Taroudant Town Walls

Taroudant has complete town walls currently being restored with a grant from UNESCO.  There are numerous postcard quality photos on the web  seemingly taken early on a summer's morning by the lack of traffic. The tourist buses from Agadir stop regularly at a particular stretch so that everybody can get off take a photo and get back on.
They are perhaps best seen by cycling round or for the less energetic a trip in a caleche is popular.
The walls are made of pise, sunbaked bricks from local clay, so they appear to grow from the land. Strangely  the new walls seem to me to be more yellow coloured and less red than the unrestored walls.
Bab Taghout is progressing. A whole new entry arch is being constructed next to the old gate. Thankfully the original doors do remain but some of the bricks in the newly restored entrance already have bits chipped off, presumably fron vehicles driving into the. That is no surprise. Originally there was one "in" arch and one "out". Now there is only one arch open designated an "out". Traffic arrives at the roundabout ouside and gets confused. As the cyclists, scooterists and donkey carts are certainly not goin g round to another gate and ignore the no entry sign -it is Taroudant's first although now not the only one, so they may not understand the meaning - and so cars vans and lorries decide to follow suit. That is OK until the meet someone sailing through the other way knowing they have right of way. Hence the attrition on the unfinished new gate.



Taroudant Walls awaiting repair 




Taroudant Walls before repair



Crumbling walls next to Bab Taghout



Taroudant Town  Walls



Where the tour buses stop

The fourth Nasruddin story:-

"How old are you Mullah?"
"Forty"
"But you said thqt last time I asked over two years ago"
"Ialways stand by what I've said".