Morocco Day 5

Unfortunately, Michael and I were not feeling great as a result of the previous night's fun, and missed the group's walk to a local kasbah.  While it is a shame to miss things, one kasbah tends to be similar to the next, so there's no need to cry over spilled milk.  Leaving Ouarzazate, our lunchtime destination was actually the village of Idris, our guide.  His family has opened a guest house, and we spent a restorative afternoon there: slow and gradual courses of mint tea, figs, turkey kebabs, salad, lamb tagine, and melons interspersed with walks around the house and rests on outdoor Berber carpets.  It appeared that a storm was brewing (it ven rained for all of one minute), so the air carried the a cool freshness as we laid under the tents and enjoyed the moment.  We even we able hear a traditional song that some of his family members performed.

It's fascinating to think about what Moroccans do with their resources.  They use natural elements (like mud) to construct their houses, use designs like thick walls to evade the heat as much as possible (it was shocking how cool it felt there) and limit the use of electricity to after daylight or when extremely necessary.  Rivers and oases are also maximized for farming potential and to support local populations (and I was surprised by how many of these lush areas we did see interspersed in the rest of the harsher landscape; while we were not in the desert, much of the area through which we traveled was brown and dry).

Being farther south of Marrakech now, we are in Berber territory.  That is to say, while they are Moroccans just like those in the north, their ethnicity, instead of being Arab, is Berber. Berber tribes are spread all over: Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Mali, etc.  I need to do some more research on this, but from what Idris as well as several merchants along our route have said, Berbers may have had to struggle as a minority group under the Arabs.  Idris had mentioned that one of the Berber letters (zed, the Berber z) symbolizes a movement for their rights within Morocco.

Another night, another hotel- each more opulent than the last.  It was amzing to me exactly how nice our accomodations have been for this trip.  As we were a bit removed from the town and not able to walk anywhere, we all hung out by the pool playing cards, chatting, and listening to Idris play the guitar.