Annoyingly, I’ve just discovered that my very slick, first blog using Apple Pages, has disappeared with Apple’s cessation of their web hosting service MobileMe last July. I could piece the stories together again, but, I need the will. Not to be beaten though, I resurrect one, about our drive from Fez to Marrakech.
Fortunately and fortuitously, I had uploaded the photos of this wonderful day to Picasa, and not to MobileMe. Or maybe that’s when I was trialling Flickr, that also frustrated me with their lack of flexibility in sorting photo selections?
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Magically, the fog lifts and the sun appears and we continue on our 12-hour drive through changing mountain vistas of granite, saw-tooth ridges alternating with green pine forests along green valleys sprayed with spring wild flowers.
Shepherds tend their flocks, and others load their donkeys with grass and weeds they cut along the side of the road. In complete contrast, we see tidy towns clumped like brown leggo blocks, and busy cities where life goes on in the most modern ways.

April 2010 – Driving through the Atlas Mountains from Fez to Marrakech, we stop for our first roadside experience of the trip
Not so modern is our stop for lunch – in a town with a row of butchers with carcasses hanging outside their shops. Driss, our escort, announces with fanfare that we are having a BBQ for lunch and we pile out to see him harangue the poor butcher to cut him some cutlets from a lamb carcass with its head still on.

Driss, our escort, announces with fanfare that we are having a BBQ for lunch and we pile out to see him harangue the poor butcher to cut him some cutlets from a lamb carcass with its head still on.
Tucking in, Driss tries to convince us that this is ‘healthy’ food while Jason asks where is the knife and fork. Hearing Driss tell Jason to use his fingers, Edmundo whispers to me “I don’t want to hear about it when you get the shits”, and fed his BBQ liver to astray cat.
Way after sunset, and totally beat, we finally trudge into an Arabian Nights mirage that is Amanjena in Marrakech, almost deserted, hoping that the restaurant will stay open till we have a chance to wash our faces.
Picasa Web Album
Double click on arrow to open in fullscreen and see Slideshow.
Picasa Web Album – Amanjena