big rock and stopped dead. “You crashed!” Jan said when we were moving again. Nabil said, “No, technically that was not a crash. It was the rock, not me.” Okay. We will give him that because we liked him so much!
Lunch was an experience. We were at a desert camp consisting of tents in the desert, and our meal went for a fascinating three hours. We started with Moroccan tea and cookies, and an hour later, it was time for the main event. We had chicken kebabs, grilled veggie kebabs, beef patties, sweet/sour salad, potatoes, cheese, beets, bulgur, and cauliflower with freshly baked bread and lemonade. Three desserts came later. It was all outstanding.
The views while riding through the desert in the open air is something never to be forgotten. You could feel the heat of the sun but also the rush of the air on your skin, neutralizing the heat. The scenery is very bleak and beautiful. Some buildings looked forgotten and abandoned – and some of them were, but others that looked that way were still in use. We encountered many other quad, off-road, and motorcycle riders near the camp where we had lunch, and even saw some huge tour buses on these tiny roads. Because the road has been so heavily used over the past five years, it has huge potholes, and the sides of the road have disappeared. For many miles, we drove on the shoulder so that cars, vans, and buses could have what was left of the asphalt. It rearranged our innards a little, but that is a small price to pay for the glory of the day.
Everyone smiles and waves in Morocco, including this shepherdess we saw from the motorcycle.
Ready for an excursion farther into the desert.
The Best Tour Guide Ever – Nabil, with a company that does motorcycle sidecar tours, Insiders. It was well worth the time and money.
A stop for water at a typical roadside snack shop.
Is this the very definition of loneliness?
Mama and baby.
The desert camp where we stopped for lunch – do notice that nobody is taking advantage of the tables and chairs in the sun – it was 95 degrees F!
This lovely woman added even more heat to her day, baking the most wonderful, warm, soft Moroccan bread to go with lunch.
We wondered if places like this, far from nowhere, were even occupied. Yes, they are! The presence of the minaret/mosque means that the community paid for its construction, and it is beautifully kept up.
We noticed two kinds of ancient fences. This one seems to be made of a kind of dried adobe, or mud.
A long view of the desert roadways – unpaved, of course. You couldn’t have the fun of bopping up and down wildly, your brains being shaken out of your skull, if the roads were paved!
We stopped to view this oasis. Nabil told us that almost all oases are artificial and human-built. And…do you see the giraffe? It is metal. Nabil said one night he had had one too many drinks and thought it was real, but then said – “Wait, there are no giraffes in Morocco!”
We thought for sure that this was ancient, and abandoned – but no, people still stay there for periods of time. We found it amazing, looking at the Death Valley-like terrain, but Nabil told us that there was enough vegetation for sheep to graze on for part of the year. The community built these structures to stay in for those six weeks or so, to tend the sheep. When the grazing period is over, they lock it up and go back to their homes until the following year.
More camels. Hope their knees don’t get arthritic, because, ouch.
This is the other type of desert fence, made of stones. The road here was as wide as our motorcycle and sidecar, and was dotted with rocks. Fun times.
The photo above was taken just seconds before this video. This is the crash that wasn’t a crash – a little slice of life, off-roading in the desert. As you will hear, Jan was making a few grunting noises as we bounced over the ruts in the road, but you will laugh when you hear what she does when we crash (which wasn’t a crash). Mike just gets out and starts walking up the hill.
This man works all day long, six or seven days a week, just as his ancestors did – in a dark cinder block building, shaping perfect pitchers. Notice that they are all identical. Repetition makes for perfection. No heavy machinery whatsoever is used in this facility…it is all by hand, and items are dried out in the hot Moroccan sun.
Notice that these men have clay all over their faces and clothing – but they were always pleasant, and every time they saw us walking around, they waved and smiled, again and again.
Many professions – even in the cities – still use donkey power.
A few of the pottery pieces that are “in progress.”
This wonderful man with Nabil, who helped Mike shape a vase on the pottery wheel, immediately said that we could live with him when he heard that we had been homeless for six years. He said he had strong internet and all the TV stations we could want. We were very touched.
Mike’s hands covered in wet clay, with his perfect bowl. Jan noted that he wore his wedding ring while playing in the mud. (We have never cleaned our wedding rings – they bear evidence to all of what we have done for 21 happy years!)
More camels. More OUCH.
In the tiny streets of the medina, early morning in a taxi, we were almost out of the labyrinth when we had to wait for this Chicken Truck. We watched as they grabbed chickens with their hands and threw them into a cart with a scale. They finally moved ahead to a wider place in the road, and we noticed that the scale read 96 kg, or just over 200 lbs. As we said as we passed this truck, we thought that chickens just came in parts, covered with cellophane.
To Marrakech, please!
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