SKOURA, MOROCCO: L'MA LODGE

I don't normally devote an entire post to a hotel-stay, but if there is ever a place where I wish I could spend another day or two (or ten), it is L'Ma Lodge in Skoura, a unique, well-designed riad that combines the best of Morocco with the best of France.

I must admit, when we arrived in Skoura and made our way to the riad via a narrow dirt road in what didn't look like the best of neighborhoods, then pulled up in front of a mud wall that didn't look very promising, I was feeling a bit disgruntled. I'd just spent two nights in a tent in the Sahara, for heaven's sake!

But like all our riad experiences, when the front door opened it was like leaving Dorothy's tornado-tossed little gray house and stepping into Oz, a metaphor I've used before but which was never more true than at L'Ma. L'Ma means "water" in Arabic and pays homage to the critical role water plays in this desert region. The owners are a French couple who had been living in nearby Ourzazate and had purchased the property and then built it from the ground up.

Rather than a single building with a central courtyard, the typical riad architecture, L'Ma is two stand-alone buildings surrounded by gardens and enclosed by an adobe wall, creating an environment meant for strolling, exploring, and relaxing. 

The lodge, where we checked in and where we ate dinner and breakfast, was a cross between a luxury ski lodge and a Moroccan palace:

It included several areas for lying lazily about, sipping juice and popping olives into one's mouth. Unfortunately, we arrived just before 7:00 p.m. and had plans for an early departure the next morning.

We made our way to the guest house, which includes four regular rooms and three suites.  I love the wooden railing on the stairs:

MOROCCO: MERZOUGA TO SKOURA VIA THE TODRA AND DADES GORGES

It was tough dragging Bob away from the tents and the camels, but we had New Places to Go that involved a lot of driving--over 200 miles with several planned stops. He tore himself away, and we hopped in the car with our driver Aziz (the same driver we had from Fes to Merzouga) and headed off for more adventures.

It didn't take long to find the first adventure. Eagle-eye Bob noticed this sign, and while he cannot read French, he is awfully good a deciphering pictures, in this case a man milking a camel:

At Bob's bidding, Aziz made a U-turn and we drove through the gate. We looked around the complex and couldn't see any camels, so we were a little suspicious, but Aziz assured us that this was indeed a camel milk vendor:

We found three men sitting in the shade, with a woman in the background. Lickety-split, our friendly host was pouring us a glass of the stuff.  

Surprisingly, I had to work up a little more courage to drink this beverage than it had taken to sip the water from the well in the Erg Chebbi Dunes.

It was a) surprisingly cold and b) surprisingly tasty. It was quite a bit like cow's milk but with undertones of something else. Apparently it is very nutritious, much more nutritious than cow's milk:

Information from the Desert Farms website

ERG CHEBBI DUNES, SAHARA DESERT, MOROCCO: CAMEL TREKKING

When Bob was planning our Morocco trip and saw that it was possible to stay a few nights in the Sahara Desert (in a luxury camp that I might possibly go for) AND that he could book a camel-riding excursion, there was absolutely no holding him back. You would think that he had gotten camel riding out of his system on our trip to Egypt, where he rode a camel down from Mt. Sinai, and in Jordan, where we rode camels in Petra.

Apparently not.

Our camels were waiting for us at about 4:00 p.m.

Aw, gee. Isn't he CUTE?

Each one has his (or her) own personality. The bit was just a piece of rope laced through the camel's mouth and under the chin--no metal btis:

A sitting camel makes a convenient stool:

ERG CHEBBI DUNES, SAHARA DESERT, MOROCCO: DAY EXCURSIONS: PART 2

As I noted earlier, I as concerned about what we would do for two days in the Sahara Desert. I had visions of wandering around, looking for shade. I shouldn't have worried. In my previous post, I covered six different places that our guide Hassan took us to. Here are a few more.

1. MOROCCO NATIONAL AUTO MUSUEM

One of the strangest, most bizarre places we visited on our entire trip was the Morocco National Auto Museum:

Like everything else in this region of the world, it seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. And like so many of the places we visited in the Erg Chebbi Desert region, we didn't see anyone else visiting while we were there.

This 4x life-sized Jeep in front of the building gave us a clue about what was inside:

Over 200 vintage and modern vehicles, mostly four-wheel drive, were lined up in rows. The cars were from all over the world, including the USA, as Hassan indicates below:

Here are a few of my favorites:

Replica of Ford Model A; Drivetrain: Jeep Wranger; 2007, USA

ERG CHEBBI DUNES, SAHARA DESERT, MOROCCO: DAY EXCURSIONS PART I

Other than pretending to be Lawrence and Laurie of Arabia, what does one DO in the Sahara Desert for two full days? Well, there is a surprisingly wide variety of things to see and do.

