Meetings with remarkable women

6^th March

A hot and sunny day! So we take another walk into this splendid palmerie. There are separate villages joined by paths and palms and two bridges crossing the Ziz, one to the south and one to the north. So a round trip of about 3 hours is planned and south we go. The first village is a place time forgot, as old and original as it gets, crumbling mud built ksours are left in place as newer mud houses are built. The narrow streets are littered with children and old men. The sun beats down on us all and the atmosphere is set for the day. This could be in biblical times, no tourists, (well us of course) and local people with their mules carrying out the days labor around the Palmerie. We take it all in as best we can and let the village sink in to our senses and we smile. So good to be here.

Across the bridge we find more of the same, perhaps older with more crumbling ksours, castles made of sand, well mud and straw, so we sit a while, imagining the life that lived here when a real version on a donkey comes out of the green haze, all dressed in red with shining teeth and a child on her lap. She stops to say hello, touches our hands, and kisses hers after each gesture. Smiling, she caries on into the palms and leaves us melting into a meeting with history. She was real, we think and farther on into the palms we are blessed with another chance greeting from several smiling women which helps us keep it all in perspective. Genuinely lovely folk, going about their business, bumping into daft tourists loosing themselves in dreams and splendor.

The palmerie edge is abrupt and immediately outside its cool shade is parched dry hot gorge. Water, we need water! The hamada sucks all the moisture out of our skin and as we have plenty of water we drink ( and eat oranges!), Its just so dry, the plants that do grow look like they wait for centuries for some rain, which they must get far more often as this whole valley and its dry tributaries are formed by water. The main river Ziz carries its volume from the mountains but all the other hanging valleys must be formed by flash floods, suddenly turning these boulder strewn ovens into raging torrents. Awesome.

Through another village and across the northern bridge and we head for home and the cool shade of the campsite. Where we sit out the rest of the days heat until sunset, which we watch from the top of the gorge, biking along a rough piste to watch the emptiness succumb to the twilight.

Sleep well ( layla saida )

Ted and Krysia's Arabian nights