Ksar Oualad Abdelhalim

 We had intended to take the "Circuit Touristique" south of Rissani which takes you round the mausoleum of Moulay Ali Sherif, several Kasbahs and a section of the ruins of Sijilmassa. We started at the Ksar Oulad Abdehalim which is directly opposite a highly advertised restaurant where we intended to get lunch. Unfortunately, being the off season, the restaurant, although open, was not actually serving food, so we got no further than a quick look at the outside of this Ksar and went of in search of lunch. The ksar was built in 1900 for the brother of Sultan Moulay Hassan whom he had appointed Governor of the Tafilalt.

The Lake in the D.esert.

We took a 4X4 trip through the dunes and round the hamada on the eastern side so we could look over to the Algerian border. Still closed; a 2km demilitarised zone (for which read minefield) on each side. 

You could see how colonialism and modern fixed borders has destroyed life there. The hamada is just made for nomadic graziers but people are having to settle into villages.

Fortunately the dunes bring a constant supply of tourists who are a more profitable cash crop than flocks.As it was the off season we did not see many other tourists (well one jeep) and it was all very Beau Geste and the Foreign Legion, but we did see a lot of grazing camels, turned out as un-needed until the tourist season picks up.

One of the more surprising features was the lake in the middle of the dunes. It is semi-permanent, its size varying with the season and there were a couple of years during the drought of the early noughties when it disappeared altogether  It was there and mirror-like clear but sadly we were there too early in the year to see the flamingos which migrate through. I have never seen a wild flamingo :(

Merzouga and Erg Cherbi

The Erg Cherbi dunes near Merzouga Are a traveller's dream of the Sahara. They are a ribbon 28km Long and 7km wide running north south, rising as a golden contrast  from the hamada of black stone . It is where all the trips from Marrakesh and Ouazazate come and most of them will take you on a camel ride to camp in the dunes. By taking a circuitous route you can travel 4 hours by  camel to a camp 20mins or less from base by 4X4 so that the camps are quite luxurious. It being winter and the desert desperately cold at night we were not tempted and stayed in one of the long line of hotels bordering the dune. The view from the bedroom window was pretty good

 and you could just walk out the back door of the hotel into the dunes.

 Which is exactly what we did one morning to watch the sunrise.

Rissani and Sijilmassa

This south-eastern area of Morocco is known as this Tafilalt. It has been disproportionately important in moroccan history as many dynasties had their origins there including the current Alaouite dynasty. The main building dominating the centre of modern Rissani, situated next to the army base, is the Foundation for the Study of Alaouite Heritage.

In medieval times the area was a separate kingdom whose capital was Sijilmassa, adjacent to modern Rissani. 

Before 771 the local Berbers had been converted to a form of Islam and had started to build the city of Sijilmassa. They used a Koran in the Berber language, something heretical to mainstream Sunnis. Whilst the Idrissids were establishing a kingdom in northern Morocco, from 771 Sijilmassa established a separate Kingdom which lasted until 1055 when it was taken over by the Almorovids who imposed a strict version of Islam, smashing all musical instruments. The city remained important into the 14thC and was extremely wealthy due to it's being the northern terminus of the trans-Saharan trade route bringing gold from Ghana. Eventually the southern end of the route moved east into Mali due to the discovery of new gold fields and the branch leading through Tamegoute to Marrakesh increased in importance. Ibn Battuta visited Sijilmassa in 1352 and found it a beautiful and rich city but by the time Leo Africanus visited in the early 16C it was destroyed and he saw only stately ruins. 
Although there were still obvious ruins at the beginning of the 20thC these have all crumbled and the only remains are one gate which we did not have time to look for.
Rissani itself has a good modern entrance arch

but the most noticeable feature of the town, in common with many in the Tafilalt, was the numerous murals painted on walls and gable ends. 90% feature water either as a river,lake, waterfall or fountain, and the ones pictured here are by no means the best but just convenient for where we could stop the car.

The Road to Rissani

The road to Rissani through Nikob and Alnif gets increasingly arid. It is a god road with some interesting road signs

and warnings to beware of "ensablement". I love that  word.
Sweetheart demanded that we stopped to take pictures of camels grazing  as she had never seen a herd of camels like that before. 3 days later she was blase; seen one camel herd, seen them all.

Ahmed Baba and the Librarian

                                                                                   


In our automobile-focused age we tend to think of deserts and oceans as barriers to travel but in medieval times they were more likely to spread ideas and trade than fertile well-watered land. If you are tending your crops you are bound to your plot and unlikely to travel further than the nearest market. If you make your living in a desert or at sea you have to travel. The caravan route through Tamegroute was a link to sub-saharan africa and the Songhai Empire rather than a barrier. 

