Our drive today, was a lttle over 200 kilometres to the area of Merzouga which has some large sand dunes near a lake and which is quite close to the Algerian Border.
The weather has provided us with overcast conditions and this has given us photographers some very even soft light. The sun coming through the clouds, when we left early in the morning was quite spectacular.
We stopped in the town of Zagora to visit an ATM and refresh our cash supply. There is very little use of cards for payment in Morocco. The exchange rate was about 6.5 Dirhum to the Australian Dollar and I am spending about 200Dr per day. I need some more cash for lunches, drinks and especially as tips for our drivers. Tipping is customary here and everyone receives a small tip for anything they do for you.
Our trip today was long and rather unexciting so there is not much to report. Almost all of it was through flat, dry land with an occassional mountain. We passed through many villages and towns but I don’t really know how people here can eke out a living. Our guides tell me that it is an agricultural area but it looks very sparse to me.
We stopped for lunch at a hotel that is well patronised during the time of desert car rallies in Morocco. It was rather rustic with a sort of ‘Moroccan Country’ feel but the food was good.
We continued on our trip after lunch and at one point, our drivers stopped to show us where some fossils could be seen in the rocks that covered the ground. Apparently this area is rich in fossils. They stood out clearly once some water was splashed onto them.
We stopped in the next town to visit a factory where rocks containing these fossils are made into things such as benchtops, artworks and tables. There were Ammonites and Trilobites that I remember from my high school geology class but what was suprising to see was a whole school of fossilised fish.
Around an hour later, we reached our major photography site for the day and that was to see the sandhills of Merzouga by a lake. We spent a good couple of hours wandering around taking photos.
By then, it was almost dusk and camel trains came from nowhere to take tourists for a ride through the dunes. They added to the atmosphere and were quite photogenic.
We checked into our hotel around 6.30 pm and enjoyed an obligitory glass of mint tea before settling into our rooms and having dinner. All our hotel rooms have been very nice bit I have consistently found them to be poorly lit. I have packed up more by feel than by sight on a couple of mornings.
I’ve had a bit of a disaster today as my camera has stopped working properly. Most of the function buttons that I use to select options are no longer working and the more that I tried to fix it, the more it failed. Fortunately, I have a backup camera with me and I can use that for the rest of the trip. If that fails, well, I’m down to my Iphone.
