We ate lunch in a town famous for its musical tradition, so next we went to a Gnawa music performance nearby. This musical tradition arose out of Hausa, Fulani and Bambara black Africans who came across the desert to Morocco mostly as spaces. They combined their musical traditions with the Moroccan Sufi chants and created a new genre - recognized by UNESCO as an intangible cultural heritage. We all learned to play a bit on the djembe (drums) and then had a full performance, with a variety of different cut CC instruments and singing. It was wonderful (and made Cheryl nostalgic for Mali).
Nomad Camp - at the entrance to the nomad camp were the flag of Morocco, and the flag of the Amazigh.
As we headed for our tented camp where we were to spend the night, we stopped in to visit a semi-nomadic Amazigh family. These families used to migrate into Algeria and back, but have been limited in where they can go by political conflicts with Algeria. We met a woman who had been living in there for about 9 years - when she previously had to move about once a month. Her life seemed very hard, but she was warm and happy to talk to us, offered us tea and snacks, and let us wander around the different structures that made up her home.
Her kitchen above, below goats with other family camps.
To get to our beautiful “tents”at the Chebbi Complex, we traveled on a sand “road," reminiscent of the Gobi Desert roads, only much worse because the SUV’s were driving through several inches of soft sand. It was very clear why we needed 4-wheel drive vehicles.
The tents were actually spacious hotel rooms set around a large circle with wide windows facing the plaza.
We rested for a hour or so. Then headed out for a sunset camel ride. The guides arranged us into three separate trains of 5 camels each; it was fun to trek across the dunes in a camel train. We got off watched the sunset, played in the sand and took a lot of photos, then went back to camp.
We had a delicious dinner at the camp, while night fell outside. Then the staff lit a bonfire for us to enjoy, while staring at the stars. We spotted a few of our favorite constellations and the Milky Way, the went to be - because it was almost 10 pm after a very busy day.
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