The Road of 1000 Kasbahs and onto Marrakech

The next leg of the journey out of the Dades Valley is known as the "Road of a Thousand Kasbahs." These beautiful fortified homes are set amongst a wide open landscape where corner towers would have provided advance notice of anyone approaching. This is also an area of the country known as "Moroccan Hollywood" as some of the kasbahs provided the backdrop for Lawrence of Arabia, Games of Thrones and Gladiator. We actually saw them building sets for Gladiator 2 during our tour.

The highlight stop of the day was at Ait Benhaddou, a hillside fortress that includes a number of interconnected kasbahs, walkways, markets and a wonderful mountaintop view. One bonus here was a museum in the Kasbah that had their exhibits in many languages, including Berber. Berber was an exclusively oral language up until recently when they wanted to be recognized by the Moroccan government as an official language and so then created an alphabet and written language -- this was the first time we had seen more than just names/titles of buildings written. The alphabet looks almost Greek and we only saw it near the Sahara, not further north.

We ate lunch at a women's cooperative that is striving to provide job training and sustainable income for women who are often left behind in the tourism industry economy. We also had the opportunity to spend time in a Berber carpet making coop, learn about the techniques, patterns and traditions and watch one of our travel companion couples learn how to negotiate for a souvenir of a lifetime. Our lodging for the evening was a lakeside resort in the mountains filled with flowering trees, fragrant gardens and wonderful hospitality.

Our drive into Marrakech included a hands-on cooking class at Chef Tarik's organic garden kitchen. After an introduction to the art of making tea and an orientation to the traditional spices used in Moroccan food, we prepared three salads, three tagines and couscous. We were impressed with the way our chefs led us through the process, sharing humor and grace as we stumbled through the steps, gently coaching and nudging each dish towards it's delicious conclusion. The lunch itself was a feast for the eyes and the taste buds: a wonderful celebration of having learned and shared the experience together.

The last day of our two week journey was spent in Marrakech, walking through the Bahia Palace (the only historic royal palace in Morocco that is open to the public) and the historic medina markets. Corey's primary task was to make sure the snake charmers/handlers did not get near Miriam as they have a reputation for chasing down tourists to solicit bribes. The variety of shop vendors was one final explosion of sights, sounds and smells of urban Morocco. Our one group stop was a traditional spice and essential oil shop that promised cures for everything from Corey's hair loss to someone else's bum knee. A safer bet is probably the delicious spices to take home for future cooking.

As we wrap up this second long leg of our sabbatical journey, we are grateful to have already fulfilled some of our goals, including:
* Traveling into cultures, traditions and languages significantly different from our own in order to expand our own worldviews and appreciation for diversity.
* A deep immersion into Islamic communities with the bonus of having Muslim guides who provided honest and revealing insights into their own faith and practices, especially enlightening with one female and one male guide.
* The realization that, perhaps similar to our experiences in the US, we have noticed the stark difference between many people when in urban or rural settings - that those in the cities present themselves in ways that seem more contemporary, more cosmopolitan (and even more Western), more diverse, less strict, less confined to traditional social and cultural norms.