Abou Abdullah Mohammed Ben Naceur the founder of the zaouia was a great traveller and everywhere he went he collected books. The earliest is from 1069 and there are books on astronomy,mathematics, algebra, science and medicine,  atlases, dictionaries and  bestiaries, as well as copies of the Q'ran and commentaries thereon, and collections of poetry in both arabic and berber (written in arabic script). The library had established links with the equivalent library in Timbuctoo and was always a magnet for scholars. My favourite anecdote concerns Ahmed Baba.

In the reign of Sultan Al-Mansour  he waged a war on the Songhai Empire and briefly occupied part thereof in response to Songhai's seizure of the Taghaza salt mines. The Songhai opposition was largely led by Ahmed Baba a Mali scholar. He was sent as a hostage to al-Mansour's court although as a respected scholar he was allowed a degree of autonomy as long as he remained in Morocco and travelled to study in Fes as well as making pilgrimages to Aghmat and the sanctuary of Sidi Bel Abbas (this being a political act as Abbas was the patron saint of the oppressed.) He remained in Morocco for about 8 years but was able to return to Songhai on al-Mansour's death when his throne was inherited by an infant son. In doing so he travelled through Tamegroute.

Baba of course visited the library. He was particularly taken with a copy of the Kitab al Mitar. This is a 15C geography/history of muslim Spain).  Baba had had a large library which had been plundered in the capture of Timbuctu but had had access to the moroccan royal libraries and his work had a lasting impact on moroccan scholarship. However he had no copy of the Kitab al Mitar and persuaded the librarian to let him borrow the book to copy and then return with the next year's caravan. 

The next year the book was not returned. The librarian wrote a letter asking for its return. The book did not arrive. The librarian wrote again. This continued for 15 years with increasingly pleading/threatening requests to return the book. After 15 years the librarian received a parcel. It was the copy. Baba kept the original. 

Plus la change.....

Foum Zguid to Tamagroute and the Pottery

We had been waiting for the Foum Zguid - Zagora road to be metalled to make this trip. When we said this to the hotel owner in Foum he said "Well it's finished in that it's metalled it's just that the bridges aren't built." The western half has not got its bridges yet so at every small stream  where a bridge is to go there is a deviation, they are frequent and some are lengthy. The eastern half is finished bridges and all and the trouble here is keeping to the 100kmh speed limit on a long straight road with not another vehicle in sight. They are sneaky the traffic cops though and passing one junction we saw one hapless driver being ticketed. Long straight roads with no other vehicles in sight are a gift for speed guns.

Although we stayed in Zagora we spent the afternoon in Tamagroute. I think the library there would be my spiritual home if they would let me stay. (It's a Sufi zaouaia so you would have, at the least, to be a practising muslim, and I think  these days you have to have permission from the government, as one of our friends turned up without and wasn't let to use it.)
I had been anxious to show Sweetheart the pottery as she has a professional interest in furnaces and the potters use the traditional furnaces built into the bank

rather than the modern gas-fired kilns which are left to rot.

The guide was telling us with relish how these traditional methods "wholly natural"  allowed the firing at "3000 degrees". Sweetheart started to look somewhat less than entirely credulous.
Apparently even 3000F is 1650C and you can't fire pottery at that temperature. It would deform as much of the content would enter an "amorphous phase" (like glass); nor could you achieve those temperatures using  wood shavings and palm-leaves as fuel (the" wholly natural" method).

 She reckons they are being fired between 1000C and 1200C. I'd back her to know about furnaces anyday but it does remove some of the romance.
Similarly the guide made great play of using manganese to make their signature green dye. "Manganese with copper and silica". "There" she pounced, "silica melts at 1600C". She reckons the green colour is because of the copper, which is what you'd expect but manganese seems more exotic.

Anyway I believed him when he said that the surface mud can be used only to build bricks for houses (low temperature baked in Sweetheart's word, sun dried in mine) and that to make pottery you have to dig from 6ft below the surface. (This illustrates some of the confusion; why was the guide using an imperial measure?)
We were taken to the shop but did not wish to buy anything which was sad as unknown to the others I had commandeered the visit with the sole purpose of buying something I had regretted not purchasing on my visit last year. £ shops later i found it. I don't particularly like the green glaze so characteristic of Tamagoute so I bought it in Turquoise and it is now very happily placed in my morning room.

 Sweetheart did buy a small green ashtray as a present.