Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Zagora: Heading Out

Part 1

I sat in the front of the van, in between the driver and the daughter of the Danish mother-daughter duo. [Who, I'd like to add, also happened to have a pen pal from Texas. How does that happen?]

We had some amazing views through the front windshield, but that wasn't my favorite part. Right before we left the city, when driver stopped to get gas, he also bought two bags of freshly baked rolls. I figured they might be a snack for him for later, maybe to share with someone who lived at one of our destinations.

But no.

Instead, there were a few points along the road where he would slow down, honk his horn, and then toss the bread out the window to the waiting groups of stray dogs gathered by the side of the road. I really wish I had gotten a picture of this.

One of the photos I did take.
We had about a 7 hour drive in total, but didn't cover a whole lot of ground for two reasons. 1) Meadering mountain roads and 2) fifty bazillion stops.

The landscape is breathtakingly beautiful, of course. But oh, how much I hate driving in the mountains. Another reason I was very glad to be sitting in the front.
Green everywhere.
Most of the stops were about 5 minutes to take pictures [although we did have a few unplanned stops after one of the kids got carsick, poor thing]. Surprisingly, considering the number of tourist groups who must pass along this road, there were only 1 or 2 places where people were also selling tourist stuff. The whole mountainous area reminded me a lot of Peru, but there were typically a lot more vendors along the roads there.

Village in the distance.
We also had two cafe stops that were about 20 minutes long. The driver disappeared for some tea or something, and we generally took the time to use the restrooms, buy snacks, and of course, take some more pictures. Unfortunately, the drivers aren't allowed to serve as "tour guides" or narrate the journey, but I was perfectly content to just stare out the window.

Now it looks like we're in the desert.
It was hilarious to me as a Texan that the other passengers were constantly asking how much longer - to lunch, to the next stop, etc. [I understood when they wanted to know for the carsick kid's sake, but they did it again on the way back too.] When I take 7 hour drives at home, we usually stop once to eat and then we're good the rest of the way. Europeans are spoiled that way, I guess.

The Danes asked me how this compared to the Grand Canyon.
We had a two hour long stop for our sightseeing and lunch [the next post]. We were directed to one of the obviously touristy restaurants that offered full meals at the outrageous price of 100 dirhams...or less than 10 euros. I am totally okay with that kind of tourist price hike.

We made it to the city of Zagora at about 6 in the evening. The driver told us this was our last chance to buy water before going into the desert. We had all come well-provisioned, so we drove straight through the city to the meeting point where our camels awaited us.

There will be a post all about the camels [soon, I swear].

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