Pas du Piste

The next destination was Skoura, west of Ouarzazate, and our plan was to bus to Ouarzazate and rent a car from there.  Now I have previously extolled the buses here in Morocco, but those were either the buses run by the rail monopoly, Supratours, or a very good public line, CTM.  All the other private lines lie somewhere south of those two on the quality, comfort, and safety continuums.  But the times to Ourzazate on Supratours and CTM sucked.  We needed to get in early enough to drive to Skoura before nightfall because the roads may be very good, but that doesn't make them safe.  So Claire and I chose to take what we call a ghetto bus.  I had taken a couple for short rides, and they really weren't bad.  What could go wrong, really?

We got good seats, right behind the second side door, and after the usual late start, we headed off over the High Atlas mountains, thinking we could perhaps get this trip done in 4 hours or shortly thereafter.  Not a chance.  Somewhere along the way, high up in the mountains, the seat one row up on the other side of the bus just collapsed.  One of the leg supports just flat broke.  The two men were leaning to the side and back, really cramping the personal space of the chaps just behind them.  I felt bad (and grateful that those weren't our seats) but I really got the giggles, as I tend to do when Claire and I encounter absurdities in our travels.  One guy opted to stand, the bus being full, and the other took the aisle seat and tried to enjoy the view, which was pretty spectacular.

These ghetto buses stop a lot, to let people on and to let people off.  Soon we stopped in the middle of nowhere, spat out some passengers, and got back on the road.  And then I noticed that the door, the big swinging bus door right in front of my seat, wasn't closed.  I was a bit worried because it's certainly a hazard to have this thing flying open at high speeds on mountain passes with guard rails and a bus driver who is not afraid to pass, but that's when I really got the giggles.  We weren't even halfway there, and this bus was falling apart.  And it's not like I knew how to describe the situation to the "staff" either.  But a Moroccan behind us noticed the problem and yelled it to the front of the bus, so the "conductor" futzed with it, and managed to get it shut.  Very shortly after the rest stop, the bus pulls over again.  Nobody was really sure why until they busted out the welding kit.

I applaud the quick attention to the broken bench seat, but you would think they would perhaps want people to get off the bus - for safety's sake, right?  Nope.  They pull that welding generator into the aisle and people, families, and Claire climb over it to get down.  But I had a pretty good view of the action so I stayed on and took pictures until it got too smoky and stinky.  And I just loved how blase everyone was about it all.  The guy who had been sitting behind the busted seat was smoking a cigarette outside.  When he saw the sparks fling, he climbed the stairs of the bus, reached over two guys holding up the seat and plucked his jacket from his chair.  Wouldn't want burn marks, would ya?

There was no further drama after that, and we got to Ouarzazate late but alive.  We rented our car and headed to Skoura.  Skoura is an oasis just west of Ouarzazate, Ouarzazate being the kind of place you go to to get somewhere else and Skoura the kind of place you go when you want to get away.  One of Claire's friends recommended Chez Talout, which is actually just outside of Skoura.  We saw the sign on the highway and took the turnoff onto a piste road.  I would describe piste as an unfinished dirt and rock road-like surface, and Claire's first comment once we were on it was "The car rental lady said no piste."  'Pas du piste' is an impossible request in Morocco, so we just kept driving on this one lane desert track up and down some rather steep hills for a compact 1.4L sedan.

This part of Morocco is a hard climate - very little vegetation, very little rainfall, lots of rock.  So traditional buildings are made of pise (with an accent over the "e" which I can't provide today), which is packed clay.  The walls are very thick, and they keep things cool during the day, blessedly, are warm at night.  Good choice for a desert.  Chez Talout is really in the middle of nowhere so you get wonderful 360 degrees views from the roof terrace, which is where we were served afternoon tea and breakfast the next day.  I will, I swear, get some photos up of the view.  But I know you're tired of hearing my excuses on that front.

The next day, we planned to walk to Claire's friend's house, which was about 2km away.  Martine is a French woman who has been living in Skoura for a number of years and had recommended Chez Talout to us.  So the staff, which outnumbered the guests, all 4 of us, drew us a map - a very good map too - and off we went.

We knew we would be crossing a river, not deep but fairly wide with some land showing in spots between.  Claire and I opted, sensibly, to take off our shoes and tackle the river that way.  Somehow, not surprisingly, we got the giggles, and between maintaining my balance, holding onto my boots, laughing too hard, keeping my stomach in check as motions were still loose, AND walking on rocks in frigid snowmelt, I made crossing that segment of the river both harder and funnier than it had any right to be. 
The next segment was pretty deep looking and we were girding ourselves for that when a local girl at the other side of the river indicated to us to wait and she would escort us.  Sweet, huh?  Aisha was a dear, and while we would have made it across the river without her, we definitely would not have navigated our way across the palm oasis to Martine's without her, so bless her! 

Before getting to this part of Morocco, I never really thought of oases as being man-made, but that they certainly can be - perhaps most are.  The technology was brought to Morocco centuries ago from Iran, and consists of digging pits in the land until you hit water.  That's a kittara, which I know I'm not spelling right because I can't get hits on google, but hey, it's not like I know how to spell it Arabic, so I'd be spelling it wrong anyway.  You can have loads of kittara all in a row, and enventually you have to keep making them deeper as you use up the top layers of the groundwater.  Then you can construct irrigation channels from the kittara to your palms and other plants.  The date palms are the real cash crop, but they also provide the necessary shade to cultivate the pomegranates and other crops that you grow in the protection of the date palms.  Pretty tricky, if you ask me.  And so, when you look around in Skoura, you can see the most unforgiving earth give way to silt-filled rivers, that leads right into a man-made oasis, which sits next to homes and compounds neatly made of clay - all right angles and straight lines - and behind all that, the High Atlas, which still have snow on them at this time of year.  Not to take anything away from Montana, but it's Big Sky Country.

We finally made it to Martine's - it involved crossing a dry river bed and getting lots of looks into kittaras.  And we lounged in the shade, drinking Oulmes, Morocco's natural carbonated spring water.  And then Martine gave us a lift back to Chez Talout in her Land Cruiser.  She made much quicker work of that river than Claire and I had.  Claire and I said our goodbyes to the lovely folk at Chez Talout (where you should stay if you ever find yourself in that part of the world) and started the drive to Zagora, where we would stay in clay again and ride camels.  I'll cover that in my next post.