I take liberties with Crosby, Stills & Nash. Instead of “Take the train from Casablanca going south,” I leave Marrakech upon the highways going North to Casablanca. It nears the end of my Moroccan tour and we leave the city of Marrakech in our rearview mirrors.
Crosby Stills & Nash spoke of “saving all my money Just to take you there.” They sing of “Blowing smoke rings” and the “Striped djellabas” of Marrakech. They also spelled it Marrakesh but I’ll let that go. Any way you spell this city, it means adventure, history, and fun.
We close the door on our comfortable stay at Dar al Hossoun in Taroudant. Leaving the cats and peacock behind, we continue our progress westward.
For the past few months, I have followed an online Moroccan travel group in order to gather tips about travel within Morocco. Consistently, I see the same towns or regions mentioned: Essaouira is one.
I most often note reasons for their visits include spas, medina, and beach. I’m hoping there are other reasons to attract visitors.
Note: Spellcheck insists in correcting my spelling for this city. I struggle to convince that unknown entity to leave my spelling alone. I am constantly correcting spell-check. Essaouira suffers from this schizophrenic confusion. Forgive me if I haven’t caught all the erroneous spellcheck errors.
The city of Taroudant looks large and enticing. As we enter the city, I see miles of adobe walls enclosing the old Medina. The entire area looks relatively untouched by modern man. This is a good thing.
Fortified walls of Taroudant
People tell me that in these mountains, this city stands out as unique because the French usually built a newer city alongside the traditional one during their long colonial reign. In Taroudant, this was not the case. The city retains its traditional feel, the best of which is the historic, well-preserved red mud/straw walls surrounding the city.
Thomas Lawrence, soldier and archaeologist, served in Saudi Arabia during WWI as a liaison between the British government and the Arab tribes. Such reality never gets in the way of location shooting when it comes to movies. Those gorgeous desert vistas seen in the movie Lawrence of Arabia lay in Jordan and here in Morocco.
We visit the sand and village where filming occurred some 62 years ago. By now, I’m sure all the camels, like Lawrence, have gone to the big movie studio in the sky.
Early morning, we motor up the Road of a Thousand Kasbahs. Itinerary notes “we travel west.” This appeared commendable. I love fortresses/kasbahs. But then, yikes! Our vehicle points north into the gorge. Google maps allowed me to explore this region; I used my golden Pegman to follow the road into the gorge. The views were spectacular! However, I was hoping not to travel it in real time. Mother Nature may have outdone Herself here but then She has never been responsible for straight lines