1. DAR GNAOUA (AKA "GNAWA")

Descendants of slaves taken from West Africa--Mali, Ghana, etc.--have established a little colony called "Khamlia" at the edge of the desert. I loved the wikitravel entry for this place, which at the moment I am writing this post reads:

You can take a promenade through the village, visit Berber family who will be happy for you. You are welcome also to visit the school, talk with children, play football with them. To go to the sand dunes is relaxing and exciting too. In opposite site is open area here and you can see even so far as to mountain. Of course, you will find here the famous music group Gnawa. Their music is ritual music and communicates with mystery. They will play for you anytime you wish. Take a tea and listen. If you have 4x4 you can go to M´Fis, it is mineral mines and it is very interesting to see, how the worker works there.



We were the only guests, and when we first entered, the walled village was eerily quiet and seemed empty--almost like a ghost town--but a very well-maintained ghost town.

We walked around the roofed interior perimeter, which reminded me of the cloisters walk in a monastery or convent. Hanging on the walls were several pieces of original art that I believe were for sale:

After a bit, a group of Gnawa men came out to do a private performance for us. These people are primarily Sufis, the mystical, ritualistic branch of Islam. Their culture centers around music and dance, and it was very fun to listen to and see several ritualistic numbers:

ERG CHEBBI, MOROCCO: SAHARA DESERT TENT CAMPING

When Bob told me he wanted to stay a few nights in a tent camp in the Sahara, I was not quite as excited about it as he was. He assured me that it would be nice, but "tent," "camp," "Sahara," and "nice" didn't go together in my mind.

After about eight hours on the road, our driver delivered us to the small village of Merzouga, located about 30 miles from the Algerian border and on the edge of a section of the Sahara known as Erg Chebbi. ("Erg" means "desert" or "dune.") We were met there by a man named Hassan, the young, energetic owner of Merzouga Bivouac Experience. We got into Hassan's four-wheel drive, and he headed straight into the dunes in a crazy Mr. Toad's Wild Ride style, bouncing and sliding all over the sand, then climbing steep grades and skidding down the other side. Bob loved it.

Hassan pointed out our tent camp in the distance but didn't stop:

Instead, he deposited us at the bottom of a tall dune and told us to climb to the top and wait for the sunset. A nice wind had kicked up, and anyone who wears contact lenses like I do understands that wind + Sahara Desert sand + contacts + no sunglasses = misery.  I made it to the top, but I didn't stay long. I headed down the sand cliff far enough to miss the worst of the wind, but Bob stayed up on top:

MOROCCO: A LION, SOME MONKEYS, A HORSE, AND SOME SHEEP EN ROUTE TO THE SAHARA DESERT

We had a long day of driving to get from our riad in Fes to our next place to sleep (not a hotel, not a riad--read to the end of this post to find out what). Bob had hired a driver through the company Naturally Morocco who acted as both our chauffeur and our tour guide. His name was Aziz, and he was a young, single Muslim man who had been driving for five years. He spoke quite good English, and we learned a lot about Moroccan life from him. For example, Moroccans have to be eighteen years old to get a driver's license, and the process is similar to what we do in the United States--class time, road time, and a test. At 21, a driver can get a professional license, and there is a re-certification process every three years for those who drive tourists around. That was nice to know. 

Aziz also did a fair amount of proselyting as we drove, including playing some recordings of a Muslim preacher "debunking" Christianity. To be fair, it was in response to questions that we asked. Since we come from a proselyting religion ourselves, it was interesting to be in the "potential convert" role.

After leaving Fes, we headed south, passing through a series of small towns, each punctuated by one or more minarets, much like the small towns of Utah are dotted with LDS chapels or the small towns of Europe are anchored by Protestant or Catholic churches. Our ultimate goal was the Erg Chebbi Dunes, one of two sections of the Sahara Desert in Morocco. The line meandering southward on the map below was our route:

As we drove, we noticed radar cameras everywhere, along with policemen stationed at blockades occasionally placed across the road, waving people through or stopping those whom they had caught on camera violating the speed limit. We even saw a big tourist bus that had been pulled over. The speed limits were often quite low on roads that seemed to be able to handle faster speeds, and I'm guessing speeding tickets are a good source of revenue for the government. Aziz said the fines are very expensive, and he assiduously kept to the speed limit. Had we been driving ourselves around, I am positive Bob would have incurred several of those large fines.

Our first stop was Ifrane, a town of about 70,000 people located in the Middle Atlas mountains at an elevation of  5,463 feet--similar to Denver. It felt very much like a resort city--we saw a ski resort, beautiful, expensive homes lined the streets, and parks and European hotels added their own cachet. In fact, we parked by the Hotel de Chamonix (Chamonix is a mountain valley in eastern France) for a bathroom stop. The hotel was across the street from a lovely park whose main attraction was a huge stone lion:

The story is that this lion was carved by a German soldier during World War II when Ifrane was briefly used as a prisoner of war camp.

It commemorates what some people believe was the last Atlas lion, which was supposedly shot near here in the late 1920s. It is now known that one was shot in 1942, and they were still seen in the Atlas Mountains into the 1960s.

1893 photo of a Barbary lion from Wikipedia