Today we spent the day with an Amazigh/ Berber family near Ait Ben Haddou.
We started the day by driving past Atlas studios, the largest motion picture production studio in the world (by area). It was wild seeing the sets that stretched along the road for a really long way - including a complete casbah!
We arrived in the town of Ait Ben Haddou. The old town/ksar/casbah is a UNESCO world heritage site, and has also been used for a lot of movie and TV productions (including the Odyssey and Game of Thrones). Most of the people have moved into a new and modern town along the road, leaving the lovely and picturesque casbah perched on a hill for tourists.
For our family visit we drove a few miles down the road. We met Mohamed, who showed us his small grain mill and also how to make mud bricks for traditional building. They showed us around the house, and let us feed the goats, sheep, donkey and chickens. His wife and daughters showed us their wood oven, and showed us how they were making cous cous for our lunch.
We took a short walk into the fields, where we saw the olive trees, drank mint tea, and harvested some alfalfa for the animals.
We had a delicious cous cous lunch with lots of vegetables and beef, followed by sweet melon. Then we spent an hour or so chatting and learning about family life. One of the daughters offered to do henna on our hands. We were very impressed that she did all of the women and didn’t repeat a pattern.
(Thanks Jim)
On the way back to the hotel, we stopped and took pictures of the studios, as well as the huge solar power plant right behind the studio.
Back at the hotel, we had a relaxing afternoon, and in the evening walked into town to see the Taourirt Casbah, a second Casbah inhabited by the same regional leader as Ait Benhaddou in the 17th century. The site was recently restored by UNESCO, but closed at 2pm, so we had to enjoy from outside. We also enjoyed looking at some of the wares at the local crafts shops.
Then we had dinner at a restaurant in the way back. The town of Ouarzazate had a lot more going on than we expected. Such an interesting visit.
Hotel pool
I enjoy eating couscous. Surely what you had was the best. Again, the architecture is stunning. Much of it is like what I see in pictures in my Bible!
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