MOROCCO: Erfoud to Fez

Friday, March 18, 2011

The date palm oasis is abundant with intensive farming.  Our guide took us through the cool shade of palms to see the beds of alfalfa, soybeans, cauliflower, pomegranate, and figs.  Bedding had raised beams to hold the water from ditches dug by hand.  

Dates are delicious!!

Stopped at Berber cemetery.  Instead of flowers the Berbers bring food to the    

Poor who come to the cemetery on Friday.

Passing colorful, traditionally dressed women walking together or behind the men, very beautifully dressed in varied colors along with traditional black.

Meet Americans from Texas.

Melita

Day in the Desert

Friday, March 18, 2011 

Great desert drive today.  Villagers in traditional dress and welcoming.  Fossils everywhere.  A caravan of Camels into red sand dunes to watch the sunset.  Our driver and guide are both Sunni and we stop for prayers along the way.

Very peaceful here at Xaluca.


Melita

MOROCCO: Marrakech to Zagora

Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Upon arrival last night the group was fascinated with the crowd at Djemna el Fna, square filled with fortunetellers, men belly dancing but it was too cold for the snake charmers.  Many food stalls included the popular sheep's head.

Orange blossoms filled the air.  The gardens and tree-lined streets are neat and clean.  Bahia and Bedii palace built of colorful tile and cedar was once the home of the prime minister, his four wives, and a number of concubines.

Snow sprinkled as we crossed the Tichka peak at 2260 meters of the Atlas Mountains.   Landscape and palaces all uniform red clay, which melted into the landscape.  Incredibly beautiful olive groves.

Sunset faded from rose clay to a deep lavender of the Atlas Mountains.

Tomorrow fossil and meteorite hunt.

More to come….

Melita

TUNISIA: Tourism after Historic Change

As we ready for a tour to Tunisia leaving March 19, 2011, questions loom large.  Is this the right time to be entering a country fresh from revolution?   Rising young powers met with declining old ones and sent messages around the world:  A seat at the table of their future and no tolerance for greedy rulers.  This is the result of North Africa bulging with deficits:  lack of education, lack of jobs, and lack of women empowerment---Millennium Development Goals 2 and 3. 

Tunisians are the lucky ones.  The Arab countries have more than 60 million illiterate adults but Tunisia has the highest per capita educated especially among women with many schooled in Europe and the United States.  They have seen the other side via the Internet and television.    Do we blame them for wanting a better life?  Such a positive outcome to a peaceful revolution has given rise to the rest of North Africa hungering for real leadership and a better life.   Nowhere in history can we see such bravery and unfaltering peaceful dedication than in the young voices of Tunisia and Egypt.  

To travel to North Africa at this time is paramount to our giving support to their courage for a better life.  Americans not only purchase hotel beds and dine in local restaurants but Americans put the money directly in the hands of the locals.  We shop.  Now more than ever, Tunisia and Egypt need Americans to pack their bags and venture forth to this brave new world.

Visiting Tunisia at this time will give travelers a gift greater than any photograph or a couple of Berber rugs; it will place the travelers square in the middle of a worldwide paradigm shift for the good of all and it will last in memories far longer than any souvenir.  Most of all, our being there will unlock the fullness of life for Tunisians and anyone who cries, “Freedom”.

More to come from the Sahara.

Peaceful travels,

MWT