Day 161
4 hrs, 5 .0 kms

Ait Ben Haddou has been eluding me for 2 and a half years now. Back in ’10, while visiting the family of one of my students who I met by accident in Ouarzazate, they brought me out here, and I was quite impressed by this magnificent earth castle, one of the best known in Morocco, and a backdrop for numerous movies. However, that time I left my guitar at their house. So… no concert… the town cannot be counted as explored… it’s like I never came here. Those are the rules.

So a week later I tried to come back, and got as far as Oued Melh, but it didn’t seem there were any collective taxis heading this way. So I gave up.

Well, now I’m back, with my guitar! No waiting for a collective taxi this time. I’ve come here on foot, and enjoyed every step of the way. It’s a good feeling… I don’t think I could consider Morocco “fully explored” without coming back here to Ait Ben Haddou .

And as I approach the kasbah directly, which is on the east side of the river, I realize I’m not alone. There’s a whole crowd of people, including a number of women wearing scarves making their way up the to the castle. These are Moroccan tourists—which is a pleasant surprise. Typically Moroccans aren’t very interested in visiting historical sites in their country. When the take a vacation in their country it’s usually just to go to the beach, not to explore the ancient Kasbahs of the desert. Go to places like Volubilis, Chellah, etc and you probably won’t see a lot of Moroccans either, just foreigners.

I follow the group through the familiar alleys, humored at seeing Moroccans trying to hustle Moroccans into their shops… Nah… it’s not going to work, guys… We go all the way up to a tower way at the top of the hill, where you get a good view of the whole area and we sit in the shade to rest. Suddenly I hear a familiar voice .

“Phillips!” I look over and see a familiar face… Yep, it’s another of my former students!

Now this is getting downright weird. It’s the fifth time I’ve run into a student while out on the road, far from Casablanca. First in Ouarzazate (right near this very spot!), then in Istanbul… then in Marbella, Spain… then in Tbilisi, Georgia… and now here!

We chat for a bit. He booked this tour on the internet which is six days visiting the main sites all along the eastern desert of 200 euros—food, lodging and transportation all included… Quite a good deal. The people on this tour are of a wide range of ages, some look more traditional some more Western, all joking and having a good time together. Quite a break from the norm—usually people only travel with their family, or young people together—not a mixed crowd like this.

I try not to act to smug about the fact that I’ve managed to see all the places they’ve seen by using local transportation and finding lodging along the way . Hey, it’s just nice to see Moroccans out discovering their own country…

They’ve all got to go to a restaurant across the river, so I follow along, so we can chat a little more. I negotiate a tagine to a reasonable price and head up to the roof to gaze out on the magnificent view of the front of the kasbah. Unfortunately the front is being used as a movie set right now so things are kind of sloppy and I won’t be able to get a good video clip from this angle, but that’s all right… I’ll figure something else out.

I head back downstairs where the tour group is a bit peeved… it turns out that their lunch was… eggs… No, you don’t do that in Morocco… you don’t serve people eggs for lunch… I still think they got a good deal, but I’m afraid they’re probably not going to be recommending this tour to their friends.

I head back to the Kasbah again to take my video clip and wander around a bit more . I let a fellow sucker me into following him into his antiques shop—and am glad I do. He’s got some pretty impressive artifacts—including relics of Jewish tradition. Ancient pen and ink holders… letter openers. I guess if someone is really interested in antiques—and can verify their authenticity, he could get some good buys here. But this guy says he’s only here during the heavy tourist season, the rest of the time he’s out in the desert, travelling from oasis to oasis, collecting these artifacts…