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Showing posts from August, 2016

Morocco Day 8: the Hollywood of Morocco

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On to the third and last day of our desert tour which consisted in getting a glimpse of the Hollywood of Morocco! We drove on passing through the Rose Valley, and then reached the Skoura Oasis , known as "the valley of a thousand kasbahs ." Along this route are plenty kasbahs , some in ruins and some still standing. We got out of the car to see just one of them, Kasbah Amridil . This 17th century kasbah is the largest one in Skoura and one of the largest in Morocco. The inside has been transformed into a living museum, but we opted out of going in and just admired it from the outside. Kasbah Amridil We continued driving along the route and reached Ourzazate about an hour later. In the olden days the town was an isolated military outpost and was given the name Ourzazate which means "no noise." Nowadays it's gotten quite popular as it's known as Morocco's Hollywood. Ourzazate's streets and desert landscape have appeared in numerous films, and

Morocco Day 7: (More) long car rides and gorgeous gorges

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After a hearty breakfast spread at the hotel, charging our phones, and a good shower, we left at about 9am to continue our drive. Our second day of the desert tour was spent mainly in the car playing games as we drove from Merzouga towards Marrakech. It was a slow but relaxing day, and we got to continue enjoying more of Morocco's beautiful landscapes. From Merzouga we first headed back to Rissani to check out the mausoleum of Moulay Ali Cherif , who was the founder of the Alaouite dynasty. He had an interesting story, though I admittedly can't really remember much anymore. Inside, our guide also let us take a look inside the mosque. This was the main hall where the men prayed... ...and that small section behind the wooden wall was for the women. Our next stop was a fossil museum in Erfoud . The small town of Erfoud has a surprising amount of fossils, and has even been dubed by arhceologists as "the largest open air fossil museum in the

Morocco Day 6: Long rides, beautiful scenery, and a night in the desert

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Hello, there! It's been quite a while, but things have been a bit busy for me over here. After leaving Spain I visited Colombia for a couple of days, and stayed the weekend in New York before flying back home to the Philippines. Things have finally settled down, and I'm back with some desert photos in tow! We took a three day tour across the desert from Fes to Marrakech, so I'll be splitting up the posts per day as I've been doing. :) After a full day in Fes the day before, we packed up our bags, got a good night's rest, and were up and ready by 7:30 the next morning. When planning for our trip weeks ago, we knew that we wanted to take a trip to the desert. We were originally thinking of taking a tour from Marrakech, but when researching online we found tours going from Fes to Marrakech, so we decided to do that instead. We ended up booking with Sahara Desert Crew , which I will write about later on. Our driver Mohammad picked us up at the hostel, and we stoppe