01 April Tafraoute

It's cold tonight. In fact it feels as if each of the three nights we have been here has been a little bit colder than the previous one.  When we walked into the town centre to eat this evening, about 19.00, I was wearing 2 long sleeved thermal vests, one with a polo neck, on top of each other, a T-shirt and a warm fleecy top. I also put on my warm socks, really only packed for the journeys to and from the airport in the U.K. John got a weather forecast and it is 4C for tonight. Even during the day it is really only warm with some solar gain and if you get out of the wind. When we were in Marrakesh at 34C I did begin to wonder why we had waited until now to make the trip, surely we could have come late February, early March. Now I know better. We leave tomorrow, we are still not sure exactly where to.  We know that we are aiming for the general direction of Zagora, in the east and on the edge of the desert.  We favour going directly south from here and picking up the old caravan route quite close to the Algerian border, and following it eastwards.  It should take us through a number of oases, the route bordered by ancient kasbah. Much lower, further south and bordering the desert it should be warmer.
We have had another really good day today.  We took the car out of the town and then took a track walking through some of the mountain villages of the Ameln valley. From a distance each settlement can be seen nestling at the bottom of a water run off (indicated by a line of trees) at the base of the Djebel El Kest. We went first to the village of Oumesnat where we visited a traditional Berber house. It was really interesting, so often this type of thing is so artificial in many aspects, but on this occasion the whole experience was rewarding and informative. Wandering the track through the villages was also a good experience. It was a mixture of the very old, of houses in ruins, of reconstruction and of brand new houses built over the ruins of older ones. We hardly saw anyone and it was tranquil and peaceful, so far removed from Marrakesh and Essaouira. There was an abundance of Argan trees and also olive, almond, fig and pomegranite trees between and around the palms.
We also visited a local site known as The Painted Rocks (also the name of our hotel). It was a bit bizarre, a collection of large rocks in the sparse desert which had been spray painted blue and pink by a Belgian artist in 1984. With the lelp of some Moroccan fireman he hosed 18 tonnes of paint over individual rocks. We both found the lines and indentations of the natural rocks much more appealing.
Our final visit of the day was to a woman's co-operative producing Argan Oil and Argan Oil products. It was all done by hand, the fruit collected and dried, the flesh removed, the nuts cracked, the kernels extracted and then ground. The pure first press oil is for cosmetic use.  To produce cooking oil the kernels are roasted and water is added enabling the pulp to be squeezed, we saw similar practices to produce olive oil in Greeve. We made some purchases, of oil and also of Amlou, which is a paste made by blending crushed almonds with Argan Oil and honey.
We have enjoyed our visit here very much, you could easily spend longer here, there is a lot to see and do, we have just picked out a few things. The ex-Riad Tafroute, now Hotel Le Rochet Print is perhaps in some sort of transitionary state. It seems a bit more like a 'cafe with rooms". Nobody seems to know what anyone is doing. Maybe it is now run by a family, there is an older woman in the background and the only other staff appear to be a young woman and a young man (young enough for me to feel I could call them girl and boy). The young woman on the reception desk and also running the cafe who was here when we arrived has been repaced by another one of a similar age this morning.
We are missing what we have always referred to as 'Arab' toilets, which we thought must be associated with Islamic tradition so we would find them in all Muslim countries. We are referring to the handy little bidet tap inside the bowl for bottom washing and failing that a hose with a jet  attached close by. When we didn't get one in the Marrakesh Riad we thought maybe it had all been 'westernised', then there wasn't one in Essaouira so we thought OK, it's a European holiday resort. There isn't one here either and Tafraoute is neither of those things, and we can flush toilet paper.
We are pleased we decided to hire a car for this trip, already we appreciate that we have been able to see and do so much more than if we had been relying upon public transport. John is pleased with the Dacia Logan, particularly now that he has got to grips with the Manual and the Handbook, they are written in Arabic and French. He is also pleased with the deal which he did negotiating the car hire and the terms before we came. It is a new car of a high specification hired through our agent from Europcar. We arrived in Marrakesh on the same flight as a young English couple who were also staying at Riad El Az, they only had a week. Through a young man at the Riad they negotiated a deal with a local car hire company, only marginally cheaper than the one we had got from the U.K., we are not sure exactly which car or model they got but small Fiats seem to be quite common. They left the day before us, and we heard that after only one day they had broken down somewhere and were waiting for a mechanic to be sent out to help them. Not much fun if you are stuck somewhere for a couple of days and then the car has to be repaired, and you only have 7 days anyway.