Erfond Morocco 10-25-08

Erfond is close to the Sahara Desert. The terrain is flat with small hllls on both sides. High mountains can be scene in the distance. Little scruby brush is the only vegatation.

Our overnight stay at Kasbah Tizimi Hotel and late evening camel ride to the Sahara Desert started at a restaurant famous for their pizza. One of our traveling couples, Bea and Herbert own a pizza chain in Colorado and had a great visit with the owner who took them around the town to his other businesses including a large resort with airstrip on the edge of town.

We ordered the regular tpye pizza with standard toppings which was crispy and good. Others had the bread type stuffed with cheese and fillings. The shop next door had interesting arts/crafts from Morocco and silver jewelry you buy by weight.

After lunch we went to a factory that slices up large cubes of quarried rock that are embedded with fossels of shells or trilabites. Interesting table or counter tops are made from these blocks of stone.

Buildings are made of mud and straw. You can see the texture of the straw in the outside walls.

Stan and I skipped the camel ride to the desert as old bodies are stiff and sittin gon a camel for an hour would probably not be advisable. Our co-travelers showed us wonderful photos of camels trodding along with long shadows against the dunes.

Back in the bus. Date palms orchards dotted the valleys and meadows for miles. Small villages along the way had terraces of flat spaces used to lay of the dates to dry. Dates are so dense in clories and nutition that the Moroccan's say one will sustain a person for a day.

We found cookies in a local grocery like fig newtons except they were filled with dates. Pretty different.

The ride through the high Atlas mountains was mostly barren with the exception of the open meadows of date palms.

There were several dams along the way. The red rocky cliffs showed different strata in layers on the mountain side.

It rained off and on during our ride. Where the gullys filled up, the water rushed over the depression in the highway as there were no culverts. We saw a man with his bicycle parked on the side of the road shoveling out the dirt and sand that had built up on the road.