Scenes from the Todra Gorge hike
Oasis
For centuries, the oasis have provided a lifeline to the people. They became stopping points for the camel caravans in their trade and major cities grew up around the oasis. There are also underground water supplies, accessed by wells. Climate change is impacting upon Morocco, with lighter rainfall or snowfall drying up wells and rivers and changing what has always been marginal land to arid.
 |
What a difference water makes! Much of Morocco is like the arid parts of Australia but the oasis (seen at the bottom of the mountain) is home to many and is rich with date palms.  |
Nomads
Morocco still has its nomad peoples, tending sheep, goats and camels Although they now use trucks to move between distant grazing lands the shepherd can always be seen with his animals.
 |
| A nomad settlement - caves and tents
|
People are buried in shallow graves, lying on their side and facing Mecca. Graves are marked with stones at the head and feet, but how anyone can tell which grave is which is a puzzle.
 |
| The numerous upright stones signify the location of graves |
From this........
 |
| Squat toilets.....its a long way down and even harder getting up again! |
To this.....and everything in between, like being handed toilet paper as you pay your 1c equivalent to go in, signs asking you not to flush the paper but put in the open basket provided or a handy hose to use as a substitute for a bidet.
 |
| Morocco's flash toilet: what a pleasure! |
The new and the old
Whoever had the contract for satellite television made a fortune. Satellite dishes are everywhere, so while a buildings may be centuries old they all have a satellite dish on top.
 |
Although inland Morocco is much cleaner than some of its big city coastal towns, the contrast between neat and ugly can still be seen. To us, it seems such a simple task to put ones rubbish in the bin, however, when there are either no bins or no infrastructure for removing the rubbish it becomes more complicated.
| The pearly gates at Meknes |
 |
| 200 metres from the pearly gates |
 |
| And they used to have lions
|
On Wednesday 2nd we leave Morocco and fly to Lyon in France to pick up a lease vehicle and over five days drive to Eastern Europe where we will stay until the 13 September, visiting Croatia, Romania and Bulgaria. The Blog will be updated during this period but at this point we are unable to predict when,
For now, its signing off from Morocco.
Bob and Anne
Well I'm on leave again now until the end of the term. You are making me feel that I should be doing something more exciting than going to the NT.... AND Hervey Bay :( ....
ReplyDelete