At the Ziz gorge

5^th March

The Ziz river cuts a gorge through the High Atlas mountains and then the flat arid hamada of south eastern Morocco. The land is red and dry and totally flat when you get to the plains. Vegetation is sparse until you come to the edge of the gorge, which is hidden from view through being sunk into the ground without any sign of its existence until you nigh on fall into it. Very dramatic, and what lies at the bottom of the gorge is green, palm trees. Red soil, cut deeply by the Ziz leaving a blood green valley!

Today we left the valley and rose out onto the ' surface ' to be reminded of the vastness of the area with its hidden valleys. Everywhere is red, they build in red, the town of Er Rachidia is red! And there is little to see for miles around except, well you get the picture. It's very evocative. The foreign legion, ali barber and his thieves, Lawrence of course. This is such an unusual landscape for us. Lovely people in town, all smiles and welcome, we get our supplies and head back to the sheltered valley. It's become windy 'on top' and mini dust storms swirl around us as we head the 20 miles back to the green, green grass, I mean palms boyo, of the campsite. Its very tranquil under the date palms, birds singing, bees humming, so we take a walk to stretch our legs and check out the locals!

No murderous thieves to be seen anywhere! Just friendly faces and many Labes's, bechhir's and as many arabic words as one can remember. We cross a bridge over the river Ziz and find more villages full of children, cheeky young beauties and friendly souls. A graveyard captures our attention, a large one, using slabs of local stone to mark the ends of each grave and a small pot of tiny river stones tops many a mound. There are too many small graves here for our liking! But god is great and he decides.

So we wander on past and take in the huge valley of date palms and satellite dishes! Only joking, its just so strange to see a mud built house with a dish on top. And hey, we all want Sky after all! Don't we??

We are now 3 weeks into our adventure here in Morocco and we've a feeling there are many more surprises to come. We hope you enjoy reading about them as much as we enjoy sharing them

love to all

Ted and Krysia